The document discusses the use of specialized academic social media networks such as ResearchGate, Mendeley, and Academia.edu by scholars, contrasting their features with traditional university websites. It highlights the benefits of social media networks for academic communication, including dynamic content generation, increased visibility of research, and opportunities for interaction among researchers. The advantages and unique characteristics of Mendeley and Academia.edu are compared, suggesting that these platforms complement rather than compete with each other in the academic landscape.

1. Specialized academic
social media networks
TOMASZ PUGACEWICZ, PH.D. STUDENT
JAGIELLONIAN UNIVERSITY IN KRAKOW,
POLAND

2. scholars often use general/universal
social media networks:
 listed on Impact of Social Sciences blog:
 LinkedIn,
 Twitter
(Poland: Facebook),
 Slideshare.

3. social media networks devoted
specifically to academic communication
 the most dominant:
 ResearchGate,
 Mendeley,
 Academia.edu (or simply Academia),
 Google Scholar Citation portal, which is not a typical
social media network, but has the potential to
become one.

6. differences between a traditional university
website and a social media network profile
 the content of the traditional website is generated
(usually over time) by the website’s manager,
 the content of one’s social media profile is generated
directly, and in a more dynamic fashion by the owner
of the profile,
 social media network profile enables us to see in one
place, changes made on websites that we follow,
 social media networks are better optimized than
university websites on search engines

7. differences between a traditional university
website and a social media network profile
 social media is so interactive it takes more time to




manage and maintain them,
the administration of a university website is not so
time consuming,
on our own social media profile we can describe and
show all our academic activities in one place,
usually on a university webpage we post only our CV
and published papers,
on an academic social network we can also share e.g.
unpublished manuscripts, conference papers etc.

9. Academia and Mendeley – common features
 on both websites you can easily publish bibliographic
data of your paper and tag it:




we can do this with or without adding a file with full text,
access to this file is restricted only to registered members of
Academia or Mendeley,
anyone can easily create a new account in order to access your
paper,
we can link bibliographic data with other websites (e.g. public
repository), where there are no restrictions as to who can
access your papers.

12. Academia and Mendeley – common features
 publish your CV:
 on Mendeley it is primarily in HTML form,
 on Academia you need to attach a separate file,
 follow the activity of people interested in the same
topic:


on Academia this takes the form of following tags (so called
“research interests”),
on Mendeley it means following or becoming a member of a
particular group.

15. Academia and Mendeley – common features
 we can observe the activity of chosen members of our
network (their new papers, what they follow and
notifications on their own board),
 share via Facebook, Twitter and with members of
Academia or Mendeley papers of another user that
we found interesting,
 we can’t directly comment on papers published on
those websites:

we can do this indirectly on Mendeley via group discussions or
comments on the newsfeed.

18. Academia and Mendeley – common features
 some research tags and „discussion groups are empty
shells and some profiles haven't been updated in a
year or more”,
 Google Scholar does not automatically import our
papers’ bibliographic data, neither from Mendeley,
nor from Academia,
 the potential in the future to be used as a device to
assess the relevance of scholars.

19. Mendeley - unique features
 publish and share bibliographic data on other
authors’ papers,

inside public or private groups,
 share not only bibliographic data, but even a file with
another author’s paper,

usually only inside private networks,
 when we check details of the bibliographic record
(with or without the file) usually we see other
recommended papers associated with the same topic

23. Mendeley – unique features
 discussions inside groups or in the form of
comments to notifications made by other users,
 paradoxically the level of activity around particular
topics on Mendeley (that is around groups) is lower
than on Academia around “research interests”,
 after Mendeley was acquired by Elsevier this year,
there has been ongoing discussion about the future
commitment of this website to Open Access
movement.

26. Mendeley and social networking
 something more than just a social media network.
 Mendeley is first and foremost an online and
Desktop reference manager with built-in PDF reader,
 social networking site second.

28. Academia – unique features
 it’s easier to add a paper to Academia than it is to
Mendeley,
 usually papers published on Academia are more
visible on Google than those published on Mendeley,
 it’s easier to follow the activity of network members,
because you do not need to be accepted by them,


Academia is like Twitter: you just follow other people,
Mendeley is like Facebook: you need to be accepted in order to
create a new contact.

30. Academia – unique features
 collects data and notifies users of features of viewers
of your Academia profile and papers:



how they found them (e.g. Google query),
their computer’s country of origin,
Mendeley shows only how many people add a particular paper
to their private library,
 mentioned data is easily accessible and presented in
graphic form,
 browse scholars based on their academic affiliation,
 the possibility for discussion is limited on Academia.

34. Academia or Mendeley?
 many people argue that these two do not compete
but rather complement each other,
 you can choose whichever is more suitable to your
needs,


Academia is a great instrument with which you can promote
your papers and follow others’ papers,
Mendeley is good for sharing bibliographic data and
conducting discussions.

35. Reality
 sometimes our choice of academic social media
network is contingent on the one we start using first:

we start using one of them and concentrate only on this one,
 sometimes there are more people oriented around a
specific topic (e.g. international studies) on one
network than the other:

there are more people interested in international studies on
Academia than on Mendeley.

36. Thank You!
TOMASZ.PUGACEWICZ@UJ.EDU.PL