Academic social networks: Collaboritive spaces or Diogenes clubs?

Abstract

The main results of the book Social networks for scientists: A quantitative survey is discussed. The success or failure of social networks is closely linked to the management and creation of content. The most successful sites are the document sharing sites (ResearchGate, Academia.edu, and Mendeley) because participation is based on the exchange of the main academic outputs: research publications. There are two main types of users: 1) producers, who are the less frequent, employ the network for spreading their results and monitor their impact in the academic community; and 2) viewers are the most and use the sites in order to be updated on new publications. These spaces are being used more for private interests than for collaborative purposes, becoming a kind of Diogenes Club, where most of the users come together in the same virtual space to conduct only private actions.