Role of Academic Social Networking Sites in Knowledge Sharing and Research Collaboration among Research Scholars

Abstract

Academic Social Networking Sites (ASNSs) like ResearchGate, Academia.edu, Google Scholar, LinkedIn, etc., are created predominantly for scholars to set up their profiles, upload their scholarly publications, and convey among peers. The prime objectives of the present study are to explore their awareness and use of ASNS amongst the research scholars of science and social science discipline of a prestigious central university in north India, i.e., Aligarh Muslim University (AMU). The survey method was employed, and a simple random sampling technique was used to select the sample by using a structured questionnaire administered to the sample population. Further, it explores its individual use across two dimensions i.e., “Collaborative Research” (CR) and “Information Sharing and Consumption” (ISC) with respect to the gender and discipline. Different hypotheses were framed which signify that there was a significant difference with respect to the gender and discipline across the dimension “CR” with p-value = 0.624 and 0.968, respectively. Moreover, there was again a significant difference with respect to the gender and discipline across the dimension “ISC” with p-value = 0.127 and 0.828, respectively. Further, there is a positive but weak correlation between the constructs CR and ISC, whereas weak to moderate association between their respective items. The implications of the present study would be helpful for regulatory bodies in recognizing the academic activities of the researchers with the use of possible metrics.