I observe daily fluctuations in my and others RG scores. Has anyone an idea how exactly RG scores are being calculated? How are they influenced by "questions", "answers", "publications" and how they are scored?
Don't be bothered with the RG score. You'll never get a job from it, nor true academic reputation. And RG seems unwilling to disclose how it's calculated (the algorithm) except for some very general phrases. A high figure likely means you have published a fair deal, but that is more clearly shown by inspecting publications on RG or - better - on ISI Web of Knowledge or similar. There may be information content - positive and/or negative - in your interactions on RG (discussions etc), but again that is better judged by inspecting actual contributions than from a figure. As more and more prominent scientists seem to join RG (at least in my field) it becomes an increasingly valuable forum. But the RG metric and its constituents (by %) have minimal if any value. I used to be interested in its calculation but have lost interest: it doesn't matter as long as the metric is uninteresting (and largely uninformative) by itself. I was concerned that the "old" RG score (for which publications mattered little but discussion entries much) would discourage eminent senior scientists from joining. With that concern mostly out of the way, I'm unbothered by keeping the score for those who want it for their hybris...
“Once you’ve created content, your score is calculated based on how other researchers interact with your work, how often, and who they are. The higher their score, the more yours will increase.”
“you ask a question in topics or upload raw data to your profile, and one of the people interacting with your work happens to be a researcher with a high RG Score. Their interactions will have a positive effect on your score. And if that same researcher then decides to follow you, your score will increase even more. Think of it as a cycle: the more reputation you gain, the more you influence other researchers’ scores.
Credits: ResearchGate (about and news)
@Mauricio I know the general principles, but do you know what is the exact formula to calculate RG scores?
It totally depends on who interacts with you, researchers with high RG score if answer your questions/follow you leads to have positive impact on your RG score.
It totally depends on publications, answers, questions, and followers
The color legend for the RG score pie chart indicates four possible components of the RG score: answers, questions, publications and followers. However, even if I have several followers (261), this parameter is not a part of my RG score pie chart. Therefore, I don't think that followers are a major part of this rather silly "activity index" formula.
Don't be bothered with the RG score. You'll never get a job from it, nor true academic reputation. And RG seems unwilling to disclose how it's calculated (the algorithm) except for some very general phrases. A high figure likely means you have published a fair deal, but that is more clearly shown by inspecting publications on RG or - better - on ISI Web of Knowledge or similar. There may be information content - positive and/or negative - in your interactions on RG (discussions etc), but again that is better judged by inspecting actual contributions than from a figure. As more and more prominent scientists seem to join RG (at least in my field) it becomes an increasingly valuable forum. But the RG metric and its constituents (by %) have minimal if any value. I used to be interested in its calculation but have lost interest: it doesn't matter as long as the metric is uninteresting (and largely uninformative) by itself. I was concerned that the "old" RG score (for which publications mattered little but discussion entries much) would discourage eminent senior scientists from joining. With that concern mostly out of the way, I'm unbothered by keeping the score for those who want it for their hybris...
I agree with Trond. I also think that it is very important in RG is possible to get acquainted with various word research centers and his coworkers, have free access to full text of articles, conduct discussions on various issues, help graduate students and young researches, etc.
Cleyde @ : Why do you think your RG score not includes your publications? Another question is how to determine the value of RG based on publications. I feel, both number of publications and their impact factors are taken into account as well as reputation of the journals. I think it also takes into account whether journal is general or specialized in the research field.
Interesting topic even though I agree that we should probably not waste too much time thinking about our RG score! I noticed that my RG score dropped massively this week after adding a conference proceedings title to my list of publications which has not attracted any interest. I wonder whether little things like that would make a difference.
Something I think influences the scoring, is the tendency for people to 'like' or up-vote comments. This facility is good to let us know that somebody agrees with or values our comment, but does start getting close to social media platforms (as opposed to professional/academic). Also, if someone 'follows' you, you are invited to follow them back. Likewise, sometimes people will 'endorse' your skills .... even if they have no direct experience of them.
If you don't take any serious notice of things like this though, then your RG score will not keep you awake at night or stop you getting a job. I think we should simply add the materials & background that others might find useful, & engage in some of the academic / professional debate that questions like this enable.
