ResearchGate (RG) SCORE inclusion in the personal Curriculum Vitae (CV).

This is good idea to include RG score in CV. I suggest give more wait for publications and citations of these publications in calculating RG score.

In addition to raghava sir response, for PhD scholars and researchers publication, and answers voted up should have higher impact in calculating RG score. Its my observation that question asked unnecessarily inflate the RG score

Ashutosh,

if the question is well formulated and provokes interesting informative dialogs, in my opinion, the questions are of great value and should be rated as well as the answers. The answer has no meaning if the question is not made well understood and it has no importance.

Sometimes it takes lots of knowledge and interest to ask a question.

A question is the creation of a subject that has the scope to investigate the public opinion on a certain issue or group of issues.

I would never consider RG Score to evaluate a CV unless the score would get credibility. To gain scientific credibility, RG should clearly describe how the score is calculated. The current description is too vague. RG, please tell us the components of the algorithm, which are and their relative weight for score calculation. To measure scientific reputation, as it is supposedly intended by RG, these components should mostly reflect scientific background, production and impact, rather than participation in topic forums. However, it seems it’s not the case attending to my few-weeks experience in RG, given that:

- I see most of the most reputed researchers in my area have low RG scores, despite of their impressive research work.

- Many of the highest scored members of RG has a rather modest (sometimes null) publication record and research indicators, but are very active posing and answering questions in topic forums. Of course, there are exceptions.

- In my case: the number of followers, profile views (>2000) and publication downloads (>800) sharply increased in few weeks. However, my RG score upgraded (from ca. 5 to 20) mostly due to the fact I posed a question and answered a few others. I’m sure my scientific background and reputation is the same today than one month ago, but my score multiplied by four! And it will increase again after this post, even more if someone votes up it.

Therefore, I see RG score as a social rather than a scientific reputation score.

To gain credibility on researcher reputation, it should rely on number and quality of publications (not just IF, add citations and other indexes like h for computing the index), profile and publication views, publication downloads, followers,... Participation on topics (questions/answers) should contribute less than 10% to the score calculation.

There is a problems that the RG score shares with the conventional impact point system: ideas are rarely rated by their effective impact (to my opinion this is measurable only retrospectively) but by their ability to attract others. Additionally, there is lacking an empirical basis. "Unpleasant ideas" will not be voted up by others. In general, questions related to problems that are common (at the time of being asked) will be over-rated; and answers fitting to a common beliefs/credos/persuations will also be over-rated. This makes it hard to impossible to set impulses for innovations, especially when empirical support is missing (this is slightly better solved by peer-reviewed publications).

Provocative: As a staff manager I would consider two points if an applicant provided a high RG score:

1) Was the activity related to his/her education/job/problems? Or was it more or less intelectual amusement? Is the build-up social network instrumental in the aspired job? It will be next to impossible to find this out.

2) Were the questions asked smart or rather dumb? Were the answers given helpful or rather useless? Was the voting based on agreement in opinions or on the impact of the proposed thoughts/solutions? Again: How should I find out.

I have doubts that considering the RG score is more helpful than or complementing to the publication activity in peer-reviewd journals. It shared a lot of problems, and using two sub-optimum prodecures in parallel won't result in a superiour procedure.

Nevertheless, I see a potential that such a scoring system can evolve to something useful, at least in some specific job areas.

I totally agree with both José Tella and Jochen Wilhelm.

The scoring system needs improvement, needs recognition and credibility. It is possible to achieve with the RG members and RG staff united efforts.

Please add your ideas here as this discussion is also tagged to "feedback" closely monitored my RG staff.

I agree with previous comments, although I also think that RG has the potential to come up with an alternative scoring system than the traditional IF. Particularly, the IF is mainly influenced by the popularity of the journal in which research is published, not necessarily by the quality of the peformed research. For instance, highly specialized research does not likely end up in Nature-alike journals, although it may contribute to popular findings in the longer term, directly or indirectly. In essence, I think that the quality of research has a rather trivial connection to the so called "quantity" of research, measured by scores such as the IF.

To my opinion, the social factor in research is equally important, in the sense that sharing of knowledge can greatly improve the quality of research, or give rise to new ideas and theories. Research should not be a one-man show, but arise from collaborations and negotiations between multiple parties. I agree that it is difficult to judge the quality and usefulness of social contribution, e.g. in forum posts, and that "vote ups" tend to yield an improportional reflection as such. Nevertheless, I think that they do reflect some important aspect of participation beyond the realms of publications, and should be integrated along the process of deriving a summary statistic. Perhaps it is more useful to split the RG score into several categories, and, rather than making a weighted sum of the individual scores, presenting them alltogether in a graphical manner. After all, a picture can say more than 1000 words or a single number.

