Social networking sites are excellent tools for researchers to connect with others, sharing ideas and research results. They can also provide useful impact data. However, they are not compliant with the principles of Open Access or the policies of HEFCE, RCUK or the University of Worcester.
Specifically Adademia.edu and ResearchGate:
- are commercial services that make no commitment to long term preservation and access
- as commercial services are explicitly excluded by some publishers as places that authors can deposit their work. For example; Emerald and Elsevier.
- do not help the University monitor and report on compliance with HEFCE, RCUK and other funder open access requirements.
For a more detailed exploration of the issues relating to the use of Academia.edu and ResearchGate see “A social networking site is not an open access repository”. Article available at http://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/2015/12/a-social-networking-site-is-not-an-open-access-repository/ [accessed 04/05/2016]
