ResearchGate
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Type of site
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Social network service for scientists |
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| Owner | ResearchGate, Berlin, Germany |
| Created by |
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| Website | researchgate |
| Alexa rank |
 576 (August 2016[update]) |
| Users | More than 11 million |
| Launched | May 2008 |
ResearchGate is a social networking site for scientists and researchers to share papers, ask and answer questions, and find collaborators. According to a study by Nature and an article in Times Higher Education, it is the largest academic social network in terms of active users, although other services have more registered users and more recent data suggests that almost as many academics have Google Scholar profiles.
People that wish to use the site need to have an email address at a recognized institution or to be manually confirmed as a published researcher in order to sign up for an account. Members of the site each have a user profile and can upload research output including papers, data, chapters, negative results, patents, research proposals, methods, presentations, and software source code. Users may also follow the activities of other users and engage in discussions with them. Users are also able to block interactions with other users.
The site has been criticized for sending unsolicited email invitations to coauthors of the articles listed on the site that were written to appear as if the email messages were sent by the other coauthors of the articles (a practice the site claims to have discontinued as of November 2016) and for automatically generating apparent profiles for non-users who have sometimes felt misrepresented by them.
The New York Times described the site as a mashup of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Site members may "follow" a research interest, in addition to following other individual members. It has a blogging feature for users to write short reviews on peer-reviewed articles. ResearchGate indexes self-published information on user profiles to suggest members to connect with others who have similar interests. When a member posts a question, it is fielded to others that have identified on their user profile that they have a relevant expertise. It also has private chat rooms where users can share data, edit shared documents, or discuss confidential topics. The site also features a research-focused job board.
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Wikipedia