Thomas stresses a very important point: a single number is not capable of providing "multidimensional information", no matter how this number is calculated. Beyond any doubt a scoring system can be useful, but scores also failed in many areas of research, like in medicine and ecology, where many differet aspects of diseases or biotops have been tried to put into a single number. Such reductions of complexity may be inappropriate (and, to my opinion, most often is in fact inappropriate). A kind of a smart graphical representation may retain many of these complexities but still provide a convenient way to present summaries. As a major improvement, such summaries would not definie a unidimensional optimum - there may be a multitude of different optima, allowing for a much more targeted/adapted judgement (of applicants, for instance).

I am not satisfied by the explanations given by those who have arranged the RG Score system. The guidelines say that: “ Your RG Score is calculated based on how other researchers interact with your content, how often, and who they are. The higher their score, the more yours will increase". Now, it may happen that scholars with a low RG score who are instead the leading and most well-known ‘authorities’ in the subject have little influence on my score. On the contrary, there are researchers with a high RG score but who have contributed very very little to the advancement of a discipline but that feel quite at easy to intervene on many topics not being even capable to assess the cognitive or empirical value of some answers. Joking, someone nicely says that there are people conversant in any subject and when asked, they have an answer for any question. Certainly, I would prefer that my score be influenced by the former rather than by the latter.

Therefore, I share the content of that comment that never considers the present RG Score for scientific evaluation purposes unless it gets credibility.

I have a much stronger answer: if I read a CV where someone included an RG score I would immediately consider them somewhat discredited. It is a meaningless metric that measures primarily participation on this site (and not even the quality of participation). If someone included that score, my initial inclination would be to assume they are gullible, lack critical thinking skills and confuse a marketing tool by a commercial site whose value is based on user traffic and participation with, well, anything to do with real scientific contributions. Whether it is fair or not, I would see inclusion of the RG score as a black-eye on a CV. It is a stupid, bogus metric without any meaning whatsoever, other than how much one participates on RG. I would view with skepticism any scientist that not only credits it as meaningful, but uses it as a means of self-promotion.

Just to beat a dead horse: the RG score primarily measures your participation on this site and is, in essence, a gamification of that participation (an RG score is, effectively, the same as experience points in Farmville). It in no way captures the vast range of productive scientific activities upon which contribution and reputation are based, which includes not only publishing papers, but more thankless activities such as reviewing papers, serving as editor, serving on institutional committees, mentoring, organizing conference, initiating and orchestrating collaborations, and, of course, seeking and obtaining funding (as well as serving on study sections). It basically measures how much time you spend on here. I view it as a measure of how much one contributes to the commercial value of the ResearchGate site as a business. Their commercial value, like Facebook, arises from users, user traffic and user generated content. They provide nothing but an empty platform. You do the work, they get the profit. The RG score, in my mind, measures how much work you do for ResearchGate. Sorry to sound cynical, but we are scientists. We are trained to think critically and evaluate facts, not live in a swirly, vague world of propaganda. RG score = game, its a scientific farmville.

And of course, if I am thinking of hiring you for a position I am no more interested in your RG score than I am in your XP points on Farmville, they are equally irrelevant.

Hi Yan- to support your point, my RG score has risen from <2.5 percentile to >60 percentile is less than two weeks. The only thing I have done is post multiple answers and questions critical of RG. Though I obviously think these comments are important (otherwise I wouldn't waste my time), they do not in any way reflect anything about my ability to conduct science. The fact that my score can rise so quickly and so dramatically on the basis of what feels, at least to me, as minimal participation highlights the lack of validity of the RG score and underscores what it is really measuring: activity on the site. I'm getting a lot of XP points in this game. And notice, importantly, that the score is designed precisely with the same psychological mechanisms of reward as games are: frequent, easy reward reinforces motivation and ensures continued activity. This really is, motivationally, a Farmville design. Perhaps the site should be called Labville.

Dear Boehnke, I fully agree with your view. Their is no formula on earth which can measure scientific contribution of a researchers. This is a old debate in scientific community, how to measure performance, so far no solution is perfect. Despite lot of criticism each type of score (H-index, IF, H-index, RG score, Impact points) have its importance, these scores provides important information.

One thing I like most about research gate, here users are discussing research related questions. I like this forum most in term of scientific discussions.

Yes, RG score should have a clear and well defined formula to mean something worthwhile to consider in a CV or to at least to pay any attention to it.

Our activity on RG is not scientific (relatively speaking), still, the chat / conversation is a way to exchange ideas, promote science and people, socialize and to some extend create some brain storming that directly or indirectly induces ideas.