Exactly, the point of this platform is to share as much material we believe others will find useful, irrespective of whether it's peer-reviewed, high-impact or likely to help our RG score. Every single piece of information we share might help trigger ideas and discussion. The primary motivation for joining RG should always be dissemination of one's research, not having a high score. It's also confusing that there are two scores, hence perhaps it's best to just ignore them altogether and focus on building relationships and getting and giving constructive feedback.
I agree with Michalis. Taken into context, the true benefit of RG is in the sharing - not the score. Perhaps RG should market it more this way as part of their 'green open-access culture' - but I suspect an alternative commercial motive. I enjoyed the benefit of good mentors in my early career - and this may well prove a similar platform for some. It would be nice to think that this is where it is all heading with everyone having a 'voice'.! On the the other hand, how many people are 'listening' to those with a low RG score?
Hopefully, people 'listen' & engage with people because of the points they raise & what they have to say, not because of the prestige of a high RG score. Does a high score = 'dicto ergo est' .... ? At least on a platform such as this, you can politely voice your opinion & engage with others on an equal footing. Something I tell students on entering university is that they are now in a community of scholars & if they can formulate and reason their opinion on a subject, then the community will listen and respond, regardless of seniority (or RG score). Forums and questions (such as this one) give everyone a voice. The replies we get (+/- the up-vote) give us an idea of how valid our position might be. I think this element of engagement and sharing is also important, so it is good to see those with high RG + impact, joining in with those not so well endowed - in a credentialist sort of way :-)
Thanks Nicholas - good points. It's not a given, of course, that RG score necessarily equates to the best questions or feedback. I fully agree that those with a high score should be both willing and (hopefully) enjoy giving others the benefit of their experience and insight. I suppose more what I meant in my last post relates to the fact, not as a 'given', but I sometimes notice that 'neophyte' researchers can appear a little too 'enthusiastic'. My advice to them (and all really) is take time to construct meaninglful questions and answers - whether they get marked up or down.
i think that RG score is not depending on how many publication you have, just the impact of your publications especially on the reaesrch gate members
Abdulghefar: For anyone with a reasonably high RG score, the score will be about 75% or more based on publications, and then on the sum of the impact factors of the journals in which your works have been published. Hence, both # publications and journal impact factors. For all it's worth - or not. The impact on research gate members is mostly irrelevant unless it elicits discussion entries, even if views, downloads etc probably counts a bit. Exactly how much we won't get to know until RG discloses their algorithm. But as I have argued before, it doesn't really matter. We can just disregard RG score. And take an interest in what scientists have done instead.
I think journal reputation and number of citations play an important role in RG scoring metrics
The evaluation of RG score takes into account four activities:
1) Published articles: articles which are published in journals with impact factors in research gate site are well tacked into consideration in RG score, but other journals (may have impact factors in other sites) are less.
2) Question's share in RG score depends on the effect on other members. Usually questions which are common to other members and may large number of members share the question hence it gain large RG score! While for specialist (accurate) questions, small number of members may share the question and may gain small RG score
3) Answers: Usually depends on how other members react with and evaluate it.
4) Followers: this activity has less share in the evaluation of RG score
Best regards
I think I better quantitative description of the factors contributing to RG score would benefit its more widespread use. At present it is difficult to judge the provided information and added value in comparison to other indicators of scientific impact (h index and related…)
Ahhhh - but Irina - you disregard it as irrelevant - yet you still are registered with RG, felt the need to investigate, felt the need to rely. Your reply, by itself, seems a contradiction in itself. If it has no place in your science - perhaps you should just not bother responding. When you suggest that 'we would all be happier' without it - are you speaking for yourself or everyone?
The use of bibliometric information varies according to academic discipline. In the UK Research Excellence Framework some units of assessment use citation data, others do not. The impact factor of a journal is measure of the number of citations per article over a particular period. If there are a few articles with high citations it is possible for a journal to have a reasonable impact factor even if a large number of papers have no citations at all. These days many journal editors encourage authors to cite papers from their own journal in order to boost their citation scores. The impact factor is also influenced by the average time taken for publication of the articles that do the citing. My personal view is that we don't need to use impact factors as a proxy for quality - we can instead look at the citation scores for particular outputs, which are readily available on systems such as Scopus. However, the citation score is also a proxy for quality - what we should be really be looking at is originality, significance and rigour - the real, but subjective, elements of 'quality'.
My score is based on 3 publications, 2800 contributions with up factor average 1 , 359 followers, 106 skills, 1 popular question of above 2000 post.
The highest score that I know is 149 is based on 0 publication, less than 2000 contributions , 80 skills, 1365 followers,
So the number of followers seemed to be very important.
