Social networks and electronic platforms for scientists

In the modern world, scientific activity has long gone beyond laboratories and academic institutes. It is increasingly integrated into the online space, where social networks and electronic platforms are becoming important tools for sharing knowledge, collaboration and finding resources. Let’s consider the main ones and their role in the professional development of scientists.

1. ResearchGate

One of the largest specialized platforms for scientists is ResearchGate. It is an electronic platform for exchanging scientific articles, communicating with colleagues and finding partners for scientific projects. ResearchGate allows researchers to create personal profiles, upload their publications, track citations, and interact with other researchers in their field.

Main functions:

● Downloading scientific works for shared access.
● Tracking the number of citations and the level of research impact.
● Communicating with colleagues and receiving feedback on their work.
● Search for scientific partners and vacancies.

2. Academia.edu

Academia.edu is a platform that offers similar capabilities to ResearchGate, but has a wider reach among academics in different fields. In addition, the platform provides tools to track who reads your articles, and allows you to publish your research for free to a wide audience.

Advantages:

● Possibility of distribution of scientific works among a wide audience.
● Tools for analytics and monitoring of work views.
● Free access to scientific publications of other users.

3. Mendeley

Mendeley is an electronic platform and tool for bibliography management, article sharing, and scholarly collaboration. It also functions as a social network for researchers, allowing the creation of interest groups to work together on scientific projects.

Opportunities:

● Organization and management of the bibliography.
● Automatic creation of citations and bibliographic lists.
● Creation of scientific groups to exchange ideas and resources.
● Tracking the popularity of scientific works.

4. ORCID

ORCID is a unique identifier for scientists that allows them to integrate their research across different platforms. With the help of ORCID, you can combine all your scientific works under one digital identifier, which simplifies their identification and increases visibility in the scientific community.

Key Features:

● Creation of a single scientific profile that can be used on different platforms.
● Promoting the recognition of scientific achievements and ensuring their integration at the international level.
● Automatic addition of new publications to the profile.

5. LinkedIn

Although LinkedIn is not a specialized platform for academics, it is still an important social network for professional development. Through it, you can find opportunities for scientific internships, grants and cooperation with the private sector. LinkedIn allows you to create a network of contacts, in particular among representatives of the academic and business community.

Benefits for scientists:

● Search for scientific grants and vacancies in the industry.
● Building a personal brand as an expert in your field.
● Collaboration with other professionals and exchange of ideas.

6. Scientific Social Community (Scientific social network)

Scientific Social Community is a specialized social network for scientists that allows you to share information about conferences, grants, jobs and internships. This platform is aimed at scientists from various fields of knowledge and allows you to participate in thematic discussions.

Features:

● Announcements about scientific conferences, grants and vacancies.
● Communication with colleagues in scientific communities.
● Creation of a professional profile and exchange of scientific works.

7. Google Scholar

Google Scholar is a free search engine that indexes scholarly publications, books, conference abstracts, and other academic resources. It allows scientists to find their works, monitor citations, and also search for literature from various scientific fields.

Advantages:

● Search for academic articles, dissertations, books and patents.
● Ability to create a personal profile with information about scientific publications.
● Tracking the number of citations and analyzing academic activity.
● Integration with other scientific platforms such as ORCID.

8. BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine)

BASE is one of the largest search engines for academic resources, indexing more than 240 million documents from more than 8,000 sources. This platform allows you to find open scientific publications, journals, data and other academic materials.

Advantages:

● Search for open access academic publications from various disciplines.
● A large volume of scientific materials from university repositories and other sources.
● Support for many languages ​​and scientific disciplines.

Why should you use:

● Instant dissemination of information about scientific achievements.
● Ability to participate in scientific discussions in real time.
● Creating a community of researchers working in related fields.

9. Zenodo

Zenodo is an open platform for storing and sharing scientific data, research and results, supported by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). On Zenodo, scientists can publish their work for free, as well as store large data sets.

Features:

● Support for various types of content (articles, data, reports).
● DOI (Digital Object Identifier) ​​available for each publication, facilitating citation.
● Integration with the GitHub platform for saving code and repositories.

10. Figshare

Figshare is an open platform for storing and publishing scientific data, reports and articles. It allows scientists to freely share the results of their research with other scientists and provides long-term access to these results.

Advantages:

● Publication of scientific results in open access.
● Ability to download various types of files: articles, data, presentations.
● Issuance of DOI for each publication.

11. Publons

Publons is a platform that allows scholars to receive recognition for their peer review and editing of scholarly articles. Publons is integrated with various scientific journals, which allows you to automatically add peer-reviewed papers to your profile.

Advantages:

● Accounting and recognition of reviewer activity.
● The possibility of viewing the statistics of reviews, which increases the authority of the scientist.
● Integration with ORCID for automatic import of reviews.

12. Hypothesis

Hypothesis is an open annotation platform that allows scientists to comment and discuss scientific publications in real time. It integrates with many scientific platforms and allows open peer review of scientific texts.

Features:

● Open commenting on scientific articles and publications.
● Ability to discuss scientific research in real time.
● Integration with many scientific journals.

Social networks and electronic platforms open new horizons for scientists, facilitating not only collaboration and knowledge sharing, but also the development of a personal brand. The use of such platforms allows not only to improve the visibility of your research, but also to significantly expand the opportunities for obtaining grants, establishing international relations and professional development.