Sure, as of now, it comes somewhat close to "hobby" rather then an avenue to science RESEARCH.

If RG establishes credibility on the score concept and if the score is being differentiated based on activity, RG score may one day become a measure of a person's ability/desire, skills, hobby, ... a way to "speak" shortly about someone in its CV same as the practiced sports and rewards received to sporting or dance competitions.

Anyway, it does represent some communication skills, at least the desire to communicate, share, ask, answer, openness. RG score it does have the potential to become worthwhile to consider in a CV if the above members suggestions and comments are taken in consideration. This was and is the purpose of the question.

I thank all participating members to the dialog, an open dialog for more suggestions and critical comments. Only so, RG staff will now better what to do or not to do.

They do it for all of us, non-profit. We need to help.

Please post more comments, suggestions. Thanks !

What if RGScore is ALREADY included in CVs?! I mean profile pages are a kind of CV and I did receive job offers based on my profile page…in Linkedin. As for RG, some institutions are currently using that social network to publish their job offers. Up to them if they consult profile pages (as preliminary CVs) to have direct contacts with potential candidates. A scientific peer reviewed publishing institution can easily be seduced by a kind of RGScore to “recruit” reviewers. This idea is already in use in some scientific publishing and social network such as Scholastica .

That is being said, I do join all appeals to enhance RGScore credibility.

ResearchGate is NOT a non-profit entity. They are a commercial, for-profit company. I do not for a fraction of a second believe they are doing anything for me or my community whatsoever. They are working toward increasing their commercial value and providing a return to their investors. In my opinion, the way they have approached this site indicates clearly that their effort is geared toward their bottom line. Period. (eg., non-transparent, bogus RG score that gamifies participation on the site, dubious approach to creating value as a repository for free scientific literature by encouraging authors to 'self-archive', the spam they send out when people sign up, the lack of any process involving the scientific community and its stakeholders in designing their site (things always coming down from on high), lack of transparency about users, frequency of use, typical activities, characteristics of users, and on and on).

Till now I don't think RG Score has reached that level where from we should take it seriously. With my personal experience I can say that RG Score is the measure of how much a person is active on RG, no matter how many high impact publication you possess until you start putting Q&A in hot topic and that attract several others to follow, reply or even argue on your given comment, you will not going to have a good RG Score. Likewise Mr. Adrian who puts this particular question, I'm sure will see a huge increase in his RG Score, as with this question we all couldn't resist to comment. Therefore I believe RG score need to be evolved over time as a credible scientific parameter to be showcased in CV or other official documents.

All scientific and academic reputation measurements are measurable only retrospectively. For this motive the use of RG scoring should be only an partial component of another more complex score meccanism.

Another important question is capabilities of every researcher to do research with the funds available. Can be useful one way to measuring in a relative manner the importance of results with fewer funds available. Just to be fair.

Dear Federico Morelli,

my respect to you! You have an extremely good point. 10 point up from me, if that counts :-).

Some researchers do average work with huge amounts of money, some results have no Life quality implications, just abstract ideas requiring.

Some produce excellent results with almost no funding or some from personal pockets.

An econometric system can be in place as to evaluate research economic efficiency importance. This is already part of my study in Bioeconomics, education and research, due to be published soon, by Oct 1st. I'll keep you informed.

Please see on my wall, the last 2 publications, one is a documentary film made from out of pocket personal funds, the other is summary of my thesis, out of pocket funds as well. Both, on bio-economics. You can download, save and ... Enjoy. Please vote/rate and comments are more then welcome as we always can improve our work.

Regards,

Adrian TW

It is still a difference between social and natural sciences that must be underlined. In social sciences, the interaction between researchers in itself, as the interaction between a lecturer and the audience can be used as a material for further studies. It is not how the things are in themselves, but how the things are understood, discussed and communicated by people that matters in the field of social sciences.

In the same time, we witness a tendency of increasing the area of interdisciplinary studies, where the society becomes part of the nature and it can be studied with a mix of instruments. Ideally, from my point of view to reach a high level of objectivity is only possible outside the field of word-language and sensorial observation. It is only the equation-language that can explain the reality beyond the spoken/written word and the sensorial captivity.

RG Score reflects the capacity to influence and to initiate an interesting discussion. It is quite remarkable that people with various backgrounds come together in order to discuss science in general (and less science in particular). It is clear that I would also want to be able to have discussions on RG with a higher degree of scientific value and relevance for my area of expertise, but this aim is not easy to attain on RG in my case. Therefore I have adapted myself to a different type of communication, trying to attack the discussion from the angle of non-lawyer many times, having a mixed approach other times and refusing to compromise other times.

