Researchers Perceptions of Academic Social Networking Sites : A Study

The emergence of Academic Social Networking Sites (ASNS) has changed the way of scholarly communication. Each of these ASNS brings unique feature for the researchers. The authors study the awareness and use pattern of full-time research scholars of NITK through a survey-based study. The present study restricted to select four ASNSs Academia.edu; Mendeley; ResearchGate and Zotero. The study disclosed researchers are using ASNSs extensively to keep themselves updated and have habit of visiting ASNS on daily basis. ASNSs are used to stay connected with peers and fellow researchers to discuss the research and to download the research papers. The study found ResearchGate is most preferred ASNS among the research scholars