Document Type : Original Article
Authors
1 MS.C in Knowledge and Information Science, Department of Knowledge and Information Science, Faculty of management, Tehran University, Tehran, Iran
2 Assistant Professor; Policy Evaluation and STI Monitoring Departement, National Research Institute for Sience Policy (NRISP); Tehran, Iran
3 Assistant professor, Department of Knowledge and Information Science, Faculty of management, Tehran University, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
Background and Objectives: The scientific community's presence in scientific and professional social networks such as LinkedIn has advantages such as improving scholarly works' visibility, sharing knowledge with professionals and students, interacting with other scholars, and promoting research's social impact. This study aims to analyse the activities of faculty members in the field of Information Science and Knowledge Studies in the social network of LinkedIn.
Methodology: The present research is applied, and descriptive-analytical and the method used in this research is the library and social network analysis, which has been done with a quantitative approach. The research community consists of all faculty members working in Information Science and Knowledge Studies in Iranian public universities. Data were obtained manually during June and July 2019 by examining each of these members' profile pages. Then, the obtained data were entered into Excel software and tabulated and analysed based on research questions.
Findings: The results showed that 59.13% of the faculty members are members of LinkedIn. Of this number, only 17.64% have been active in posting, commenting, and liking, with Maryam Sarrafzadeh and Amir Reza Asnafi accounting for the highest number. The most common topic of faculty posts on LinkedIn is "Sharing and introducing personal scholarly outputs" at 28.07%. In the LinkedIn interests section, 54 members followed 314 groups, influential people, companies, and educational institutions. In general, "Abdolreza Norouzi Chakli" and "Rasoul Zavaraqi" followed by 73 of the mentioned cases have the highest amount. The activities of "Maryam Sarrafzadeh" and "Abdolreza Norouzi Chakli" are more diverse than the others. The studied indicators determined that "Maryam Sarrafzadeh" with 3161 points and among the universities; the University of Tehran with 6271 points had the highest performance. Among the surveyed members, 75% of the people in their profile have a personal photo. Given the importance of having an image on your LinkedIn profile, 25% of people who do not have a photo on their profile are almost high.
Examining the faculty members' profiles and the information they provided about themselves showed that they had performed poorly in this area. The low statistics of completing the experiences, achievements, and language sections show that people did not enter everything they are, but only briefly mentioned them. Recommendations, which are an essential part of LinkedIn, have received very little attention. The "About" section of most people gives minimal information about the person. This may be because people are not interested in describing their scientific and professional life descriptively or do not take completing this section very seriously.
Discussion: In general, according to the findings of this study, including that less than 14% of faculty members on LinkedIn have shared posts, and also had the least interaction with the posts shared by other members in the form of likes and comments, it can be said that board members Information Science and Knowledge Iranian public universities have not used the facilities and capabilities of the LinkedIn social network to share knowledge and communicate with professionals and students.
The faculty members' poor performance of the Iranian Information Science and Knowledge Departments on LinkedIn has prevented a real interaction between science and practice. So that specialists in this field, such as librarians, research experts and people involved in the areas of scientometrics and evaluation of science and technology, can not update their professional knowledge by following faculty members and published research to improve their working performance.
Job search is one of the most critical applications of a LinkedIn social network, and many employers search for the required workforce from LinkedIn. In resume and job search workshops held by libraries in developed countries for job seekers, LinkedIn and how to present profile information in a way that attracts the employer is taught. But in Iran, the issue is not taken into account; given the high unemployment rate in Iran, it needs to be educated and taken seriously.
It is suggested that faculty members of Information Science and Knowledge Studies have an active presence in this network and encourage their students to use it. Incorporating scientific and professional social networks such as LinkedIn into related courses and institutionalizing its use as a conduit for faculty and students and staying up-to-date scientifically can pave the way for it to be taught by future professionals and professionals. It is also suggested that different Library and Information Association branches hold educational workshops on scientific and professional communication in cyberspace to emphasize the importance of being on the social web to enhance the visibility of the scholarly works and increase the social impact of research and provide the necessary platform for education and public awareness.
Keywords
- Social Networks LinkedIn
- Faculty Members
- Library and Information Science
- Scholarly Communication
- Research Visibility
Main Subjects
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