The RG platform as a tool/forum for advancement of knowledge and indulging in dialogue could be embraced. The "fixation" on a Score(s) is for the "financial" world of numbers. The scientific world and the inherent dialogue towards advancement is far more important.
Hi guys, I agree with Luis´ theory, that followers are very important - if so, it is like in real life - networking is the key to success, to research money and likely in many incidences to the impact level of resulting publication. Cheers.
I agree with Yuriy P. Gnatenko. My RG score is calculated based on, only, the impact factors of my publications and it is neither related with my interactions with researchers nor my answers to questions.
Generally, there are many researchers with lots of research papers but very meagre RG score, indicating that the algorithm calculating the RG score is taking into account the impact factors of the journals. Hence, there are also many researchers with one or two publications but having very high RG scores and impact points. In my opinion, one should be more cautious to speculate that the RG score is not based on reliable academic parameters.
Erman - 99% of your RG score is based on your publications & you have some question & answer recognition. But (taken from your page):
'How does the RG Score work?
Your RG Score is calculated based on how other researchers interact with your content, how often, and who they are. The higher their score, the more yours will increase.'
So it is not just the 19.09 impact points that give you a score, but how others interact with your work. How you interact with others is up to you & many of the high RG scores are linked to high levels of interaction. This simply reflects how people engage with the overall system.
Dear Nicholas
There are totally 432 downloads of my papers, however, this download rate, as I calculated, do not contribute to my impact point. It is also not clear if it infuences my RG score. The type of interactions on research gate can be generalized as downloads, views, answers, questions and paper requests. I do not frequently download other researchers' papers and hardly involve in asking a question or giving answers to a question. If too many interactions, other than uploading research papers, raise my RG score then this would be an artificial rise in my reputation on research gate. So, it is not necessary to try to increase the RG score just by interacting through several ways with others, instead of uploading research papers. So, the primary action should be the presentation (uploading) of our research and the secondary actions (answers, questions and downloads etc.) follows then. Without a specific knowledge on how RG metrics work, I think it is futile to criticize the underlying mechanism of RG reputations. I also looked up to your profile and noticed that you have high quality papers, which I believe that the most influential factors on your current RG score.
I don't know how to get into the score calculations myself, but if you have a large amount of downloads for your papers, it must mean people are interested & interacting with your work. Some use RG as a platform from which to further disseminate their work. Others use it as a forum to interact with like-minded people. Either way, if RG meets your needs, then this is the main thing. The RG metric can be interpreted (& obtained) differently, so it is not a consistent measure of 'reputation'. If we look at the overall meaning though, it tells us that somebody is making an effort to engage with the global academic community, & that has to count for something ;-)
Erman, you said, "Without a specific knowledge on how RG metrics work, I think it is futile to criticize the underlying mechanism of RG reputations." I find this an odd statement as criticism (or even better to scrutinize) is a common scientific process that leads to improvements. If we don't voice our dislike of a black box method, who will?
In my own opinion, the way this RG score is calculated should be made known to the members just as impact factors from Thompson Reuters and co. Otherwise, is of no need scoring someone without the person know the basis for his score. The other day, a paper was added twice for me and I removed one of it. Just after that, my RG score was reduced. This is pointless.
Olaniyi- did your impact points get reduced as well? It might just be an issue of deducting the 'duplicated'credits'?
I think RG has a good point, you cannot do a research and chuck it in some journal and wait for someone to catch it, in such massive amount of researches nobody can read everything, even if you have excellent papers, if no one read them what is the point from writing them, so activities done on such a platform increase the visibility of your work, and increase the visibility of you.
RG score is based on:
1- The quality and the quantity of your publications: how the quality is measured? throw the number of downloads and the number of citation. This counts in their algorithm because I felt it.
2- Asking questions: asking a question sometimes opens the door for a new research and ideas. The more answers you get the more ideas will be there, so researchers may use this discussion to produce new knowledge.
3- Question answers: Answering a question is (sometimes) valuable as writing a new paper, perhaps gives a higher impact than some papers. What is a paper? It is actually answering a question.
It is not the point how much is your RG score, those are just numbers, and the most important things on this platform are:
1- How many friends from all over the world you got?
2- Are you learning from research papers, questions and answers there?
3- The joy of helping someone, particularly young researchers.
4- Are you willing to do a collaborative research with one of those wonderful guys on RG?
