What do academics ask their online networks? An analysis of questions posed via Academia.edu Background
In the past decade, a number of online social networking sites (SNS) have been introduced. As a result of their popularity, several SNS aimed at the academic community have been launched. This poster focuses upon one affordance of academic SNS: the ability to pose questions to the wider community. This study set out to explore the types of questions academics pose to a specifically academic SNS, by analysing a sample of questions from the Academia.edu platform in terms of both topics and question types.
Katy Jordan Institute of Educational Technology, The Open University, UK
[email protected]
Results
– question topics
Non-academic (33). Platform-specific comments (17)
Percentage
included questions about using the Academia.edu
site or statements of frustration with the service.
Personal information (5) is a small but distinct
category, in which academics’ posted information
such as their own name or email address. General
questions (11) were diverse and mainly rhetorical.
Data collection & analysis
Careers (14); for example: When data collection began (June 2014), Academia.edu included a total of 15,759 questions. A grounded theory
“I am interested in post doc in alternative approach was used in analyzing the content of the questions. The sample was constructed by random sampling;
fuel.I hv completed my phd on production of questions were added to the sample in batches of 50 until theoretical saturation had been achieved (a total of 300
biodiesel.pls guide me [sic]” questions, although 36 were excluded from coding). Questions were imported into nVivo for analysis. The coding
scheme was also applied to a random sample of 50 questions by a second coder. Cohen’s Kappa was calculated as a
measure of inter-coder reliability, which showed a high level of agreement (0.94).
Results – question types conceptual
The largest category, factual and
questions (71), comprised specialised questions
The results of the analysis in terms of the type of questions posed (using the
about subject-specialist topics and concepts. typology developed by Morris et al. [1]) is shown in Figure 1, with data from their
This included closed and open-ended questions. analysis based on generic SNS [1] as a comparison. A matrix coding query
For example:
showed that different types of questions are associated with different topics: “How common is natural deposition of ochre in
factual and conceptual questions are mainly factual (70%) or opinion (26%) caves in England and France?”
type; finding resources questions emphasise recommendations (75%); “What is effect of Kelo v City of New London US
promoting things mainly uses invitations (45%) or non-questions (36%), while
Supreme Court 2005 decision on use of eminent research focuses upon social connections (43%).
domain, in common law jurisdictions with
35
constitutional rights of property ownership?”
29
30
26
25
22
Finding resources (49) included requests to locate
specific resources (or even physical objects), and more 20
17 17
general requests for recommendations of resources
15 14 14
related to particular topics. For example:
“Does anyone have any general bibliography on
9
medieval pseudepigrapha? Thanks.”
10 7
6 5
5 4
3 2
1
0
0 Recommendation Opinion Factual Rhetorical Invitation Favor Social connection Offer Figure 2: The coding scheme of question topics which
knowledge
Figure 1: Percentage of questions per type. Academia.edu (present
study) shown in pink; Twitter and Facebook users [1] shown in teal.
References
[1] Morris, M.R., Teevan, J., and Panovich, K. 2010. What do people ask their social networks, and why? A survey study of status message Q&A behavior. In Proceedings of CHI 2010 (Atlanta, GA, USA, April 10-15, 2010), ACM, New York, NY, 1739-1748. [2] Papacharissi, Z. 2009. The virtual geographies of social networks: A comparative analysis of Facebook, LinkedIn and ASmallWorld. New Media Soc. 11(1&2), 199-220.
Conclusions
Academic-related categories which were distinct but less prevalent (raised by