The Use of Academic Social Networks Among Arab Researchers

Abstract

This study investigates Arab researchers’ attitudes and perceptions toward the use of academic social networks (ASNs), with a sharp topical focus on the ResearchGate (RG) network. From six Arab universities, a sample of 2,991 Arab researchers was invited to participate in the survey. The research instrument was a web-based questionnaire. In total, 315 participants filled out the questionnaire. The study reveals that three quarters of the respondents use ASNs to share publications, and most researchers subscribed to more than one ASN, but RG was the most frequently used one. Academic discipline appears to play a role in defining Arab researchers within RG, as the majority of them were from the pure and applied sciences.

Keywords

academic social networks scholarly social networking sites informal scholarly communication Arab researchers

Introduction

The scholarly communication paradigm has undergone many changes in recent decades. The most revolutionary changes have occurred because of the rise of Internet technologies, particularly informal communication tools such as social networks. Indeed, since the emergence of social networks in 1997, with the launch of Six Degrees, there has been a marked increase in the number of users, culminating in a total of 1.79 billion users worldwide in 2014. Furthermore, it is estimated that there will be nearly 2.44 billion social network users around the globe in 2018 (Statistia, 2015).

In recent years, social networks have played a role in digital scientific communication and have become part of the open science movement by creating scientific social communities called academic social networks (ASNs). The latter refers to specialized platforms designed for researchers aimed at the communication, dissemination, and exchange of science-related information among the members involved. This type of social network resembles a combination of open access among individuals, self-archiving, the altmetrics movement, and crowdsourcing. Its role has not been limited to sharing knowledge and exchanging experiences only. In fact, it is seen as a useful tool for helping researchers understand the value of their work by providing a forum where literature can be discussed and evaluated, where users can access a variety of statistics concerning the use of uploaded publications, and where researchers’ profiles can be viewed.

Looking at the history of ASNs, it should be noted that there were early unsuccessful efforts to build online scientific communities using Facebook, for example, Scientist Solutions, SciLinks, 2collab, and Nature Network. Some observers speculated that these efforts failed because scientists had hesitations about sharing data, papers, and comments online (Van Noorden, 2014). It seems that the successful beginnings can be traced to online reference management tools or the new generation of reference management web based services such as CiteULike, which have been created since 2004. This new generation stores academic references and allows users to publish or share their personal bibliographies and publications. But none of the literature addresses this issue, as will be seen later in the literature review.

ASNs can be divided into three distinct types based on (1) openness: freely available to everyone to become a member (e.g., Iamresearcher) or freely available for specific people (e.g., ResearchGate [RG]), (2) originality: born as an ASN (e.g., Academia) or began as a web-based reference management tool and turned into an ASN (e.g., Mendeley), and (3) specialization: specializing in one topic (e.g., MalariaWorld.org) or for a multidisciplinary network (e.g., MyScienceWork).

The past few years have witnessed a proliferation of social networking sites tailored for scientists, attracting thousands of Arab researchers. But there is no way of counting them because one can only search for members, research interests, and universities. Consequently, it is necessary to refer to Alexa.com to determine researchers from Arab countries are using the two most popular ASNs (RG and Academia). According to Alexa (2014), both sites were moderately popular by November 2013, with RG being ranked 3,947 and Academia 2,243 for popularity among all websites. Surprisingly, Egypt and Saudi Arabia were the only two Arab countries among 37 countries included in the site overview by Alexa. As a result, this paper will look for the existence of ASNs among Arab researchers.

Literature Review

Few studies have focused on ASNs. As a matter of fact, given the plethora of academic literature concerning the use of social networks among academics or for academic purposes, this study will discuss only literature concerning the use of ASNs. The objective of this review is to give background information about how researchers use ASNs and point out shortcomings in the literature on the topic.