This exercise made me think about the division of science in different disciplines and how much the division itself influences the scientific development. The school should not be engaged in the domination of the mind, but in promoting new knowledge at the individual and society level. I was this type of student, questioning the meaning of 'consensus' in science and craving for the possibility to think different and to think new. The research institute due to questions such as financing and public policy is not free from this domination controlling the directions and the extent of scientific progress.

Moreover we live in a world of social media 24/7 connection, where communication is a main weapon. RG score can help you to indicate the fact that you have good skills of communication. I know that in the endeavour to explain something to a non-expert, you have the real possibility to become an expert in that matter.

Jeff Beeler,

with your post you are raising a few important issues.

In my opinion, a high level staff member should inform us in detail about ResearchGate, etc, as I am not in the position to comment except that I see it as being very lucrative for people that participate as users. As I know, RG is non-profit.

A benefit for all as I see, is the exchange of ideas, a pot-lock of knowledge.

with my respects,

Adrian TW

Soumen Mukherjee, dear members

I started on ResearchGate way back, a few month after its start up. There were no RG scoring (it is my idea among other ideas, but that is not the point, others sure thought about it...we, the humans have good / bad ideas... we ALL are rich from this point of view. IDEAS come all the time, applying is where the effort is and RG puts that effort).

I encourage voting as it encourages participation = idea exchange, we all grow. The finality? it all depends on each individual.

When the scoring was introduced, I found it being over 80. So what. Now is 67. So what. If is going 130 or 13, I'll still active for what it does. I am not a computer / facebook non-stop user. I have certain periods when I can do it or I make a priority of it. I believe in communication ( I am alive), adaptation, learning, adaptation, growing... I prefer being outside, nature, sports. An I do that. I encourage all people to do that. To go out enjoy nature.

RG score. You are right. RG SCORE Is not too credible. Is up to RG staff to introduce / adjust calculation criteria in a way, disclosed fashion, and up to us to make it credible.

Please see the comment posted by Federico Morelli, see my response to him.

His RG score is just 1 (ha ha ha) and in my opinion, just his simple but rich comment deserves 100. Is not up to me to score and it should not be. It is all relative. We all value issues, subjects, based on variety of criteria and point of view.

RG SCORE is relative, but it is something and it can be better. You are right. All of the above comments had something to say, valuable opinions/suggestions. The beneficiary? All of us as community, regardless of personal RG score.

Regards,

Adrian TW

Non-profit? the company ResearchGate is not. “ResearchGate will also be looking into ways to monetize its platform. The “no-brainer” way to do that, in Madisch’s words, is to provide job boards for scientists looking for jobs. Universities and companies would pay the site to place listings. The company is also looking for ways to partner with other companies that manufacture and sell biotech lab equipment, as well as several other different programs.”

Let’s just hope ResearchGate remain FREE, for long…

Hi Adrian- This is not a question about which there is any ambiguity. ResearchGate IS, most emphatically, a for-profit venture. This is not a trivial fact. ResearchGate's primary obligation, like any investor based, for-profit enterprise, is to generate financial returns for their investors. They will, of course, aim to do that by providing a useful, quality service. However, the prime directive is and will always remain to make profit.

Their strategy for doing this is simple and spelled out in numerous articles on the web. Like Facebook, they want to create a social networking platform that is made valuable by its high number of users and user generated content. Their commercial value is greatest when they become, like Facebook, so large that starting an alternative, competitive scientific social networking platform is highly unlikely. At that point, like Facebook, they are 'the only game in town' and a free to begin to mine the value in their broad user base, including, like Facebook, advertising and marketing revenue.

There is nothing wrong with a company that provides a valuable service making a profit. However, once they become sufficiently large that viable competition is effectively precluded (for example, do you think you could get capital to fund a competitor to facebook?), then we as a scientific community are stuck with them. Consequently, as we join and participate in this strategy of building their user base to create a 'facebook of science', it is imperative that we understand that the social media platform we support and embrace now, when competition is still possible, will shape what will be established and difficult to change social networking of the future. We are literally defining Science 2.0 for tomorrow. In my opinion, these discussion that critically evaluate RG, its policies and practices, are the most important discussion that are occurring on this site. Understanding that RG is not here to altruistically better the scientific community, but to make money is important to evaluating the company and site and deciding whether or not this is the science 2.0 we really want.

Great then let's make it profitable :-). This is one more reason why RG staff should speed up the improvements on RG.

RG is great, a platform to connect on a large spectrum of scientific oriented interests, dialogs.

I belong to an old generation. That's why I was really astonished to read that RG Score improvements should aim at profit making and – of course – maximizing it !! In a world where everything is biased towards the profit god, what is the point to achieve more seriousness for genuine scientific interests? Has anyone heard of "Mecenatism"?