5- Getting feedback, sometimes review of your work before and after publishing.
6- Getting in touch with key researchers from your research area (this is priceless)
7- Your papers, ideas, questions and answers will be seen clearly from a large number of researchers and employers too.
8- And many more benefits, the readers of this thread may add more...
If you wrote a paper in a high impact factor journal and nobody cited it, would you deserve credit?
If you write your papers and made your net hoping to catch fish, would you enjoy the above mentioned privileges? On the other hand, being an RG activist enable you not only to catch small fish but also big fish and fat cats (the employers).
In my opinion RG is developing itself everyday and is a revolutionary way to measure scientific reputation, with the speed development of information technology, RG, Google scholars and similar technologies will prevail, and traditional journals will be old fashion by time, even those with high impact factor.
Nicholas, yes I did experience that. I have not been added any point for adding my paper but the point was reduced for removing the duplicate (I guess). I think Ahmed is right but the major issue is to know the procedure just as in Thompson Reuters' case.
my own experience so far: 0.2 * (journal impact factor) / (number of authors)
I do not get what George is given here. It means that members' interaction does not count. I think downloads, views and co contribute to the RG score.
Hi, I think I find it. What is your opinion?
a1= Publication views (Total) a2=Publication views (Last week)
b1=Profile views (Total) b2=Profile views (Last week)
c1=Full-text downloads (Total) c2=Full-text downloads (Last week)
d1=Dataset downloads (Total) d2=Dataset downloads (Last week)
e1=Citations (Total) e2=Citations (Last week)
f1=Profile views (Total) f2=Profile views (Last week)
g1=Endorsements (Total) g2=Endorsements (Last week)
h1=Question views and voted (Total) h2=Question views and voted (Last week)
i1=Answer view and voted (Total) i2=Answer view and voted (Last week)
RG(Total)=RG(Old)+RG(Last week)
RG(Last week)=(a2/a1)+(b2/b1)+(c2/c1)+(d2/d1)+(e2/e1)+(f2/f1)+(g2/g1)+(h2/h1)+(i2/i1)
IF RG(Last week)
Hi Mostafa. I don't think you've found it ;-). It is clearly shown under "contributions" (shown when you click on the various types of contributions) that the RG score is based only on three types of contributions, i.e. publications, answers and questions.
Followers (and endorsements from these), citations and open reviews don't enter into the RG score.
For both A&Q, the number as well as up- and down-voting counts (this is clearly declared by RG), but how this is weighed together, we don't know.
For publications, their number obviously affect the RG score, but there are several publication-related parameters which RG keeps track of. These include the various types of publications, how many full-texts of your publications have been up-loaded, and how many times these have been viewed and down-loaded. How this is then used to come up with a contribution to the total RG score, we don't know. I only know that "publications" make up 39% of my RG score, Q 21% and A 40%.
I still stand by my question: https://www.researchgate.net/post/Whats_this_RG_Score_nonsense?_tpcectx=profile_questions
Cheers, Thrandur
Dear Mostafa, Thrandur and others interested in or frustrated about the RG score,
I don't think any serious scientist cares about the RG score, nor would any serious funding body or evaluation panel. The other RG index (impact points) however tells something, but only about the journals in which the scientist has published, not about the contributions by this particular scientist (I know you know all this, Thrandur...). Being a summary of journal IFs, it's exactly the type of index that top science editors have recently warned and advised against. Yet it does at least tell something that has to do with science. In contrast to the RG score, which doesn't.
I've said it before but say it again: let's just forget about the RG score when it comes to scientific merits. And those who fancy boosting their RG score by asking and answering questions can just carry on. I'm all for Q&As, as long there's some substance to it.
Best wishes, Trond
Agreed Trond.
I've been an RG member, I think, for about a year now. At first, I actively engaged in the RG score process and have amassed a reasonably healthy score. Previously, there were often good questions that, to me, seemed useful and original to engage with. For the last few months, however, I've hardly engaged - and my score just seems to 'hover'. It's not that i don't want to engage - but many of the questions are either repetitive, make no sense - or just seem to have been asked 'for the sake of asking'. I, personally, do not want to spend valuable time answering these questions - especially when individuals don't bother responding and when, those that do respond, don't bother to vote questions. I am more than happy to help and assist people with their questions - as long as they are obviously legitimate, original - and genuinely are being asked for all the right reasons.