Collaboration in research through social research network has been observed by several authors, Bullinger, Hallerstede, Renken, Soeldner, and Möslein (2010) discussed 24 case studies and interviews with the founders of 10 social research network sites, which led to sets of findings on how the Social research network sites (SRNS) can support collaborative research. The study developed SRNS taxonomy according to the purpose their founders had in mind and the basic functionalities they provide. In this line, Bullinger, Renken, and Moeslein (2011) examined researchers’ adoption and acceptance of social research network sites by analyzing qualitative results of 11 focus group sessions. Jeng, He, and Jiang (2015) examined user groups and their members on the Mendeley platform for their case study. The results show that users in different disciplines show varying levels of interests in being involved in groups.

Concerning the usage of ASNs, an early study by Almousa (2011) explored the usage patterns of Academia by different groups of academic users. He investigated users with a registered interest in anthropology, philosophy, chemistry, and computer science and found differences in the extent of its use between disciplines and between user types. Similarly, Nández and Borrego (2013) carried out a study in two stages. In the first stage, they examined the profiles of the users of Academia and the second stage was a survey of 293 respondents. The results show that users were young and mostly from the social sciences and the arts and humanities. In another research, Lupton (2014) carried out international survey of 711 academics to identify their use of social media as part of their work. The majority of the respondents were very positive about using social media including Academia and RG. Nature Publishing Group (2014) investigates why scholars used social media. Under half of the scientists that completed the survey said that they visited RG regularly. Thelwall and Kousha (2014a) focus on Academia.edu and investigate whether it is essentially used as a general social networking site, in which case younger users and female users should be overrepresented and more active. A conference paper by Murray (2014) chronicles the system management of user information for an inactive user of a scholarly social networking site. It shows what can happen to user profile data when a user remains dormant and data correction is reliant upon system users. More recently, a study by Jordan (2014) aimed at answering the question of whether the structure of academic communities is similar in different ASNs. The study revealed that discipline appeared to play a role in defining communities within the network structure and there is a contradiction between academics use of the sites and their position within the networks.

In the context of altmetrics approach and ASNs, Hoffmann, Lutz, and Meckel (2014) proposed an application of social network analysis to members of a Swiss university department on RG in order to generate a new metrics of scientific impact. The study indicated that relational measures derived from RG are in fact related to more traditional measures of scientific impact. A recent bibliometrics study by Thelwall and Kousha (2014b) was designed to assess whether RG statistics reflected existing academic hierarchies in the sense that they could give plausible rankings of institutions and whether leading science nations were unequal in their uptake of the site. The results showed that rankings based on RG statistics correlated moderately well with other rankings of academic institutions. Another research done by Ortega (2015) analyzed 10,000 author profiles to explore the connections between social and Altmetrics and bibliometric indicators at the author level. The study pointed out that the correlations between them are poor in every site analyzed.

From the above review, it could be concluded that (1) most studies have focused on users rather than on ASN platforms and services or structure, (2) the majority of the studies have been published in the last 5 years due to the novelty of the topic, and (3) Academia is the network most conducive to being studied, because of its openness and ease of data collection.

Arabic Literature

While there is an established Arabic literature on social networking sites, we have scarce knowledge about ASNs, their platforms, and how researchers are using them. In an attempt to survey the body of research on ASNs in the Arabic literature, the researcher consulted two Arabic databases in the field: first, El-Hadi database (Arab Federation for Libraries and Information (AFLI), 2014) and second, EduSearch database (Dar Almandumah, 2014). The two sources show that no Arabic studies so far have examined the topic.

Therefore, this study is groundbreaking in that it is the first Arabic study into this subject that aims to recognize the use of ASNs among Arab researchers. Its importance comes from the fact that no comprehensive studies exist in this area, especially concerning usage patterns.

Research Purpose and Method

As mentioned by Hahn (2008), change in scholarly communication will not achieve its full potential without the active involvement of scholars, researchers, and research institutions. Therefore, this study employed a field study survey, which aimed at exploring Arab researchers’ attitudes and perceptions toward the use of ASNs, in general, and Arab researchers and their experiences with RG, in particular. The study aims at providing empirical data to further the discussion of the potential value of ASNs.

