Research Gate Sc(a)ore

 

I have not made any special effort to be active in social media and I stay off of facebook as I am not interested to know if people are watching a movie or making a new dish. But then again, I am nowadays hooked on to Research Gate, particularly Research Gate score. Research Gate (RG), supposed to be a social networking site for scientists to share their research papers, instead started giving me nightmares. Day in and day out, in my laptop, in my desktop, in my mobile (and son’s mobile too), I started checking my RG score as people believe that RG score is a good measure of your research activities. The score includes the research outcomes that we share on the research platform and our interactions with other RG members.

Honestly, I have little time to interact with other RG members and if interaction is the best measure of your research's impact, then I will not see even a trivial improvement in my score unless I answer the Q& A section. I also see RG scores of experienced researchers low when compared to individuals who are active in responding to other’s questions. Asking a lot of questions and answering Q&A is probably not the best measure of your research's impact in your field.

The ambiguity in the factors determining the RG score, to what degree does a publication increase the score and how do preprints impact a score and In what way is the score affected by the number of times the research is accessed each week should be made clear.

When impact factors and citations are dependent on the field of expertise, RG scores should also be standardized accordingly. Also, the impact of Q&A should not be reflected in the score. Let us understand that RG is a social platform that brings together experts as much as possible. However, the score must not be taken very seriously. 

That said, I will continue to look into my RG Score and enjoy even it is a marginal improvement.