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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 (Center for Studies of Information Resources, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China)
Wanying Deng (School of Information Management, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China)
Xiaorui Sun (School of Information Management, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China)
Zihao Wang (School of Information Management, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China)

Aslib Journal of Information Management

ISSN: 2050-3806

Article publication date: 10 January 2022

Issue publication date: 16 May 2022

352

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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