We know what you all are thinking. Same as you, we came across the term ‘Academic social media’ for the first time.
So, what is Academic social media?
Academic social media or as it is also known as Academic Social-Networking Sites (ASNS), explains itself in meaning. These are the social networking sites used by an academic community like researchers and scholars worldwide to share academic content such as abstracts and articles or link their published articles. Academic social media are the same as Facebook for scholars, where they interact with each other to build connections and acquire and share information. Some examples of ASNS are Academia.edu, ResearchGate, LinkedIn, and Google Scholar.
Now that we know what Academic social media is, the next question that follows is:
Should you upload your articles on these academic social media?
The main motive behind uploading your articles on academic social media is to increase the reach of your article. And for that, the first requirement is for the researcher to own the copyright to their article. If the researcher published his articles in a non-open access journal, he gives the journal copyrights and loses the authority to upload his articles somewhere else. So, the researcher should publish his articles in an open-access journal.
Academic social media are commercial sites run by for-profit companies. So, when you decide to upload your papers here, you are still giving the control to a private organization. So to answer the question, ‘No,’ you should not upload your articles to these sites, but that does not mean you shouldn’t self-promote them.
How am I going to self-promote it?
Self-promoting your article is the most important thing to do as it ensures the reach of your article. But to do so, there has to be a proper way to go through it, and there is. Rather than uploading your whole article to the academic social sites, you can first upload them to an open-access journal or open-access repositories. Open access repositories are non-profit and run by an institution or government. After uploading them to an open-access site, you can add the link of your article to your academic social media profile. This way, you will always have the copyright to your article and still get all the reach and promotion.
Conclusion
This editorial aims to show you the right way to self-promote your article on Academic Social Media without losing the copyright to the journal, along with the definition of academic social media and the risks of uploading your article to these sites.