Presentation Type
Lightning Talk
Date
2017-07-28
Description
The popularity of ResearchGate and Academia.edu indicates that scholars want to share their work, yet to librarians tasked with implementing an Open Access policy, it can appear as though faculty are willing to invest more time uploading articles to academic social networks—often in violation of publisher policies—than in submitting articles for deposit in the institutional repository. In this lightning talk, we will present the results of a population study and survey that revealed the practices, attitudes, and motivations of faculty at the University of Rhode Island around depositing their work in ResearchGate and complying with our permissions-based Open Access Policy. While the majority of URI faculty do not use either service, we were surprised to find that faculty who share articles through ResearchGate are more likely to comply with the Open Access Policy, not less, suggesting that librarians should not view academic social networks as a threat. We discovered that a significant barrier to compliance with the OA Policy is the fact that it targets the author’s accepted manuscript version of articles and that misunderstandings about copyright leave authors confused about options for legally sharing their work.
Keywords
ResearchGate, Academia.edu, Open Access policy, academic social networks, population study and survey, University of Rhode Island, accepted manuscript, copyright
DOI
10.13028/jp9q-1v79
Rights and Permissions
Copyright the Author(s)
Repository Citation
Lovett J, Rathemacher A. (2017). ResearchGate vs. the Institutional Repository: Competition or Complement?. Northeast Institutional Repository Day (NIRD). https://doi.org/10.13028/jp9q-1v79. Retrieved from https://escholarship.umassmed.edu/neirug/2017/program/13
Location
Albert Sherman Center Auditorium, AS2.2102
Included in
ResearchGate vs. the Institutional Repository: Competition or Complement?
Albert Sherman Center Auditorium, AS2.2102
The popularity of ResearchGate and Academia.edu indicates that scholars want to share their work, yet to librarians tasked with implementing an Open Access policy, it can appear as though faculty are willing to invest more time uploading articles to academic social networks—often in violation of publisher policies—than in submitting articles for deposit in the institutional repository. In this lightning talk, we will present the results of a population study and survey that revealed the practices, attitudes, and motivations of faculty at the University of Rhode Island around depositing their work in ResearchGate and complying with our permissions-based Open Access Policy. While the majority of URI faculty do not use either service, we were surprised to find that faculty who share articles through ResearchGate are more likely to comply with the Open Access Policy, not less, suggesting that librarians should not view academic social networks as a threat. We discovered that a significant barrier to compliance with the OA Policy is the fact that it targets the author’s accepted manuscript version of articles and that misunderstandings about copyright leave authors confused about options for legally sharing their work.