I also think that the financial interests of RG may considerably hamper the development of an RG score with a scientific value. On the other hand, the informative network that is being created on RG does allow the creation of a score from which both scientists and investors could benefit. I think that if RG truly wants to increase their market share and create a platform that allows to generate some profits, they need to provide credible information. This implies tht RG score, altogether with other aspects of the site, should be trusted by scientists, and the process of generating the information should be transparent. Consequently, I think that RG should seriously think about meeting a representative sample of leading as well as junior scientists, and adjust their financial goals towards principles that have a high value in the field of science. I believe that there is enough room of generating a profitable community, where scientists as well as RG stakeholders can take advantage from.

Hi Thomas- that interaction between the executives at RG and the scientific community would help and seems to be, to me, greatly lacking. The RG score illustrates this very well. Was there a forum soliciting feedback and ideas on this score? Did they convene or consult with a spectrum of people in the scientific community? Did they put up proposals and elicit feedback? Was there any systematic survey or study to ascertain what the scientific community might think would be helpful? I did not observe any of this. Instead, what I saw is an RG score unveiled like a new model car or the next iphone: here is our glittery new product, we hope you will like it. And that product, as I see it, looks more like something that would be developed by game designer at Zynga or MBA marketers at Facebook than like something that meets any need within the scientific community. It appears to me, to use a metaphor, that development here is driven by an MBA/business mentality rather than a PhD/science mentality, regardless of what education/credentials RG staff may have.

Thomas Debray, I agree with you 100%.

I endorse your statement: "Consequently, I think that RG should seriously think about meeting a representative sample of leading as well as junior scientists, and adjust their financial goals towards principles that have a high value in the field of science. I believe that there is enough room of generating a profitable community, where scientists as well as RG stakeholders can take advantage from."

Furthermore, I believe, and I proposed this long ago that:

RG should organize, sponsor, invite RG members to a Life Conference where members can discuss, propose, build a RG community as to serve the interests of the 1st) members and 2nd) of the investors not the other way around if RG wants "quality", the base of a sustainable growth.

Do you agree with such a conference? Life ! - With too much virtual "socialization" the food gets cold :-).

Regards,

Adrian TW

You make a good point Adrian, so far my full support shall be reflected by a 'vote up'

Just a reflection... the success of the social media can be explained exactly by the easiness of expressing support, sympathy, empathy etc with the minimal effort of a click :)-

Emanuela Matei , you right but VOTES, LIKES are often just superficial.

Many times the people people (users, members) just scan a message (as opposed to reading and comprehending) and offer a LIKE or Vote up just to be nice.

A button as "read by" means I was here. Voting should mean: "YES IT MEANS SOMETHING TO ME, it has value"

So, the success of the social media not only reflects the depth and quality of message transmission and its perception.

A vote up, followed by comments from the person voting endorses the validity of the vote. We can see this often on RG, unlike facebook where the likes come "by the click not by the real LIKE or fully understanding the message".

I often vote up even if I do not agree. I would not vote down just because I am not in agreement. Why? If the content and description is good, well written, is a vote up for me. Being in agreement or not I would just say so and explain why and how.

Same thing regarding vote up. Sometimes I feel I need to endorse or show clearly the part that I agree the most with.

Friends vote friends!!!!

can RG Score assure the impartiality?

the number of votes cannot assure best answers votes

Returning to the original question, I think the thread above clearly indicates that the RG score is really not in any way a meaningful measure of 'scientific reputation' and thus, including it on a CV would seem like to me a terrible idea. It will mean nothing to someone not familiar with it and for those who are familiar with it, well, it will mean nothing.

Why not? It shows your interest , I do it in my letters and not in the CV

@ EVA DUST, short to the point.

Yes in did, Why not ?! Yes it does "show your interest" . In CV one can say "I play chest, soccer, tennis", Music....and other Interests.

@Jeff Beeler, RG score has meaning to the people that pay attention to it.

It shows more or at least has the same value as listing your other activities such as play chest or the violin, or dancing on folk music.

Jan Boehnke , personally I would look in the hobby section and engage in the conversation about it, a reason to smile and having the opportunity to discover a "character" rather then just a specialist in an area that later may become a pain in the ...."left arm elbow" :-) .

A person's hobby and off work activity, music, sports, and furthermore the willing to share knowledge , asking responding, being engaged on what we are doing here, really, tells us something.

So, Jan Boehnke , please embrace yourself , no pun intended, for sharing your opinion and educated point of view. We are building something here, bit by bit, "brick by brick".

Now, I'll be busy for a few seconds embracing myself :-).

oh my. I don't have a hobby section, though if I did I would include RG as it has certainly become a hobby.