Hi Dean, I agree that the greatest downside to the RG score is that people get tempted to ask nonsensical questions or questions you can easily find answer to on Wikipedia they can think of or questions
Agreed Bjorn - I'm almost certain that some ask questions already knowing the answer. As you suggest - it's as easy as looking on Wikipedia or a general Google etc for many questions. I think that these questions are asked, not so much for clarification, but to 'artificially' raise a profile.
Dean: it is interesting that whilst the 'quality' of questions is seen as important, there is still mention of the old 'votes' being a motivator for answering. I too have tailed off my activity, but still really like to engage with global peers.
There seems to be a token 0.0something which gets added to your score as a 'motivator', even when your activity is very low. Within the score though, I still don't understand how negative vales are calculated - you can do minimal activity, have only positive feedback & 'votes', yet still see your score go back a few points ....
Does anyone know how this works? My only thought is that if you give someone a bit of 'criticism' (i.e. take a few points off their score for inactivity or some undisclosed metric), then their emotional response will often be to refute this criticism through positive activity (not that there was any genuine 'negative' activity in the first place).
Dean and Björn: As you know, I've used to argue that we could simply ignore the RG score and else use RG for what it's worth. But I now more clearly realize the negative impact on communication - that valuable scientific exchange (asking and answering questions vs peers) is halted because all the non-sensible questions "dilute" the ones with content and meaning. If your ideas why people ask "stupid" questions (well, the ones that are easily answered by textbooks, Wiki or Google Scholar) are right, it's obviously a reason not only to disregard but to get rid of the RG score entirely. But I rather doubt the RG bosses would want to do that. It's probably a lost case. It's a pity - the Q&A part of RG sure has potential if sensibly used.
Trond: I previously expressed the view that: "... if RG meets your needs, then this is the main thing. The RG metric can be interpreted (& obtained) differently, so it is not a consistent measure of 'reputation'. If we look at the overall meaning though, it tells us that somebody is making an effort to engage with the global academic community, & that has to count for something ;-) ". Of course, ideas of 'stupid', 'relevance', 'appropriateness' etc. are all subject to individual interpretation, and after all, RG is a group of individuals. I think we have to take the rough with the smooth on this - the RG score is not going to give a constant reliable indicator of anything 'important' (another individual construct), but does serve as a general indicator for some people. To this end, I think it does serve some purpose.
While I've actively engaged in the discussion on the RGS, it's not because I find the score itself interesting, but rather what effect it may have on RG as a forum. As Trond and Nicholas echo above, there are arguments for and against, and the bottom-line is that RG will almost certainly never remove it.
However, there are actually other metrics summarized by RG which I find much more interesting. It thus gives me some degree of satisfaction as a scientist to see that my papers have been viewed 21000 times and downloaded 16000 times by members of the RG community.
The continuous endorsements by my colleagues can even give me some childish pleasure - I see it as a pat on the back by those who know me and my work well, and I use this function regularly to acknowledge the expertise of others.
The citation count by RG is pretty weak still, significantly underestimating the total number of citation. However, over the last year RG has crept closer to the citation count reported by Web of Science. A year ago RG reported about 50% of the citations, but has now reached about 75% of the total citations of my papers.
Interestingly, none of the above metrics has any impact on the RG Score!
Hi all,
The last four posts have been both illuminating and, most likely, 'hit the nail on the head'. It's nice to engage, it's nice to get at least a little recognition for your attempts to engage but, at the end of the day, the RG score is somewhat meaningless - is here to stay - and, no doubt, RG enjoys the debate of trying to fathom it out. It doesn't directly respond - and that is part of its 'mystery.
There are so many interesting points raised here but I would say that for the full Professors, this RG might be meaningless and they may not care about. What of younger researchers like us. When you apply for even funded workshops, not to talk of PhD admission, Post-doc or contacting a Prof. for possible consideration, the next thing you see is that someone just search for you on researchgate and definitely some of them are looking for your RG scores. I will say that is should be removed or otherwise the formular be reviewed so as to display the correct picture of the person involved.
This question is the right thing to gather scientists from all areas, so thank you Radoslaw for posting it. The loose, but important subject can stir up a true debate, like those that happen at scientific conference parties after a glass of wine. Because, as we all know well, today everything is science, including assigning scores to the scientists. I’m just waiting for Irene Waters to join us (a character from the 2000 comedy “Me, Myself and Irene”, played by Rene Zellweger). To remind the readers, in the film, Irene says that she has made an “MS degree in Horticulture and Golf Course Management” (forgive me if the phrasing is not exact). Afterwards, she admits it’s a lie, but in the next sequel of the film — who knows — she might really finish the degree or even catch a Ph.D. in this or similar field.