In order to get firsthand experience of these networks, the researcher registered with three ASNs (Mendeley, RG, and Academia) and took notes. The questionnaire was administered in English, and it was piloted to assure its final acceptance for major distribution. It comprised three main sections, namely, the researcher’s demographic information, ASNs, and questions relating to their use of RG. For the purposes of this study, RG was chosen because users of this network need to have an institutional e-mail address recognized by RG’s automatic check, which verifies the authenticity of the person. This built-in verification mechanism increases the credibility of the study sample.

Over the period from September 2014 to February 2015, the web-based questionnaire created using Google Docs, along with an introductory cover letter, was sent to the 2,991 individuals who are members at RG and are affiliated with the six universities in the sample (see Table 1). These universities were selected because they are the oldest and most famous in their countries. The study was targeted at researchers who already have an RG score because it was assumed that researchers with an RG score were active users in the network.

Table 1.

Survey Respondents by University.

University	Total ResearchGate (RG) Members	Members by RG Score	Men	Women	No. of Response	%
Cairo University	3,014	1,259	772	487	134	42.5
King Abdulaziz University	1,515	737	531	206	72	22.9
University of Jordan	616	392	277	115	42	13.3
University Mohammed V Agdal	231	147	110	37	19	6
Université de Tunis	110	67	48	19	5	1.6
United Arab Emirates University	717	389	314	75	43	13.7
Total	6,203	2,991	2,052	939	315	100%

To increase the response rate, two reminders were sent out to participants after the initial contact. A total of 315 of the 2,991 distributed questionnaires replied to the survey and their answers are those analyzed in this study by using analysis of variance (ANOVA) and χ² tests. The response rate was 11%. A low rate of response is a major problem encountered by most studies in the Arab world and is caused by a spirit of noncooperation, especially for web-based questionnaires, where people are free to reply or not. Another reason is that notification of RG message would be sent to individual’s institutional e-mail, and many researchers, myself included, use a public e-mail account most of the time and their institutional e-mail address far less frequently.

It should be noted that the first approach was to send the questionnaire link to “RG Community Support,” requesting that they distribute it to researchers from the six universities, but this method was rejected by them, because of their concern for participant anonymity and confidentiality. As RG has a daily limit of private messages (20 message per account) that can be sent to other researchers, in order to prevent data collection and spamming, five accounts were opened within the context of this study, in order to send up to 100 messages per day, until everyone was reached to participate in the survey.

Despite the relatively low response rate, it was possible to compile information concerning respondents, including the following characteristics: (1) most of the respondents (42.5%) are from Cairo University, as it has 1,259 members with RG scores and (2) the sample consists predominantly of male (70%)—the female minority (30%) is not surprising, as there is a gender imbalance in Arab universities and in the Arab states, with women representing 38% of researchers. In addition, 30% of the world’s researchers are women (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, 2014).

Research Questions

The following research questions were used to guide the study:

What is the demographic profile of Arab researchers using ASNs in terms of age, gender, professional category, and discipline?

To what extent are Arab researchers interested in using ASNs?

What are Arab researchers’ attitudes and perceptions toward the use of RG?

Results and Discussion

Researchers’ Demographic Profiles

Part (A) of the discussion identified the demographic characteristics of the survey respondents and their implications. Among the 315 questionnaires completed, we shall see that age is an important variable in explaining some aspects of usage behavior and researchers’ opinions. Nearly 31% are of age 31–40 years, and 13% are of age 21–30. Most of the respondents are older researchers (31.4% over 50 years of age) and more than half of the respondents (56%) are middle-aged (41–50+ years of age) researchers. It may have been expected that younger researchers would be more likely to join ASNs. However, on the contrary, older researchers represent a greater share of ASN members. This differs from the results of many ASN user studies. For example, the study by Nández and Borrego (2013) reported that Academia.edu users were young scholars (37%) in the 31–40 age-group.

