Let’s dig into the basics of setting up a profile on academia.edu and uploading your work. Logon to Academia.edu. Sign up using your university email address. From here, you’ll be directed through the basic signup process.
A disclaimer:
Before we go any further, please remember that all social networking sites are private companies and their business model is intend to monetize data that it has collected about you. Your viewing history and downloads are being tracked. Judgements are being made on what you are reading and this information is being sold to others.
Posting a publication or two.
How do you choose what to share? If you’re an established researcher, this will be easy: just choose your most “famous” (read: highly cited) paper. If you’re a junior researcher or a student, choosing might be tougher. A peer-reviewed paper is always a good bet, as-is a preprint or a presentation that’s closely related to your most current topic of research.
Got a paper in mind? Make sure you’ve got the rights to post it. Many don’t realize that they generally sign away their copyright when publishing an article with a traditional publisher. And that means you may not have the rights to post the publisher’s version of your article on Academia.edu. (If you negotiated to keep your copyright or published with an authors’ rights-respecting journal like PLOS Biology, give yourself a pat on the back and skip the following paragraph.)
If you don’t have copyright for your paper, all hope is not lost! You likely have the right to post your version of the article (often the unedited, unformatted version). Head over to Sherpa/Romeo and look up the journal you published in. You’ll see any and all restrictions that the publisher has placed on how you can share your article.
If you can post your article, upload it to Academia.edu. Once it’s uploaded, the title of your publication will be automatically extracted. Make any corrections necessary to the title, and then click in the “Find a Research Interest” box below the title. Add some keywords that will help others find your publication.
The affiliation is important because it will add you to a subdomain of Academia.edu built for your university, and that will allow you to more easily find your colleagues.
The site will try to guess your affiliation based on your email address or IP address; make any corrections needed and add your department information and title. Click “Save & Continue.”
Then, add your research interests on the following page. These are also important; they’ll help others find you and your work.
Connect to colleagues
Now let’s connect with your colleagues who are already on Academia.edu. You can either connect your Facebook account or an email account to Academia.edu, which will search your contacts and suggest connections.
You can continue to spruce up your profile by adding more publications, as well as adding a photo of yourself and other research interests and publications, and connecting your Academia profile to other services
Explore Further
Now that you have a profile, set aside half an hour to explore three important uses of Academia.edu:
- Exploring “research interests” in order to discover other researchers and publications;
- Getting more of your most important publications online; and
- Using the Analytics feature to discover who’s following you, how often others are reading and downloading your work, and in which countries your work is most popular.
Research interests
- Look around for research interests. Explore the profiles of others who share your interest(s) and follow anyone that looks interesting. Explore relevant papers and presentations.
Upload more papers & presentations
- Take advantage of the “Upload papers” feature and upload at least two more papers or presentations that you think are worthy of attention. Remember to abide by any copyright restrictions that might exist, and also be sure to add as much descriptive information as possible, adding the complete title, co-authors, and research interests for your paper, all of which will make it easier for others to find.
Analytics
- Look for mentrics or analytics and explore around a bit. Because you just created your profile, it’s possible you won’t yet have any metrics. But in as little as a few days, you’ll begin to see download and page view statistics for your profile and your publications, along with other interesting information like maps. All of this data can help you better understand the use your work is getting from other researchers!
Done!
For better or worse, you’ve claimed your professional presence on a niche (but very popular) social networks designed specifically academics. You’ve optimized your profile so others can find you and your research much more easily.