Academia.edu
Academia.edu is a platform for academics to share research papers, monitor deep analytics around the impact of their research, and track the research in their field. It has over 100 million registered users.
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Academia.edu: A Platform for Academics to Share Research Papers
A platform for academics to share research papers, monitor deep analytics around the impact of their research, and track the research in their field, with over 100 million registered users.
What is Academia.edu?
Academia.edu is an American social networking website for academics. Academia.edu allows users to create profiles and upload papers, lecture notes, and book chapters which other users can view or download. The website also enables users to follow the research interests of other users to facilitate collaboration and new research ideas.
Academia.edu was founded in 2008 by Richard Price, an Oxford University philosophy graduate, along with a group of programmers and investors. Its goal is to disrupt traditional academic publishing models by increasing efficiency and facilitating greater distribution of academic research. As of 2021, Academia.edu claimed over 100 million registered users.
Some key features and functionalities of Academia.edu include:
- User profiles - Researchers can create rich profiles highlighting their research interests, publications, and professional experience
- Paper sharing - Users can upload papers, book chapters, lecture notes and other research outputs, making them freely available to the community to view and download
- Analytics - Academia.edu provides detailed analytics around the impact and reach of research papers uploaded to the platform
- Following - Researchers can follow other academics who have similar research interests to get notified of their latest publications and output
- Discovery - Powerful search and recommendation tools enable academics to discover research in their field
- Collaboration - Commenting features facilitate collaboration and discussion around research
The platform has received some criticism around its business model of serving ads to users alongside research papers. However, overall Academia.edu has been hugely popular in the academic community and has accelerated research dissemination and collaboration.
Academia.edu Features
Features
- Allows academics to share and track research papers
- Provides analytics on research impact and readership
- Users can follow other researchers and topics of interest
- Repository of over 100 million academic papers
- Profile pages for academics to showcase work and CV
- News feed to discover new research in your field
Pricing
- Freemium
Pros
Excellent for discovering and sharing academic research
Insightful metrics on research impact
Easy to use and free to join
Large user base of over 100 million academics
Helps increase visibility and readership of research
Cons
Some features limited to paid plans
Spam and fake profiles are common
Not all research fields well represented
Metrics focus on popularity rather than quality
Privacy concerns around data collection
Official Links
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