Researchers were asked to indicate the level of their academic appointments. The majority of the respondents (82.5%) classified themselves as faculty members, which is to be expected, as scholarly communication is a vital component of faculty members’ academic career. Nearly 5% of the respondents classified themselves as graduate students. Fewer respondents were postdoctoral (4%), PhD students (2.5%), MA students (2%), undergraduate students (1.3%), and the remaining 3% chose the option “other.” This correlates with the findings of Thelwall and Kousha (2014a), which show that the most common of members in the survey were faculty members and graduate students.

Nearly 37.3% of faculty members were professors, while the rest of the respondents were distributed between the positions of associate professor (20.3%), assistant professor (26.1%), lecturer (7.3%), and teaching assistant (6.5%), the latter two groups representing low ratios. Respondents were asked to indicate their academic disciplines. The majority of respondents (85%) were from the pure and applied sciences, whereas 6% represent social sciences and humanities, which include the fields of social science, the arts, education, and business and economics.

Figure 1 shows that medical science accounts for about 19% of all respondents’ disciplines. The reason for this percentage may be that medicine ranked first and dominated other disciplines in its contribution to research output, as mentioned by most studies about research productivity in Arab countries, such as the study by Sweileh, Zyoud, Al-Khalil, Al-Jabi, and Sawalha (2014).

Figure 1.

Survey respondents by broad discipline.

As expected, some disciplines had a very low presence on RG, such as the arts and humanities (1.6%) and social sciences (0.3%). The reason may be that social and human sciences are relatively new disciplines, which did not exist in the Arab world before the 1960s, with a few exceptions, mainly Egypt (Arab Human Development Report [AHDR], 2003). This correlates with the findings of the study by Jordan (2014), in which she found that using LinkedIn or RG in natural sciences and the professions demonstrates higher usage levels than social sciences, while for all other platforms (Facebook and Academia), social sciences show the highest levels of use.

Academic Social Networks

The Arab research community was quick to recognize the transformative effects of ASNs and has focused tremendous attention to get involved in the new model of scholarly communication. In this part of the survey, the respondents were asked to indicate which of the ASNs they used were most useful to them. They were also asked to mention the benefits they perceived and concerns they had about ASNs.

In addition to their use of RG, 81% of the researchers were members of more than one ASN. Figure 2 shows that the researchers were members of Academia (37%) and Mendeley (10.5%). During the survey, it was found that some researchers who chose “other ASN” consider Scholar Google, Scopus, Acamedicum, Ideas, SciFinder, Researcherid, and Orchid as ASNs. This means that there is confusion between the concept of ASN and database services among some Arab researchers.

Figure 2.

Researchers subscribing to more than one academic social network. Note. Multiple answers are permitted.

Respondents with more than one ASN membership were asked to indicate which one they used most frequently. The majority of respondents (82%) reported that RG was the most frequently used one, followed by Academia (7%), Mendeley (3%), other (3%), MysienceWork (2%), MynetResearch, ResearchTogether, Sciencestage, and Zotero representing low ratios. The findings from this question correlate with the findings of the study by Madhusudhan (2012), in which he found that the majority of respondents used RG, with Academia coming in second.

Respondents were asked a question about how they choose an ASN to join (multiple answers are permitted). The criteria they used most often when choosing which to join were a friend’s recommendation (37.5%), number of publications (30.2%), network reputation (30.2%), I received an e-mail promoting the network (26.3%), number of participants (19.4%), diversity of services (16%), read visitors’ opinions (6.3%), and other criteria (2%). As for the purposes for joining an ASN, it emerged that researchers identified many purposes, as shown in Table 2. That 76% of the respondents use the ASN to share publications and 71% use it to communicate in a new way with other researchers.

Table 2.

Purposes for Joining an Academic Social Network (ASN).