@Eva I think if you are invested in RG and in a cover letter describe your engagement and activity, both what you contribute and get out of it, I see nothing wrong with that, particularly if it reflects non-traditional but nonetheless valuable activities. I would not look askance at that if I were reviewing an application but, if I were to interview someone, ask about it, providing a good opportunity for discussion. But that is very different from a score and I don't think a numerical value adds much to the qualitative description of your interests and activities. cheers.

May I also say something in passing or 'obiter dictum' as we say in law? The actual procrastination related to CV- and letter of intention, where the 75% of the energy has to be focused on the form and maximum 25% on the content, the eye-catchy theory and easy to follow pursuit and the fact that at first the CV is read by a human resources specialist and non-expert in the field, where you want to be employed, can allow the idea of a less conventional form. However, you never know how the process will go on in reality. The first steps are highly subjective and only serve as labelling 'to be called to interview' or 'not to be called to interview'. The hobbies are maybe going to come on stage at the interview, but until then.... there are other essential features to be taken into consideration.

If everyone involved in the research/research related activities suddenly starts to refer to RG as the best hobby in the world, this would be a very efficient and free advertisement for RG, wouldn't it? In order to associate my name with RG in a professional situation, I must be sure that first I have a clue on RG, more than I do today. I use it, yes in the same way as I use other social media, but my knowledge about the organization of RG is in fact not complete. RG is new and in continuous change and their strategy can be changed with short notice.

@Emanuela I think your point that RG can change their strategy with short (probably no) notice is important. Aside from being able to change any policy at any time, they can also change their business strategy. For example, they say they do not plan to do advertising. Not only could they change their minds tomorrow and start including advertising, but if they were to sell RG, the buyers would be able to change the platform and policies in any way they saw fit, including changing the business model. As it stands, the users of RG are not provided any say or rights concerning the operation of the site and business . I for one find this problematic. Even facebook involves their users (check the facebook governance page) and users have a right to veto changes to Facebook policy where the veto is legally binding (though honestly, the required number of people that have to vote against a policy is so large as to be impractical, but the option does exist). Overall, I find that for a site 'for and about' the scientific community, we are little consulted or involved in the sites operation.

Do not assume that a potential employer will not run your name through Google or another search engine to do an independent check on you and your presence on social media and the web. I am not sure what conclusions could be drawn. What for example if nothing came up. What would this signify? Or if you expressed views that might be considered controversial. Are you an independent thinker or trouble maker? Including online profiles e.g. Mendeley / ResearcherID and now RG (with RG Score) is indicative of a knowledge of social media, a willingness to engage in what is the current medium of communication. Who knows you might have said something that reflects well on your application. A wise applicant might take a view on whether this is a good idea and include or omit according to the circumstances.

Yes, it seems that RG score can be a useful tool to introduce or recommend researcher and scientist and it may affect positively to advance their career to higher level. I think also that some additional charts are needed for better estimation to the RG score. Something like the impact factor of the firm(s) or institution(s) in which the researcher obtained his higher education or the firm he is working for currently or in the past (the international ranking of universities could be useful). Also, obtaining recommendation from researchers with high RG score or have a good reputation could be implemented as well.

No! It is a very subjective indicator.

Inclusion of RG score in CVs looks a good idea..but as pointed out by many peers here RG score does not really represent the intellectual capability of an individual rather it will show that the individual is very active in knowing the updates in the research fields and actively helping other peers in givine advices and blogging etc (For example, a very intellectual researcher may not have a higher RG score unless he participates more on discussions here at RG and a less intellectual researcher may have higher RG score because he participates more here and that way RG score does not fully represent the intellectual capability of a particular researcher) . Hence, RG score will give another dimension of the individual and hence help in that sense..

@Nalam The RG score does not reflect being update to date in one's field. My RG score is now > 92.5% of all people on RG and I have done nothing but post comments critical of RG. My RG score reflects participation in the site and in no way indicates how up-to-date or knowledgeable I am in my field. To me it seems quite clear that the RG score is a game-ification of participation on the site and in absolutely no way does it reflect an individual's scientific knowledge, potential or productivity. It measures how much time one spends on here, without even reflecting the quality of one's participation.

@Ramez I would seriously question the credibility of any person or institution that made hiring decisions in any way even remotely based on the RG score as this would indicate to me and complete a total inability or lack of interest in meaningfully evaluating candidates.

I think we have to ask, in each specific circumstance, if the potential employer is looking for a candidate with scientific curiosity, or perhaps literacy. If so, the job market is full of such candidates.

Physical stature has been shown to correlate positively with life earnings. Therefore, one would be better putting inserts in one's soles.

