Research Gate – a social networking site for scientists with considerable achievements
The most important functionalities:
- a multi-million user base with high visibility
- combines social media functions with bibliometric mechanisms
- a public service with a repository function
- enables publishing scientific articles, conference papers, posters, presentations, numerical data or any other research materials
- social media tools: private messages, contacts, following other users’ activities, recommendations, asking for materials
- scholar ranking based on relations between researchers – a network of observing and observed scholars, given and received recommendations, questions and answers given to other researchers
- advanced statistic mechanisms, based on e.g. the number of citations, recommendations or documents hits
- the achievements of individual scholars influence the position of the institution they represent
- an advanced content search engine offering many options of result selection
- scientific discussions in a Q&A format
- promoting research job opportunities
Recommended to academic teachers:
- trying to enhance their visibility on the Internet
- interested in participation in the international scientific exchange
- looking for contacts with scholars from all over the world
- monitoring the state of research on a certain topic
- checking the research impact
- looking for a platform for publishing invitations to their research projects
- looking for a job position in international research teams
How to complete a Research Gate account
Step 1
Go to https://www.researchgate.net/ and create an account or log in via LinkedIn or Facebook. Define your role (What type of researcher are you?). Configure the account, entering data of the institution you represent (Show where you conduct research). Type in your institutional e-mail (3) (Your institution email) to complete the process of verifying your identity.
Step 2
Confirm the authorship of the publications suggested by Research Gate. Choose the disciplines you represent (1) (Select your disciplines) and define the fields of your expertise (2) (Add your skills and expertise); add your picture. Once the account is activated, you will be able to introduce additional elements.
Step 3
You have gained access to advanced social media tools enabling you to participate in the international scientific exchange and enhancing your visibility on the Internet. On the home page you can see the activities of the researchers you follow (1) (Home), take part in discussions, ask and answer questions (2) (Questions) and check job opportunities (3) (Jobs).
Step 4
If you choose your profile (and click the avatar), you will get access to further options. You can switch from the general view to the sections with published papers (1) (Research), work experience (2) (Experience) and advanced statistics (3) (Stats). To complete the information on your research and publications choose the option (4) Add new research.
Step 5
When scrolling other researchers’ texts, you can choose from many options: download a publication if it is available (1) (Download) or ask for the full text of this publication (Request full-text), check the statistics (2) (Stats), make a comment (3) (Comments), check the citations (4) (Citations) and connected articles (5) (References) as well as give recommendations (6) (Recommend).
While scrolling other users’ accounts, you can use the (1) Follow option to follow a certain scholar’s achievements or find out about profile statistics (e.g. RG Score, which shows scholar reputation).
