Article Analysis Essay on Online Collaboration: Scientists and the Social Network

Introduction

The article seeks to portray how academic social networks have taken the lead and the popularity they have gained over the years. The article presents findings from a survey which indicate ways in which academic social networks have grown over the years (Noorden, 2010). There is a highlight of some of the famous scholars' views on how they feel about the issue of them using the internet to air their opinions on some important matters. The survey is equipped with details about the scholar's activities. They portray some of the significant achievements attained by some scholars who used ResearchGate (a social academic platform) to present their findings on some critical matters. The article presents some of the ways in which social academic sites have linked various scholars who team up and make crucial findings. These scholars use this social research platforms to answers the questions that various interested people have on their literary work. Some of the platforms used to propagate academic work include ResearchGate Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Mendeley (Noorden, 2010). The platforms offer a good opportunity to the scholars and learners to present their new publications and try to achieve a large following.

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Moreover, the article gives views over some of the chief scholars who got their work recognized through social academic sites. An example is Emmanuel Naemeka Nnadi who needed some assistance in sequencing some fungal pathogens and lacked the necessary equipment to help him in the process (Noorden, 2010). He sought help from ResearchGate and got a reply from an Italian Genetic who helped him accomplish his mission. Social academic research sites are portrayed as being a platform which links various scholars even when they have not met physically (Baker, 2015). They allow the exchanged of crucial ideas that are essential in the various academic fields. The prosperity of this academic research sites is also indicated as the article presents how they are increasingly growing over the years. For instance, studies indicate that 4.5 million have signed up for ResearchGate and the site continues to receive visits of up to around 10000 per day (Espinoza & Bastidas, 2015). This figure is quite overwhelming especially for a basic social network where only researchers can join. The paper also explains the benefits involved after a person has registered on the site and some of the criticisms that some researchers make on the sites.

How Social Networking and Scientific Collaboration Were Enabled by The Internet

Researchers have now joined various academic research sites to air their views through various papers (Ortega, 2016). The papers are either available for sale or download by the users who go on the respective sites. These social academic research sites were created as a way of bringing different researchers' opinion together so that their work can be used by various interested users in the respective field. Most of these social research sites give the users a chance to create a profile where they showcase their profile pages, upload papers as well as track the downloads and views. This works just like any other social media platforms where people create profiles and share their views at their wish. The site as well helps the researchers to connect with other researchers in their respective domains and express their opinions and facts towards better research conclusions. These research sites help the members to engage in collaborative discussions with other members of the same platform over some critical issues. They can as well peer review the papers of other members and offer corrections or additions over the matters presented. Some of the social research sites screen the papers that are uploaded and review their credibility.

Just like any other social research network, the site requires funding and they have managed to get funding from various investors. The companies are now able to employ people and they are continuing to secure funds from other investors. Most of the researchers refer to this social research sites because they offer an open place where they can share data, papers, and commentaries online (Veletsianos, 2016). They can also share some crucial information to the other researchers under their own terms and conditions instead of using their own solely owned sites. Some of the sites such as Mendeley started as the software used for storing and managing documents but later developed to provide public and private social networking. These social research sites provide profits to the founders and investors just like social media sites. They are various academic research sites which sell the papers to the respective users or require a registration fee. Through these operations, they are able to generate substantial profits and pay their employees as well as earn income from these academic research sites.

Despite the investment and excitement that is involved around these sites, they still have to maintain productive engagements. This is because the clients who buy the papers will expect high quality from the papers they have purchased. The various research sites usually market themselves so that they can get more followers. Some of the social networking ways include sending automated emails to users so that they can register on the various research sites. Even though this is allowed, they are various criticisms on the use of social media on the use of automated sites on some of these sites. For instance, critics say they would never use Research Gate because it has various automated profiles which are gained from publication records, PDFs, and people's affiliations. Some of the sites are free to join while some have strict measures which restrain people from joining them.

Role That Mendeley Plays in Online Collaboration

Mendeley allows the researchers to present their research work as it allows them to add their papers from their browser. It also presents a chance to the research to build connections with other researchers as it allows them to interact with the other researchers. It also enables career development and funding by providing technology and science jobs to advance the researchers' career. Elsevier acquired Mendeley and made the research site a better one for research collaboration. This is because it integrates with other products that Elsevier used to offer, for instance, the Scopus database of research articles. A big part of the collaboration achieved by Mendeley is kept private. However, Mendeley to some extent allows other computer programs to automatically retrieve viable anonymized public data; for instance, the papers that were most viewed and by which researchers. This is only offered by Mendeley and some of the big research sites like ResearchGate and Academia.edu are yet to unleash this service. The fact that Mendeley is in front of using unique tools cannot be ignored.

Referencing

Baker, M. (2015). Social media: A network boost. Nature, 518(7538), 263-265.

Espinoza Vasquez, F. K., & Caicedo Bastidas, C. E. (2015). Academic social networking sites: a comparative analysis of their services and tools. Conference 2015 Proceedings.

Noorden, R. (2010). Online collaboration: Scientists and the social network. Retrieved from https://www.nature.com/news/online-collaboration-scientists-and-the-social-network-1.15711

Ortega, J. L. (2016). Social network sites for scientists: a quantitative survey. Chandos Publishing.

Veletsianos, G. (2016). Social media in academia: Networked scholars. Routledge.