I attach below a link to Noam Chomsky Between the Human and Natural Sciences in order to express how I feel about RG. With all the efforts we make the answers given on RG are very seldom on the point and often the two big branches of science interact with each other in unpredictable ways. Creativity has a lot to gain from these spontaneous interactions, but I honestly say that about some of the answers I can't say whether they are seriously meaning 'science' or they are about joking around a little bit.

Besides the seriousness aspect, there is the fact that it is SAFE to talk law with the lawyer and maths with the mathematician and biology with the biologist etc because the communication is facilitated by a common ground of knowledge. We know the rules and in this way by playing by the rules, we play also safe. But when I talk law with a natural scientist the rules are not there any more (I give this confrontation just as an example), we both are exposed to a large degree of unpredictability and the communication is sometimes not flowing well. You feel like a soldier on an open front, no place to hide, completely exposed and daring. Exciting and creative, yes, but not always efficient and science-minded.

Now back to the main point, after the parenthesis above, if an employer googles and reads some commentary without knowing the context, I see this aspect as a risk even in the case of just considering RG as a hobby, it is still a written opinion expressed publicly. Let's be careful and try to enrich each other, instead as sometimes it might happen to exhaust each other with a long series of digressions. More on the point, would not hurt, this is my opinion. If we reach there, I promise to include the RG credits on my CV.

I stumbled on this site because it appeared to be more indicative of European systems than my (biased) United States set of social research sites. My favorite US site for information remains LinkedIn, only because there are so many heterogeneous interests.

Any system that would attempt to grade a human based on the sheer number of posts (?), or frankly any one or two variables, is wasting its time. I do not think such an "RG Score" would be an incentive to joining such a group, at least for the intellectual (with whom I might have shared interests). In fact, I might avoid users with high "RG Scores" because I might consider them "wordy", not able to make their argument efficiently.

In my opinion, RG score is meaningful only to Researchgate themselves and no one else!

I fully agree with Issam.

In the context of the ResearchGate platform, the RG Score signalizes the level of activity (to some extent: depending on who votes up an answer, the influence on the RG Score is different), but it is neither an indicator for particular professional/intellectual abilities, nor for particular soft skills. I would not go so far saying a high RG Score shows someone is talkative, but to some extend, you at least can derive that a person with a high RG Score spends a lot of time on the platform.

From the perspective of a personnel manager, is this a good or a bad thing? Does the person have something to say, is flexible, social, and sympathetic? Or is the person maybe wasting the employers' time by surfing the Internet instead of doing her/his job? Is the person maybe an opportunist (in order to receive a lot of positive voting's), has something to say to everything (without really understanding the context), or maybe is the person even addicted to the Internet?

Further on, as for a Score, the RG Score is neither secure nor neutral enough to be considered in a personal evaluation: Given, you have some friends on the platform, it easily would be possible to significantly raise the RG Score in a very short time just by writing a single word and frequently being upvoted by all the friends with already a high RG Score. What about those people not even knowing that RG exists? Are they bad researchers? Should they have a disadvantage because they do not even have an RG Score? Even though the number of highly introverted researchers may be decreasing in times of Internet and virtual communities, still, a lot of my research colleagues do not even have an account in a single social network - just because they do not want to be public. I do not dare to say this is wrong; maybe in the end, they are the ones who are laughing. We still do not know where this actually will lead to. What we do know, is that we may pity all those young people who publish not only every chocolate bar they eat and coffee they drink, but also every excess in facebook.

However, from my perspective, we already have far to many scores that somehow influence our (particularly professional) lives. We should not support personnel managers to reduce individuals to some more or less abstract numbers but find a way to forcing them to have a deep look at the personalities and actual abilities/potential once again. On the basis of such numbers the decision might be taken if someone will be invited for an interview ... wouldn't this be a drama?

Has anybody seen a marking scheme whereby your score goes higher much quicker by asking questions than by answering them?

I have been looking into how the RG score work out.What are the important features and this is what I found:the RG score is much more sensitive to the questions asked than questions answered. You could answer hundreds of questions and even though your answers are right, if your answers don't attract enough vote ups your score will not change. On the other hand, you ask one question and lots of people come in with answers and your score can go up by 400% very quickly. The example given by Jose Tella earlier on in this thread is a typical one. This is reflected in what I call the RGQ ratio:the ratio of the RG score to the questions answered and the ratio of the RG score to questions asked,

Further,there are highly qualified people who are experts in their fields with very low RG score. This can only mean one thing:They have better things to do!

We have all got qualifications by setting exams answering questions.Have you ever seen somebody getting qualifications by asking questions?

