Dear Stavros,

I am really wondering how the RG score works in certain circumstances. Consider the following two user profiles:

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Teymur_Zulfugarzade - Mr. Zulfugarzade has a RG score of just 12.96 despite having 1,241 publications (a number of publications which I consider enormous). So far, he has delivered just 9 answers.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Joachim_Pimiskern - Mr. Pimiskern has a RG score of 223.43 (!), without having published a single paper yet (!!!). His score is based completely on 2,550 answers that he has contributed so far.

I think it is remarkable.

Paul

Dear Stavros,

Please find enclosed an other example of an RG score that seems to be biased in favor of answering questions:

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Irina_Pechonkina - Ms. Pechonkina has a score of 51.72 with 51 publications (1.97k reads), but 2,449 answers. I am sure that there are many scholars among your peers with much more publications and reads (including yourself) but with a lower RG score.

Paul   

Dear Stavros,

I have discovered the following discussion that may be of interest for you: https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is_RG_score_serious

If you go through the list of participants you will find several scholars with an RG score well above 100, but with an h-index between 4 and 9 only. However, they have delivered between 4,800 and 10,600 (rounded) answers.... 

It seems to me that ResearchGate tries to encourage conversation among scholars. If you communicate with your peers, you will be rewarded with a high RG score...     

Paul

Dear Paul, 

your comments are very insightful. Unfortunately they also speak badly of the RG score.

How many papers one publishes or how many questions one answers says nothing about quality of the work. Are the 1241 publications you mention in refereed journals, or just working papers or newspaper editorials? Are the answers provided deep and insightful or just an answer to make noise. Having a "scholar" without any publications but  RG score 223.43 is indeed remarkable. 

May I suggest you add a brief note of your findings in the Wikipedia entry of ResaerchGate and communicate this to the RG people. This may force them to think a bit more their algorithm. Maybe only answers that receive a threshold of up votes from different users could count.

In the meantime we can keep up this conversation and while having fun increase our RG score....  Even more effective is to  ask my 11-year old son to log on to my account and start answering questions. He seems to have an opinion about everything :) 

Thanks for taking the time

Stavros

Dear Stavros,

Some days ago I received my own first RG score which to 79% is made out of answers :-) (however I try to be not trivial when taking part in discussions). So probably I should be a little more cautious with my conclusions ))

Regards,

Paul 

Dear Stavros A. Zenios,

I believe that participating in the discussion on a research topic in your area, or in a related area, may be helpful. In this way, you can increase your knowledge and that of the other participants. You create a useful space for a constructive discussion. However, participating in all discussions seems to me like a little as improvise ...... I do not believe in those "who know everything and more".

Best Regards,

Fabrizio Rossi

It is a very good question.Personally for me at least. I have started to use rg only from the past three months actively. I found my rg score was increasing till last week even though without much participation in the discussion, except I have asked few questions related to my research. My score splits expressed as I got it because of people reading my articles. I wondered suddenly the scores went down a bit even though highest read was during last week. Now I am clear with rg scores. As discussed by Mr.Stavros and my friend Mr.Paul 

It is clear from the observations by Paul and Co. that the more answers you provide, the higher your RG score. Personally, I also notice that publication with open access are also given better scores.

I agree with Timothy Oluwatosin Olawumi on publication with open access journals. Most authors with open access articles are given better scores.