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Q&A participation and behavioral patterns on academic social networking sites: a comparative study of academic, corporate and government institutions on ResearchGate

Weiwei Yan, Wanying Deng, Xiaorui Sun, Zihao Wang

Aslib Journal of Information Management

ISSN: 2050-3806

Article publication date: 10 January 2022

Issue publication date: 16 May 2022

475

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to explore question and answer (Q&A) participation and behavioral patterns on academic social networking sites (ASNSs) from the perspective of multiple subjects such as academic, corporate and government institutions.

Design/methodology/approach

Focused on the Q&A service of ASNSs, this study chooses ResearchGate (RG) as the target ASNS and collects a large-scale data set from it, involving a sample of users and a Q&A sample about academic, corporate and government institutions. First, it studies the law of Q&A participation and the distribution of the type of user according to the sample of users. Second, it compares question-asking behavior and question-answering behavior stimulated by questions among the three types of institutions based on the Q&A sample. Finally, it discusses the Q&A participation and behavioral patterns of the three types of institutions in academic Q&A exchanges with full consideration of institutional attributes, and provides some suggestions for institutions and ASNSs.

Findings

The results show that these three types of institutions generally have a low level of participation in the Q&A service of RG, and the numbers of questions and answers proposed by institutional users conform to the power-law distribution. There are differences in Q&A participation and Q&A behavioral patterns among academic, corporate and government institutions. Government and academic institutions have more users participating in the Q&A service and their users are more willing to ask questions, while corporate institutions have fewer users who participate in the Q&A service and their users are inclined to provide answers. Questions from corporate institutions attract much more attention than those from the other two types of institutions.

Originality/value

This study reveals and compares the Q&A participation and the behavioral patterns of the three types of institutions in academic Q&A, thus deepening the understanding of the attributes of institutions in the academic information exchange context. In practice, the results can help guide different institutions to use the Q&A service of ASNSs more effectively and help ASNSs to better optimize their Q&A service.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 71904148).

Citation

Yan, W., Deng, W., Sun, X. and Wang, Z. (2022), "Q&A participation and behavioral patterns on academic social networking sites: a comparative study of academic, corporate and government institutions on ResearchGate", Aslib Journal of Information Management, Vol. 74 No. 3, pp. 495-521. https://doi.org/10.1108/AJIM-05-2021-0141

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited

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