I got concerned about the RG score after a “disturbing news” in the RG email, telling me that my hardly earned score — although miserable in the first place (4.03) — flunked to even lower value! OK, not much, only for 0.02 points, but that made me wonder if I’ll ever reach some nice round number like 5.00, not to mention 10.00, that could present a “psychologically-important” level for someone to spot me (if I may borrow the language from another “scientific field of soft nature"). So, taking into account the Olaniyi’s warning, this could be quite alarming.
I was redirected to this post by a google search on the negative RG score change, after nothing clever and clear could be read about it on the RG site. And after reading the Trond’s words, I was comforted a bit. But I also read the note that I was afraid of — that the negative points could be given to sleepy members. So I thought that by answering this post — and perhaps by making the readers laugh — I might get my 0.02 points back! Of course, I can only hope that Mr. R.G. Score Algorithm will be clever enough to recognize my awaken activity, and that, on the other hand, it will not be too clever to realize my mockery. Not to mention that after all this, it has just occurred to me — shouldn’t I be doing my science now, instead of wasting time by checking the RG scores of mine and my peers?
So, to try to close this huge subject down, let me say that if we are going to trust such meaningless attempts to quantify something that cannot and needs not be quantified, then not only (the insignificant) me, but the whole science of the nowadays world is in jeopardy and in deep crises. (OK, this can hardly be a news to anybody.) I will illustrate this on the example of one of the leading scientists in the area of my expertise (one of those that I follow). He wrote more than a dozen of the most prominent textbooks in the field, he is the author and coauthor of several hundreds of papers, he was cited tens of thousands of times and was awarded the top prizes (however still not in the range of the Noble Prize winners). Atop of all this, he is known of his voluntary and nonprofit activities, sharing his knowledge to the broader community. Compared, e.g., to my marks, the rule of a thumb says that he should have RG score of at least 400, if not 4000 or even more. And his score is, guess what, not even above 30! But somehow I guess that he does not bother about it at all, nor he cares about the need to pass yet another “potentially psychologically-important(!?) barrier” of 30. In fact I’m sure about it, because he knows with numbers, he knows what they serve for and is capable of using his high-level math knowledge, calculations and programming for the meaningful purpose.
Of course, some readers might say that my argumentation was motivated only by my poor status here. Well, in that case my writing was in vain. Those who think so can down-vote my answer, and perhaps trigger my further degradation. But others will know — it’s not about me. I’m unimportant! I’m just afraid how Albert Einstein would fight the RG score algorithm? Would he surpass some agile RG member, fruitful in his or her many, but, alas, scientifically irrelevant contributions and activities? Because I doubt that the RG score algorithm can distinguish between the two.
Robert - very funny (& insightful) indeed ;-) Not sure if enough people will read the post through well enough to 'upvote' you to make you 'popular', but your RG score should at least take a moral boost.
Is there an official statement from RG about what the RG score is supposed to score or measure? I understand that the method of computation of this score is voluntarily kept secret by the RG organisation. But does the RG organisation say anything about what the score is supposed to mean.
Hi Louis,
No they don't. It's a double-edged sword that may or may not work for RG i.e. there is a mystique about that score that has us all intrigued and working to improve it - or there is the frustrating quandary that has contributors thinking 'if they are not transparent - and is it worth the effort if it doesn't make sense' - then I will not bother contributing.
Dean,
Could you imagine a teacher giving scores to students but refusing to explain what he evaluted. Then students wondering why their scores and speculating about it!!! In normal situations, the evaluation process is explained and people may not agree but they know what it is. Here we cannot even disagree because we do not even know what is evaluated. We can only guess. My guess is that publication can provided a maximum of 30. and questions may add 20 if they are popular. After that what is evaluated is mainly the level of RG internal social impact and RG external visibility and this is achieved by a lot of postings. A social network aiming to grow will favor a scoring system that favor the growth of participation. So probably that one get about .01 point per post but more if people vote up or visit profile or even more if an external web search find the post. If this speculation is approximatly right, making it known would lower the mystique of the score and so lower its effectiveness at increasing participation. And for the human technological histories the same conclusions. The particular path to these inventions were unlikely but these inventions were very likely: fire, weel, metal, electricity, iphone.