Purposes	Frequency	%
Communicate in a new way with researchers	222	70.5
Share my publications	239	75.9
Increase citations to my papers	175	55.6
Get statistics about my research	144	45.7
Get free access to millions of publications	140	44.4
Find new research ideas	141	44.8
Form a research group	33	10.5
Collaborative solving of research problems	76	24.1
Ask questions/get answers	103	32.7
Encourage cooperative cross-disciplinary research	60	19.0
Aware of what an ASN is	52	16.5
Other	2	0.6

Note. Multiple answers are permitted.

Respondents had to indicate how using ASNs affects scholarly communication, according to the scale provided in the questionnaire. The responses were 93%—positively, 0%—negatively, and 7%—no effect. Researchers who answered “positively” were asked to be more specific about the positive effects, as shown in Table 3. Sixty-two percent said that ASNs increase their willingness to publish and disseminate research papers.

Table 3.

Positive Effects of ASNs.

Effect	Frequency	%
Increases willingness to publish and disseminate papers	196	62.2
Fosters openness to the views and attitudes of researchers	141	44.8
Increases awareness of the importance of sharing knowledge with other researchers	151	47.9
Encourages collaborative work among researchers	134	42.5
Promotes the global science movement.	80	25.4
Increases informal communication among researchers	133	42.2
Provides immediate access to publications	141	44.8
Reduces redundancy in scientific research	42	13.3
Other	1	0.3

Note. Multiple answers are permitted. ASN = academic social network.

It is clear from the above results that the majority of respondents were very positive about ASNs, but they also expressed a range of concerns, as shown in Table 4. Most of them worried about spam e-mails (31%). Moreover, the result indicates that almost 88% of the respondents agreed that ASNs relay accurate and credible information, compared to general social networks (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, etc.).

Table 4.

Researchers’ Concerns.

Concern	Frequency	%
Blurring of boundaries between personal and professional life	68	21.6
Privacy	67	21.3
Intellectual property issues	75	23.8
Technical issues	31	9.8
Reliability of the information	56	17.8
Unwanted e-mail spamming	96	30.5
Limit registration	34	10.8
In the future it may switch from being free to being a business model	76	24.1
Other	4	1.3

Note. Multiple answers are permitted.

RG Survey

This part of the study will examine issues concerning RG usage, publications, and services among Arab researchers.

Usage

The majority (43%) of the respondents indicated that they have been using RG for a period of 1–2 years, followed by 20.6% who have been a member for 2–4 years, 17% for 7–12 months, 9% for 4+ years, and 7.6% for 1–6 months, while 2.5% indicated less than a month as their length of usage.

The χ² test for independence of variables was applied, using a .05 significance level to study the relationship between the period of using RG and gender. The results showed a correlation between the two variables, as shown in Table 5. It was found that of the 43% of researchers who have been using RG over a 1- to 2-year period, 30% were men, and that of those who have been using the network over a 2- to 4-year period, 16% were men, which means that male researchers had a longer use of the network than their female counterparts.

Table 5.

χ² Tests Between Period of Use and Gender.

	Value	df	Asymp. Sig. (2 Sided)
Pearson χ²	16.390^a	4	.003
Likelihood ratio	15.549	4	.004
Linear-by-linear association	0.182	1	.670
No. of valid cases	315

^a0 cells (0.0%) have expected counts less than 5. The minimum expected count is 9.43.

There is a variation in the frequency of using RG among researchers. Most of them (26%) stated that they visited the network once a week. Others quantified their visits as several times per week (18%), 16% stated that they visit RG when receiving an e-mail from it, also 16% visit RG once a day, 9% visit it several times per month, 8.6% once a month, 5.4% several times per day, and other (1.3%).

The χ² test for the variables of frequency of using RG and gender showed a correlation between them (see Table 6). It was found that male researchers made much greater use of the network than their female counterparts, and 18.4% of male researchers use the network once a week and 15% use it several times per week.

