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A few remarks on ResearchGate score and academic reputation

Author

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  • Sergio Copiello

    (IUAV University of Venice)

  • Pietro Bonifaci

    (IUAV University of Venice)

Abstract

An article recently published in Scientometrics sheds light on the way ResearchGate works in calculating its RG score, which seems to be affected primarily by the members’ engagement in the social network environment, and only secondarily by publications. Here we show that the will to understand the rationale behind the score should also consider the ratio between full-text sources uploaded to the repository and publications. The finding supports the claim that the RG score is not a reliable indicator of scientific and academic reputation. Instead, it appears to be much more a tool to implement the entrepreneurial strategy of the RG’s owner company.

Suggested Citation

  • Sergio Copiello & Pietro Bonifaci, 2018. "A few remarks on ResearchGate score and academic reputation," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 114(1), pages 301-306, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:114:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1007_s11192-017-2582-9
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-017-2582-9
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Sergio Copiello & Pietro Bonifaci, 2019. "ResearchGate Score, full-text research items, and full-text reads: a follow-up study," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 119(2), pages 1255-1262, May.
    2. Sergio Copiello, 2020. "Other than detecting impact in advance, alternative metrics could act as early warning signs of retractions: tentative findings of a study into the papers retracted by PLoS ONE," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(3), pages 2449-2469, December.
    3. Sergio Copiello, 2020. "Multi-criteria altmetric scores are likely to be redundant with respect to a subset of the underlying information," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(1), pages 819-824, July.
    4. Łukasz Wiechetek & Zbigniew Pastuszak, 2022. "Academic social networks metrics: an effective indicator for university performance?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(3), pages 1381-1401, March.
    5. Vivek Kumar Singh & Satya Swarup Srichandan & Hiran H. Lathabai, 2022. "ResearchGate and Google Scholar: how much do they differ in publications, citations and different metrics and why?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(3), pages 1515-1542, March.
    6. Sergio Copiello, 2019. "Research Interest: another undisclosed (and redundant) algorithm by ResearchGate," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 120(1), pages 351-360, July.
    7. Lepori, Benedetto & Thelwall, Michael & Hoorani, Bareerah Hafeez, 2018. "Which US and European Higher Education Institutions are visible in ResearchGate and what affects their RG score?," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 806-818.

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