An exploratory study of paper sharing in Mendeley's public groups

Gao, Huiqin; Hu, Changping; Jiang, Tingting

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/73443 Copy

Description

Title

An exploratory study of paper sharing in Mendeley's public groups

Author(s)

• Gao, Huiqin
• Hu, Changping
• Jiang, Tingting

Issue Date

2015-03-15

Keyword(s)

• social media
• knowledge management
• online communities

Abstract

Mendeley website is a representative academic social networking service. We aim to study how papers are shared in the public groups in Mendeley. The results show that 61.58% of the public groups were extremely small in size, containing only one member (the creator of the group). When it comes to paper sharing, 26.88% of the groups had no papers added to them. Large groups did exist, i.e. the groups having more than 1,170 members. Groups with large amount of papers also existed, i.e. groups having as many as 90,458 papers. On the other hand, there are top groups with high averages of paper readership; interestingly, these groups had small numbers of members and papers, both below 20. From the results of this research, the truth of online ecology on Mendeley website could be revealed. Taking an insight into the current condition helps group owners activate their groups, and also helps operators of Mendeley make decisions on improving services. Those improvements would make Mendeley a more advanced social platform for scholarly knowledge communication.

Publisher

iSchools

Series/Report Name or Number

iConference 2015 Proceedings

Type of Resource

text

Language

English

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/73443

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