Academic social networks can be a useful tool in increasing your online profile and engagement. In general Academic social networks are not used by Research Organistions and/or Funders as sources of publication data.
Additionally most of these tools do not allow you to re-use the information in your profile by linking to other profiles like ORCID. Therefore we recommend that you prioritse profiles like ORCID and Google Scholar before these academic social networks.
ResearchGate is a social network for scientists.
The major disciplines represented in ResearchGate are:
You can use ResearchGate to:
Full-text publications you upload to your ResearchGate profile are indexed by Google Scholar.
Academia.edu is a social networking platform for academics.
Its mission is to provide a system for scientists to share their results, independently of the current journal system.
You can use Academia.edu to:
Academia.edu profiles often appear high in Google searches, so a profile can be a great way to promote your research.
Full-text publications uploaded to Academia.edu profiles are indexed by Google Scholar.
Before you create an Academia.edu profile or upload any publications you should consider the risks and issues involved, such as security, confidentiality and copyright.
Please note: even though its domain name has the extension: '.edu', Academia.edu is a for-profit company.
The Social Science Research Network (SSRN) is a website which aims to rapidly disseminate social science research and facilitate communication among researchers.
It maintains a repository or 'eLibrary' of research for 24 social science disciplines or ‘research networks’, including economics, literature, information systems, law, management and sustainability.
The eLibrary has two parts: an abstract database, and a full-text repository.
You can upload your own papers to SSRN (and then others can download them for free), or choose to upload only abstracts and citations.
SSRN encourages readers and authors to directly communicate with each other and discuss their research, and publishes detailed author contact information.
Social Science Research Network (SSRN) is devoted to the rapid worldwide dissemination of research and is composed of specialized research networks in many disciplines. The SSRN eLibrary consists of two parts: an Abstract Database containing abstracts of scholarly working papers and forthcoming papers; and an Electronic Paper Collection containing downloadable full text documents.
You can use SSRN to:
Full-text publications uploaded to SSRN are indexed by Google Scholar.