I have found so many useful research papers that are free.  RG is particularly useful for researchers like me who do not have a research grant.  We get free literature to review; at least even if the papers are not yet on RG, I can get them from the authors.  There is room for improvement, each of us has a role to improve it and I know my role.

The best thing about RG is that I found collaborators.  This was not possible on other social media, for me at least.  (@Robin, I have a question on this matter.  Great minds think alike.  Thanks.)

Robin:

RG has been a great resource in keeping abreast of current research in my field as well as helping to connect with other researchers and experts for finding answers to my questions that include technology and academia in higher education. I am still figuring out how to navigate the entire RG site, so I am not sure if this is an improvement: but, I'd like to be able to pull responses from similar topics together in one post, so that I can have all the similar information in one place.

Many thanks,

Debra

I opened RG and Academia accounts about two years ago. I have been aware that that there is some controversy that the RG score is hard to replicate so there is some concern over whether it is meaningful. However, disregarding that, about three months ago, I decided to get into promoting my research much more on RG, and I have been very pleased with the results, thanks to the community of researchers I have encountered online through this site. I like the site design and font size. I wonder if at some stage, it will become possible to upload videos of conferences presentations. Sometimes, I feel that I want people to see my powerpoint files in real-time as well as my papers because that is a useful entry point for understanding the paper. I have downloaded so many papers recently that I am not sure where to begin.

I have found so many useful research papers that are free.  RG is particularly useful for researchers like me who do not have a research grant.  We get free literature to review; at least even if the papers are not yet on RG, I can get them from the authors.  There is room for improvement, each of us has a role to improve it and I know my role.

The best thing about RG is that I found collaborators.  This was not possible on other social media, for me at least.  (@Robin, I have a question on this matter.  Great minds think alike.  Thanks.)

ResearchGate has been a great place to find resources .  As a social media tool or online forum for exchanging ideas it seems great!  Like all forums, the quality of the discussion depends on the quality of the questions/responses and ideas presented.  I haven't engaged in enough discussions here but after seeing the new "Questions matching your expertise" that are being funneled my way I hope to get more involved.   The question-interest matching is a great feature and makes me curious about what else RG can do.  

@Miranda, in terms of collaborators, how were you able to find them?  Does RG have additional features that makes reaching out to collaborators simple?

Thanks!

Hi everyone. I think platforms like RG need initiators like Robin Kay (thanks for that @Robin, I really appreciate your devotion) who somehow find the energy, time and motivation to ask and collaborate towards new ideas. We, academics, always are ego-boomers when it comes to discussing research-area-related-matters and we always know better than the other in our globe glass/es...RG and academia.edu with its sharing, co-authoring and commenting features may lift the lids off of those glasses and solicit trans-disciplinary critical thinking. The more we push towards academic collaboration and bend the system, the more those gadgets and features will be displayed efficiently on these platforms.  

RG works well for me as a clipping service, notifying me of articles and authors that may be interesting to me. I've already found a relevant call for chapters, and am working on that manuscript. 

RG is an excellent source for no-cost, full-text PRJ articles that my college library does not carry. 

The lack of keyword and title searches from the RG search tool is a problem, so I use Google as a workaround.

google.com site:researchgate.net sodeman millennial

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=site%3Aresearchgate.net+sodeman+millennial

I agree with Dr. Aydemir - thank you Robin for posing really good questions! 

Like the others who respond, RG is really helpful to get articles - it's a shame about publisher embargoes though, because some researchers are obligated to withhold MSs. However, while that is useful, to me that's not taking advantage of social media.

I have made some connections in the months I've tried to be active in forums, so that is useful. I find, however, that the quality of questions varies, especially those asked by students. Sometimes I wonder if the questions are being posed to raise RG score, or if the questioner really hasn't thought to do a Google search (at the least!) or a lit review prior to posting. That disappoints me.

I also fully agree with Dr. Coulson that videos should be up-loadable, or at least to have the capability to embed code from something like YouTube.

One clear benefit is the broad range of ideas that are generated and would have been very difficult to come up with alone (see lists below)

So far the benefits are

-       getting free access to good quality research papers,

-       finding collaborators

-       finding answers to questions

-       promoting one’s research

-       encourages new perspectives and critical thinking

-       notification of relevant articles that have just come out

-       examining impact of published work

 And the challenges/suggestions are

-       navigating RG

-       pulling common messages/posts together

-       RG score is no as transparent as it might be

-       The ability to upload videos

-       quality of discussion vary

-       not sure how well the questions/interest matching works

-       lack of keyword search (there is a title search @William)

-       research embargoes on some articles

-       quality of questions varies

@Laura - Good questions are a challenge to create for sure and I have not always been successful.  I personally try to post questions that are a bit spicy, maybe a tad controversial and invite an international perspective.

