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.

中文翻译：

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学术社交网站上的问答参与和行为模式：ResearchGate 上学术、企业和政府机构的比较研究

目的

本文旨在从学术、企业和政府机构等多个主体的角度探讨学术社交网站 (ASNS) 上的问答 (Q&A) 参与和行为模式。

设计/方法/方法

本研究以ASNS的问答服务为重点，选择ResearchGate（RG）作为目标ASNS，并从中收集了一个大规模的数据集，涉及一个用户样本和一个关于学术、企业和政府机构的问答样本。首先，根据用户样本研究问答参与规律和用户类型分布。其次，基于问答样本，比较了三类机构的提问行为和提问激发的问答行为。最后，在充分考虑机构属性的情况下，讨论了三类机构在学术问答交流中的问答参与和行为模式，并为机构和ASNS提供了一些建议。

发现

结果表明，这三类机构对RG问答服务的参与度普遍较低，机构用户提出的问答数量符合幂律分布。学术、企业和政府机构之间的问答参与和问答行为模式存在差异。政府和学术机构参与问答服务的用户较多，用户提问的意愿更强，而企业机构参与问答服务的用户较少，用户更倾向于提供答案。法人机构的问题比其他两类机构的问题更受关注。

原创性/价值

本研究揭示并比较了三类机构在学术问答中的问答参与和行为模式，从而加深了对学术信息交流语境中机构属性的理解。在实践中，研究结果可以帮助指导不同机构更有效地使用ASNS的问答服务，帮助ASNS更好地优化问答服务。