Table 6.

χ² Tests Between Frequency of Use and Gender.

	Value	df	Asymp. Sig. (2 Sided)
Pearson χ²	21.662^a	6	.001
Likelihood ratio	21.749	6	.001
Linear-by-linear association	12.589	1	.000
No. of valid cases	315

^a0 cells (0.0%) have expected counts less than 5. The minimum expected count is 5.02.

Responses to the question “How much time do you spend on RG during a typical day?” indicated that visits were generally short. Nearly three quarters of the respondents (70.5%) stated that they spent less than 1 hr per visit, while 25% stated that they spent 1 hr per visit, 3.5% claimed that they spent 2 hr, 4 hr, and more than 5 hr representing low ratios. It can be concluded that Arab researchers are not heavy users of RG. This differs from the result of a survey (Dennis, Martin, & Wood, 2013) concerning media use in eight Arab countries in the Middle East and North Africa, which stated that the average of time spent using social networking sites in a typical day was 3.2 hr per day.

Publications

As mentioned by Arda (2012), Academia and RG are two of five popular online networks for sharing scientific materials, making scientific research available to wider audiences. So, uploading publications to a researcher’s profile is one of the most appealing aspects of using ASNs. Forty-six percent of researchers claimed that they upload 1–5 publications, followed by 20% who upload 6–10 publications, 18% with more than 20 publications, 9% uploaded 11–15, and 7% with 16–20 publications.

In Table 7, the χ² test and correlation analysis between the variables of publications being uploaded to researchers’ profiles in RG and age had p values less than .05. This means that the range of publications being uploaded to researcher’s profile in RG is affected by age. It was found that researchers over the age of 50 (31.4%) had a greater tendency to add their publications to their profiles on the network. This correlates with the findings of INGENJÖRSVETENSKAPSAKADEMIEN (IVA) (2012), which show that there is a curvilinear relationship between age and productivity. The average publication production rate increases with age, reaches a peak at some point in the career, and then declines, with the highest productivity occurring in the 50–59 age range. Concerning types of uploaded publications, journal articles were the most popular type of publications uploaded, with an average of 97%, followed by conference papers (30.2%), 9% book chapters, 10% presentations, and 4% theses. While patents, teaching documents, book reviews, talks, drafts, unpublished research, media files, negative and raw data, and other materials representing low ratios.

Table 7.

χ² Tests Between Uploaded Publications and Age.

	Value	df	Asymp. Sig. (2 Sided)
Pearson χ²	47.912^a	5	.000
Likelihood ratio	50.263	5	.000
Linear-by-linear association	47.128	1	.000
No. of valid cases	315

^a0 cells (0.0%) have expected counts less than 5. The minimum expected count is 17.49.

It can be observed from the above that (1) researchers uploaded papers that haven’t been published elsewhere as well as theses and (2) Arab researchers do not appear to show a great interest in sharing some types of unpublished works such as drafts and raw data. Reasons for the latter could be that some researchers might fear the possibility of data theft or that they simply do not know that this type of work could be shared.

Features and services

RG allows members to use a variety of services, some social based and others research based. Respondents were asked to indicate which services they use from a list of 16 choices in the questionnaire. In Figure 3, we can see that the most popular services in RG were uploading publications (75.6%), followed by editing one’s profile (51.4%). It appears that respondents are not interested in getting feedback on their publication from peers, as only 5.7% chose open reviews as a feature they use.

Figure 3.

Services most used in ResearchGate. Note. Multiple answers are permitted.

A statistical evaluation of data using the Least Significant Difference (LSD) test (multiple comparisons ANOVA p < .05) indicates that there is a statistically significant difference between using RG services and age. These data in Table 8 show that network members aged 21–25 make greater use of the services. In fact, according to the Arab social media report (Mourtada & Salem, 2014), social media in the Arab world is dominated by youth between the ages of 15 and 29.

Table 8.

