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Profile sites & networks

About profile sites & networks

Profile sites can be used to curate your online identity. Not all profile sites are equal: some are designed to showcase your publications (e.g., Google Scholar) whereas others are academic networking sites (e.g., Academia.edu). There are also field-specific sites (e.g., SSRN). 

Some researchers have complete profiles on multiple sites; others maintain a complete profile on a personal website or on one profile site and link other profiles and social media accounts to their complete profile. Regardless of the approach you use, it is important that you factor time in your schedule to regularly maintain your research profiles to ensure they are accurate, current and complete.

This page provides an overview of four popular profile sites: Google Scholar Citations, Academia.edu, Social Science Research Network and ResearchGate.

Google Scholar Citations

You can use Google Scholar Citations to set up a profile that lists your publications and tracks citation metrics.

Profiles can be private or public. The benefit of a public profile is that when someone searches for your name in Google Scholar, your profile will appear in search results. 

Profiles are easy to set up and publications can be added automatically or manually.

Academia.edu

Academia.edu is a privately owned for profit organisation that provides a social networking website for academics. It is a popular profile service not exclusive to academics. As of January 2017 there were 46,346,250 registered users and over 36 million unique users each month. 

You can use Academia.edu to:

  • Share your research papers
  • Monitor who is looking at your profile or viewing your papers
  • Follow other researchers in your discipline/s

Setting up a Academia profile can boost your visibility and research impact as the site is highly ranked in search results and full-text publications are indexed in Google Scholar.

Social Science Research Network (SSRN)

SSRN is a worldwide network devoted to the rapid dissemination of social science research. It was founded in 1994 and recently acquired by the Elsevier publishing house. In 2017 the SSRN eLibrary had over 711,000 abstracts of scholarly working papers and forthcoming papers and more than 598,800 downloadable documents. You can become a member of SSRN for free and access most core services without signing up for an account.

Services include:

  • eLibrary search, browse and download
  • Access to specialised subject area networks across 24 disciplines
  • Abstract eJournal subscription service
  • Rankings of top authors, papers and institutions
  • Storage of your favorite papers on their website in 'MyBriefcase'
  • Professional announcements and job openings listings
  • Submission of papers for inclusion and display in the eLibrary

ResearchGate

ResearchGate is a professional network for scientists that was founded in 2008. Membership of this privately-owned service is free but you must be affilitated with an academic institution. In 2016 ResearchGate reported 11 million users and over 100 million publications.

You can use ResearchGate to:

  • Connect and collaborate with colleagues and other specialists in your field
  • Share your research publications and access publications and data shared by others
  • Discover jobs using a research-related job board
  • Ask research-related questions and get answers from other experts
  • Get statistics and find out who has been reading and citing your work

ResearchGate has been criticised in the media for sending out unsolicited emails to co-authors and spamming users; however, this practice appears to have been discontinued.