Library of Celsus, Wayne Noffsinger

© Catherine Jenkins 2017

Academia.edu is a social media platform allowing academics to post papers and other academic information in a mission to share and accelerate research dissemination. Launched in 2008, it has grown to over 47-million users, with over 2-million research interests, and over 17-million posted papers. The platform allows users to post abstracts or papers, as well as follow academics of interest to their area of research. Each month, Academia.edu attracts over 36-million unique visitors, and a recent study by PLOS ONE indicated that papers posted on the site garner a 69% increase in citations over five years. Researchers can search by a scholar’s name, article title, or subject area to find work most pertinent to their interests. The site also maintains a blog, and a job board.

The platform allows users to monitor analytics for their profiles and individual papers, making it clear which papers are generating the most interest. Academia.edu has been reported on, generally positively, in popular journals including Nature, Wired, The Washington Post, The Economist, Fortune, Bloomberg, Forbes, and Scientific American. One concern about posting research material online is the prospect of copyright infringement. Academia.edu has a clear copyright statement, threatening to disable or terminate user accounts of repeat offenders; however, the onus is on the researcher whose intellectual property has been infringed upon to report such violations. In 2013, academic press Elsevier demanded that Academia.edu remove over 2800 article authors had posted, citing copyright violation. Another potential concern is that because researchers post their own papers, they may not have received peer review.

Although I’ve had an account with Academia.edu since 2011, with a modest 38 followers, I’ve been cautious about uploading much content. My conference abstracts are there, but not the full papers. I uploaded a book chapter several years after hard copy publication, and once it was contractually permissible. Occasionally, people have requested copies of full papers, and I’ve always asked why they want them.

I appreciate the site’s analytics, which allow me to see which of my posted conference abstracts are garnering the most interest, and might be worth developing into longer papers. It’s also fun to review which countries are popping up. Apparently, I have a global academic reach! Although the majority of views have been Canadian or American, I’ve also had several hits from the UK and Australia, as well as numerous countries in Europe and Asia—and even one from Vatican City! Although Academia.edu is sometimes compared with LinkedIn, I’ve found it more useful than my (now defunct) LinkedIn account. Unlike on Facebook, you won’t find any cute cat pictures, but Academia.edu is a simple and viable way to share research and see who’s doing what.