Louis - A good response - and I like the analogy of a student assignment. I thought that my student days were over - but perhaps RG has re-enacted those days. It's like 'please sir - how am I doing'? Nice if you are at the top of the class - not so good if you are at the other end of the scale!! Your Apple mention gives me an idea. If I owned RG - what about that incentive that 'top scorers' get a prize (say an iPhone)? However, with the current system - it seems to me that the allocation of the prize would be 'random'.
Dean,
The last three sentences were not part of that post but part of another post. Is it me or the system? I do not know. Being creative, you manage to make sense of that.
Not sure Louise - part of the intricacies of RG. Will we ever get to the bottom of it - and there's nothing wrong with creative posts.
Lois, that is a great point. It is decisions such as the proprietary score (which seems to favor the social aspect rather than content) that keeps me from taking this site seriously.
I also, therefore, question their mission:
"Our mission is to connect researchers and make it easy for them to share and access scientific output, knowledge, and expertise. On ResearchGate they find what they need to advance their research. "
Why does RG's score not reflect their mission?
Dean,
I am for creative posts. When I first began to participate on RG, there were no scores to the right of our names. When it was introduced, I wrote on a thread that I was against scores. My issue had nothing to do with the way it was calculated. My personal reason against scoring is that it may prejudice (positively for high score, negatively for low score) some peoples. This subjective biased of this score is even reinforced given that RG do not even tell the users what it is. Normally a scoring system is an imperfect attempt to evaluate objectively with regard to certain critera known by all. Here we have a unknown scoring system of an unknown critera. So the interpretation of the score is totally subjective. We have an imperfect unknown measuring instrument of an unknown the result of which is this score which is put to the right of your names qualifying you!!! on this social network for scientists.
Maybe someone knows what is the determination of the RG score algorym?
Louis - at 111.96, you seem superficially .... eminently qualified. If we read your post however, we can see that you present & argue your point well, so this subjective scoring mechanism is sort of working for me - my experience bares out my perceptions ;-)
All that aside, it is often a scientific viewpoint that the tool has to be perfect, the subject & criteria have to be quantified & measured, and all tested down to the 9th degree until we can possibly say that something is accurate or even works. The RG (as I have previously said), gives me a rough indicator of how an unknown peer contributes to the platform, roughly where & how much they publish etc. Is it an accurate picture .... it does its job for me (not counting those who have just joined & have little visible 'data'). I am OK with my interpretation of RG scores (whether others feel it accurately reflects them is another matter). It would be interesting to hear cases of how an RG score is not felt to accurately depict an individual (excepting new-comers) - any takers ?
Nicholas and Louis, the RG score doesn't match the mission statement of ResearchGate. If their mission is to be a social networking site, then their mission statement should reflect that. However, it does not. It makes a more scientific claim.
David- are you surprised? Being 'scientific' carries much more kudos than being social 🙊'
Nicholas,
My subjective evaluation of the participant does not correspond in general to the RG scores. The qualification tools are a joke. I received competences which I do not even understand the name. My highest competence is academic writing and I cannot write two sentences without making mistakes. Writing is not my forte.
I agree about the competencies & 'endorsements'. I receive all sorts of things from well-meaning people I have never met. I am not sure though, if these count towards your RG score. Part of the game design of 'social network sites' is reciprocity. People like to be 'liked', so they indulge in 'like' behaviour (pardon the pun). They also indulge in social comparison, display 'badges' (scores) that they feel demonstrate them as indulging in behaviours or having qualities that are appreciated by their peers. Unfortunately, whilst we can choose to be 'anti-social' & not play the game ourselves (sorry to any of you who may feel you deserve markers of appreciation from someone you who you have never met or worked with), we cannot stop others saying how great we are (perhaps RG could introduce a 'grumpy button' that allowed you to block all well meaning platitudes, but at the same time, factored-up your score for more 'serious' things (by way of compensation) :-P
Louis - as you used the word 'forte', I imagine your academic writing is of top class ... ohh... there I go being all superficial & 'SNS' again !
Good response Nicholas. It is a 'club'. I would like to believe that those that I end up following, I do so because they have a sound and valid track record. I can't see them needing to 'inflate' their score with false claims of competency. Back to you Louis - you are probably 'hiding your light under a bushel'. Academic writing must be one of the competencies that you have selected (although I do know that others choose as well - I've been 'sponsored' for all sorts of weird competencies that i've never even heard of before - but I decline them) - and 'forte' proves that you have an eloquent flair for words!!