I do struggle with the decision of asking or simply search through Google, but for almost all questions I have received really interesting responses that I don't think I could have found on Google.  That said, I probably could have found more on Google beforehand.  I have to admit I like the social interaction and getting to know folks I would never have come in contact with, even at the risk of being a bit lazy and not finding the answers myself.  Academia can be a bit isolating, especially with our online program. 

Finally, RG score is not as simple as some might think - I personally believe it is run by magical gnomes.  Participating to get your RG score up is fools gold because the moment you don't participate, your score drops rapidly. 

I agree with most of what you mentioned about RG w/ the easy connections, article sharing, etc. The RG score is a bit annoying because it emphasizes impact factor, which many journals in my field don't use... and even if they do, the IF is so low it barely registers. Also, the quick, sometimes inexplicable drops are confusing. I like it as an idea, but in practice, I'm not sure how helpful it is.

For me, the best feature is the reference linking, though it could be improved by searching in places other than the end of the document (e.g., in dissertations with alternative final pages). Immediate links to colleagues via their articles brings attention to your work and makes connections (of a sort) on your behalf, while also allowing you to insights into how your peers use your work. In time, I hope promotion and tenure committees will consider the reads (or similar stats) as evidence of meaningful exposure.

Hi,

RG is what keep me in touch with research. I’m working as an engineer in computer science. My job is very far from the research world! It would be great if there is a French area in RG, because English is my third language and sometimes it’s difficult for me to express myself.

Have a nice day

Hi

Researchgate is a space where we exchange lots of information on scientific researches. It allows to share papers, ask and answer questions and discuss results.

This kind of sites are generally benefical to communicate and to be remain in contact with the community of researchers.

Personnally, i think that Researchgate is the one of the best social networking because it promotes interactions between countries by connecting their scientists/researchers in various disciplines. The number of users is increasing which proves its success.

The best thing about Researchgate is RG Score which encourages researchers to be more active and this is a kind of recognition and at the same time a reward.

Best regards

As a business professional and a currently active graduate student, I look to Research Gate (RG) as another tool in my toolbox of learning. This RG site offers the ability for members to share research, insights, challenges and advice for learning. As a recent member in the last couple of months, I have had the opportunity to reach out to several academic professionals for sharing of their published research with me, and everyone that I have reached out to have been very gracious in offering feedback to my questions in a very thorough and insightful manner.

I am not so sure how the Research Gate score works or if it encourages further interaction between the membership – however, RG does work well for my individual current interests and research focus and therefore, I'll continue to engage with the site and my connections.

I have found it extremely useful. In my profession and my study, I come in contact with many like minded people.  However through researchgate I can and have connected easily with people with many contrasting perspectives and as such have had my own thinking extended.

I have found the vast majority of people here willing to share idea and thoughts, not just agree.

Is it a social media tool though?

Steve

Dear Prof.Robin Holding Kay,

This is an extremely useful question. I think Research gate (RG) is the best academic tool today. RG makes it easy for researchers to connect with one another and share knowledge and academic resources. However, the RG needs to have a more rigorous system to evaluate the questions and answers, so that questions are actually more useful and more academic.

@ Nguyễn Thanh Lâm A very good point about "evaluating questions and answers" - Right now it is being done by the users more or less. I am wondering if it is really possible, though, to develop a better system. In essence, the community determines worth.

I completely agree with you, Prof. Robin Holding Kay .

I think so

The Research Gate portal is a very useful tool for researchers. It combines the functions of the social media portal with the database for the indexation of scientific publications. The improvement of the RG portal can be carried out by analyzing the development of other social media portals and adding new functions, a tool for the RG portal that have other social media portals and which the RG portal does not yet have.

RG has been really useful and helpful for so many researchers worldwide.

Research Gate a very useful research portal which allows social interaction amongst researches across the continents. It provides an easy tool to post and access research, The portal has itself evolved (improved) over a period of time and continues to do so. Current it gives credits to its members only for computation of 'research interest' but should cover all the readers who access this site. There is still chance to improve capitations by expanding its data-base which has certain current limitations. Overall, it is an impressive and best forum currently available for all research interactions and interests.