Social Web: Web 2.0 Technologies to Enhance Knowledge Communities - Community-Built Databases: Research and Development - page 11

scholarly needs, and subcommunities dedicated to research specialties with a vision
of creating “Science 2.0”. The aim of ResearchGATE is to promote knowledge sharing
between scientists all over the world and is based on the idea that communication
between scientists will accelerate the creation and distribution of new knowledge
and assure research quality [ 24 ]. In addition to facilitating research connections and
collaborations within research specialties, ResearchGATE offers an international
job board through RSS Feed from various international top research institutions.
At Academia.edu ( http://www.academia.edu ), researchers can easily find out
“who's researching what?”, find people with similar research interests, as well as
keep track of the latest developments in their research area, including the latest
papers, talks, blog posts, and status updates. Researchers can create an easy-
to-maintain webpage, listing their research interests, biography, and papers they have
written. Researchers can choose to receive notifications when someone searches for
their names and research papers on Google. They can also upload and share their
papers and talks, and receive statistics on how often their papers are viewed and
downloaded. Similarly, at Labmeeting ( http://www.labmeeting.com ), researchers
have access to a web service that helps organize, collect, and share scientific papers.
Researchers can also interact with top scientists at top universities through a question-
and-answer service from the network. At Mendeley ( http://www.mendeley.com ),
scientists and researchers can upload research papers, and the site sifts through
bibliographic data to match and recommend other related research papers already in
its database. The site provides a research management tool for desktop and web.
Mendeley Desktop is freely available on Windows, Mac, and Linux. It allows users
to organize a collection of research papers and citations, automatically extracts
references from documents, and generates bibliographies. Mendeley web lets users
access their research paper library from anywhere, share documents in closed
groups, and collaborate on research projects online.
The potential values brought about by the online communities mentioned above
go beyond helping the research community become more productive. Researchers
can also use these websites to enhance their professional development efforts by
establishing a professional online presence and building an online social network
that allows members to conduct research, obtain expert advice, collaborate with
others, learn about new ventures, and reconnect with others. These networks are
built on a variety of Web 2.0 applications to cater for user needs and are designed to
help users expand their social circles into well-connected and diverse professional
networks. Users can easily take advantage of the various tools and features avail-
able in these networks to focus on key professional goals and objectives. For
example, to enhance the user experience, many of these networks support various
blogging platforms and enable users to link their personal blog to their social
network sites. Content can be also shared with other popular sites such as LinkedIn,
Digg, Twitter, Facebook, Technorati, and so on. The ability to access other mem-
bers' free contents can save a significant amount of time in information search and
decision making. Due to the information and user profiles the social networking
sites make available about their members, other members can easily locate experts,
as well as partners for their research projects.