Nicholas and Dean,
The reason I participate on RG is that I like to express my opinions on different topics and through this gradually evolve. The contact with other peoples is most necessary. Like many graduate Ph.D. students I could not find a job in the academia and so had to give up research and work in other fields. For twelve years it is what I exclusevely did but about three years ago I discovered RG and since my children are adults I have a little bit of time to think and the participation to RG discussions has been stimulating. My writing is improving with the practice and if I would be discipline enough to review my posts multiple time I would manage to write in a satisfactory fashion. I review this post twice.
Regards
Quote from the thread:
What have you learned from RG so far?
''Mariusz Swora · 12.70 · 1.82 · Jagiellonian University
I became more intercontinental (if not intergalactical), met researchers I would never met in my entire life, found out that the RG score is as predictable as my lovely wife (sorry Darling), got a lot of nice and sometimes unexpected endorsments (new are more than welcome :-), met a lot of interesting people, still enjoy our interdisciplinary discussions trying also to find other lawyers and possibly discuss sometimes something directly from my field. Guys, are you there?''
I really don't know how the RG score is computed. I hope one day the RG Team will share this algorithm with the scientific community. Then, we will be able first to understand it an then to improve it. As far as I'm concerned, keeping it confidential is not very efficient.
One year and this is what can be observed: the great part of reseachers I used to have feedbacks with increased their score of ~4x — i.e. they had ~15 pts in Dec. 2013 and ~60 pts this current Dec. It's a very trivial average, very similar to previous kinds of "seniority" in old families of fora. Also that kind of increasing personal sicumer goes hand in hand with the growth of time, as for clubs' members, while other qualitative measures remain fully uninteresting (within the score coinage). RG Score is demonstrated as inadequate for any scientific issue, and very poor also for statistics, its algorithm is a mere commercial attraction.
—g
on a multitude of occasions, the formula that describes the differential increase in RG due to peer-reviewed publications is likely to be (journal impact factor)*0.1
We, all the members on Research Gate, must request the RG Team to solve this puzzle.
I read somewhere that it reflects the Impact factor of you publication. Not sure.
see this link to know how the RG score is calculated
https://www.researchgate.net/profile.Experience.html
I am also wondering what the formula or algorithm behind the calculation of the RG score. What are the factors affecting RG Score? Answers to ll these questions are interesting ones for me also.
I am also keeplmg a close watch. I think it is related to how many down loads of my papers every month. R. M. Mehra
Cofounder of RG , Ijad Madisch"When researchers apply for grants or want to habilitate in the life sciences or related fields, they’re frequently asked to give an account of how many articles they’ve published in high impact journals and what the sum of the Thompson Reuters Journal Impact Factors (JIF) of these papers is.
The impact points displayed on researchers’ profiles on ResearchGate are an estimate of their cumulated JIFs, based on the articles they’ve claimed on, or uploaded to the network. Users don’t have to research the JIFs of every journal they’ve published in, but are presented with a value they can work with. We update impact points according to the Journal Citation Report regularly. However, glitches can occur. Please notify us if you think that the impact points on your profile aren’t up-to-date."
In India, research funding organizations are considering the Journal Impact Factors for awarding the research project.The total JIF of principal investigator is considered.
The JIF provided by ResearchGate is very useful in arriving at total JIF and making a presentation to research funding organization.
Dear AR Reddy. It's sad to hear about such incompetent research funding organizations, it they believe that the total JIF is a good way of deciding whether or not to fund a project. They really should read the DORA declaration http://www.ascb.org/dora-old/files/SFDeclarationFINAL.pdf and understand that while the JIF may be an indicator of the general quality of the journal, it says little about the quality of individual papers published in that journal, and even less about the quality of the research proposal they're considering funding.
Obviously, this formula is quite incomplete as the RG score can also decrease over time, i.e., somewhat the RG(last week) may be negative as well. This can happen for instance when the user tends to become come less involved in the RG "universe" during certain periods of time.
It seems quite a paradox, that a research oriented site keeps calculations underlying their own "reputation" indicator a secret. I thought research was about openness.
Last day, I have had a question: Is this constant evaluation, appropriate for RC Score?
I need your helps, answering with your ideas or sugesstions or ...coomments ...
I thing, this question is the right thing to gather scientists from all countries, so thank you very much in advance!
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