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research-article

Motivating scholars’ responses in academic social networking sites: : An empirical study on ResearchGate Q&A behavior

Authors:

Yong LiuAuthors Info & Claims

Volume 56, Issue 6

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ipm.2019.102082

Published: 01 November 2019 Publication History

Highlights

•

Focused on the statements embedded in questions and answers, the study strives to explore the precursors that motivate scholars to give a response.

•

The result revealed a threshold effect that when the length of question description is over circa 150 words, scholars would quickly lose their interests and thus not read the description.

•

Questions including positive action-oriented statements, are more likely to entice subsequent reads from other scholars.

•

Scholars prefer to recommend an answer with positive procedural statements or negative action-oriented statements.

Abstract

The advent of academic social networking sites (ASNS) has offered an unprecedented opportunity for scholars to obtain peer support online. However, little is known about the characteristics that make questions and answers popular among scholars on ASNS. Focused on the statements embedded in questions and answers, this study strives to explore the precursors that motivate scholars to respond, such as reading, following, or recommending a question or an answer. We collected empirical data from ResearchGate and coded the data via the act4teams coding scheme. Our analysis revealed a threshold effect—when the length of question description is over circa 150 words, scholars would quickly lose interest and thus not read the description. In addition, we found that questions, including positive action-oriented statements, are more likely to entice subsequent reads from other scholars. Furthermore, scholars prefer to recommend an answer with positive procedural statements or negative action-oriented statements.

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Cited By

Wu Q(2024)Prompting Responses through Linguistic CuesProceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology10.1002/pra2.121161:1(1141-1143)Online publication date: 15-Oct-2024
Yan WWen XZhang YKudva SLiu Q(2023)The dynamics of Q&A in academic social networking sites: insights from participants, interaction network, response time, and discipline differencesScientometrics10.1007/s11192-022-04624-y128:3(1895-1922)Online publication date: 1-Mar-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s11192-022-04624-y
Kamienski AHindle ABezemer C(2023)Analyzing Techniques for Duplicate Question Detection on Q&A Websites for Game DevelopersEmpirical Software Engineering10.1007/s10664-022-10256-w28:1Online publication date: 1-Jan-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10664-022-10256-w
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Motivating scholars’ responses in academic social networking sites: An empirical study on ResearchGate Q&A behavior
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Collaborative and social computing
    1. Collaborative and social computing theory, concepts and paradigms
  2. Human computer interaction (HCI)
2. Information systems
  1. World Wide Web

Index terms have been assigned to the content through auto-classification.

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Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image Information Processing and Management: an International Journal

Information Processing and Management: an International Journal Volume 56, Issue 6

Nov 2019

457 pages

ISSN:0306-4573

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Elsevier Ltd.

Publisher

Pergamon Press, Inc.

United States

Publication History

Published: 01 November 2019

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Cited By

Wu Q(2024)Prompting Responses through Linguistic CuesProceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology10.1002/pra2.121161:1(1141-1143)Online publication date: 15-Oct-2024
Yan WWen XZhang YKudva SLiu Q(2023)The dynamics of Q&A in academic social networking sites: insights from participants, interaction network, response time, and discipline differencesScientometrics10.1007/s11192-022-04624-y128:3(1895-1922)Online publication date: 1-Mar-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s11192-022-04624-y
Kamienski AHindle ABezemer C(2023)Analyzing Techniques for Duplicate Question Detection on Q&A Websites for Game DevelopersEmpirical Software Engineering10.1007/s10664-022-10256-w28:1Online publication date: 1-Jan-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10664-022-10256-w
Wu QLee CGoh D(2023)Understanding user‐generated questions in social Q&AJournal of the Association for Information Science and Technology10.1002/asi.2477074:8(990-1009)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1002/asi.24770
Wu QLee CGoh DAizawa AMandl TCarevic ZHinze AMayr PSchaer P(2022)Asking for help in community question-answeringProceedings of the 22nd ACM/IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries10.1145/3529372.3533287(1-5)Online publication date: 20-Jun-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3529372.3533287

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