Least Significant Difference (LSD) Test for Correlation Between Age and Using RG Services.

		Sum of Squares	df	Mean Square	F	Sig.
t17	Between groups	0.056	5	0.011	2.399	.037
	Within groups	1.454	309	0.005
	Total	1.510	314
t18	Between groups	0.163	5	0.033	1.882	.097
	Within groups	5.362	309	0.017
	Total	5.525	314

Note. RG = ResearchGate.

A statistical evaluation of the data using the Least Significant Difference (LSD) test (multiple comparisons ANOVA p < .05) indicates that there is a statistically significant difference between using RG services and discipline. These data in Table 9 show that social sciences, physics, and geosciences and space sciences made greater use of the services than other disciplines.

Table 9.

Least Significant Difference (LSD) Test for Correlation Between Discipline and Using RG Services.

		Sum of Squares	df	Mean Square	F	Sig.
t17	Between groups	0.148	12	0.012	2.732	.002
	Within groups	1.363	302	0.005
	Total	1.510	314
t18	Between groups	0.307	12	0.026	1.483	.129
	Within groups	5.218	302	0.017
	Total	5.525	314

Note. RG = ResearchGate.

A final but important point is that, when investigating respondents’ comments concerning RG features and services, it was noticed that some comments made by researchers were already being addressed before the completion of the present study. It appears that participants would prefer to see changes made based on the following suggestions:

Linking researchers’ profiles with Google scholar and other such platforms.

Adding two affiliations to members’ profiles.

Comparing the RG score with the international Scopus H-Index.

Allow researchers who are not associated with an institution to be a member.

Improving the engine, which detects citations of a given publication.

Announcements of international conferences.

Classify the website according to research groups working in the same area.

Provide detailed reports of listed publications in a user-friendly way.

Adding some research tools such as statistical analysis, professional translation, and lists of academic journals.

Showing the name and institution of profile viewers.

Conducting meetings for members.

Providing a smart phone application.

Reviews of the latest published resources in the researcher’s field of interest.

Adding a brief summary of future or ongoing research of members.

Conclusion

This study has examined the usage habits and perceptions of Arab researchers from six government-owned universities with respect to ASNs. To summarize, the findings of this study show that Arab researchers prefer to be involved in more than one ASN. Given RG is the research site of this study, it has been the most frequently used network. The most part, they rely on friends’ recommendations, the number of publications, and the network’s reputation as their criteria when choosing an ASN to join. They mostly join ASN to share publications and to communicate in a new way with other researchers. Respondents indicated that ASNs increase their willingness to publish and disseminate research papers, but concerns about e-mail spamming and fear that the network will change from a free service to a business model were the negative aspects expressed by respondents concerning ASNs. Respondents made suggestions concerning RG services. Much of this feedback has validity not only for Arab researchers but also for all RG users.

In addition to researchers’ lack of cooperation in completing the questionnaire, the study faced some limitations, including a lack of statistics available about Arab researchers in RG. It was very time consuming to determine the study population and gather data because ReserchGate was like a walled garden. It was not easy to send many e-mails or follow more than 150 researchers for both security and technical reasons. Despite these limitations, it is hoped that this study will make a valuable contribution to the literature on ASNs.

Arab universities need to devise appropriate policies and strategies on how they can utilize ASNs to support their university prestige and ranking. Alternatively, they should develop their own scholarly communication platform to build a scientific social network for their researchers. Senior Arab Academics should encourage their students and junior researchers to join and use ASNs. Finally, this study did not examine the profiles of Arab researchers. This means that there is a need to conduct further research into the topic. It would be interesting to repeat the study using samples from a range of different Arab countries in order to investigate the relation between Arab universities and altmetrics derived from ASNs.

Footnotes

Author Note

The author, therefore, acknowledge with thanks Deanship of Scientific Research technical and financial support.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This Project was funded by the Deanship of Scientific Research (DSR), King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, under grant no. (178/246/1434).

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10.

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