I used to get discouraged and frustrated at times when I see my score does not change in few days.Having found out why this is not the case anymore.

For me the RG score defies the norm and has no relevance to academic excellence. If I was an employer and came across a CV with an RG score I will stop any further serious consideration.Why? because the applicant did not consider the job seriously so why should I consider the application seriously?

Having said that the RG platform is a great one to learn,from questions answered and questions asked. On many occasions I had to read more to find out answers. On some occasions it is a brain teaser. I use it for that purpose and I do not at all dismiss the RG platform. It is a great idea to learn and educate. I do however dismiss the RG score because it defies gravity!

When the RG score was introduced, I quickly found out that it does not correlate in any way with scientific activity (publications), but only with posting activity in RG. Because of this it has no meaning outside of this forum. There are other metrics (indices) for measuring professional competence.

Since most of us agree that this RG Score is absolutely senseless - it does not measure anything more than "popularity" and given that we are mainly not teenagers, I vote that the RG Score be removed from Research Gate. It's not important enough a question for me that I would abandon this website so soon, but I think I will use this as a test case regarding how democratic, flexible, and attentive the moderators are here.

As far as I can judge, the RG score is a completely valueless metric when it comes to describing academic merits. I have not seen any explicit description of the algorithm behind the RG. I think transparency on that algorithm should be a first step in any discussion on these matters. But as far I can judge from my limited time on RG, the score primarily reflects engagement in responding to, or raising, questions on RG. Whether these contributions have any scientific content seem not to matter, as long as someone likes them. I have been surprised to see many questions that any scientist with access to library sources could answer him/herself by half an hour on the Web of Science or similar, and respondents kindly yet trivially pointing out basic stuff that anyone could find out without asking. And I have been even more surprised that many questions and discussions aren't really scientific discussions, but more matters of opinion and political viewpoints. Nothing wrong with such exchanges, but they have nothing to do with scientific merits. Surprisingly, involvement in such discussions seem far more influential on RG scores than scientific merits reported (peer review publications). There's loads of excellent scientists with large volumes of high-impact publications that have RG scores in the range of 1-3. And others not reporting any publications at all but with scores in the range of 10-20 or above. That speaks for itself.

Let me use myself as an example: I started off with an RG score of somewhere below 2 (having reported most but not all of my publications yet). Then I twice wrote rather trivial, brief responses to a single question (about whether systematicists should stop collecting specimens for ethical/conservation reasons). And suddenly my RG score jumped, and continued upwards ever since - now approaching 10. Without me having put out any further publications. I find it almost embarrassing. If RG aims to be a serious channel of academic communication and exposure of scientific material, they should make sure the score sensibly reflects scientific merits - or just skip it.

So should you report it on your CV, when aiming for positions in academia? Would it affect my decision to employ someone? No, very little, and not necessarily in the positive direction. That would all depend on the nature of the contributions. Scientists (incl. me!) may be better off doing science that spending time writing trivial RG notes like the one I'm just completing...

Ironically, I imagine that this contribution may boost my RG score (?). I kind of like RG. But the scores - as least with the current weightings - makes the whole thing seem not that serious. That may not help attracting RG "members".

Dear Trond, I share your opinion to a large extent, however I would like to underline that the paradox of getting involved in many virtual activities that can appear futile or unproductive is the now-a-days version of chatting down the corridor.

Sometimes great ideas can be born outside the sphere of laboratory or library or class room. RG is a huge noisy corridor, but let's be honest and admit that there is some kind of attraction in this unpredictability. You never know when the 'great idea' will pop up from the RG hat! :)-

In fact the RG has the potential to become a great tool for organizing brainstorming sessions, I think so.

Dear Emanuela: Chatting and brainstorming is all excellent, fun & stimulating, but it's meaningless if "chatting down the corridor" becomes what matters for your "scientific standing". When I was once "invited" to RG I wondered "What is this RG thing"? Like I imagine many has wondered. Then I thought, "well, let's try it out - can't harm". And found that a fair number of scientists I know and respect were there, so thought it worthwhile. But I've also found that many - so far most - prominent scientists in my field, people I'd like to interact with and get to know about their publications etc - are not there. And I fear they may discouraged by the less serious aspects of the site, with the RG score being the most obvious.

Else, I repeat my point about the non-transparency of he score. Any metric that doesn't tell openly how it is calculated should be disregarded.

So my conclusion so far is that RG has potential. Including its potential for "virtual chat down the corridor". But the RG score does not have potential. Not as it works now, anyway. And, at worst, the RG score may harm RGs potential.

Like surely many I thought about the RG score long before this question was asked. And looked for somewhere on the RG site that allowed for "feedback" to RG, so I could express my concerns. But couldn't find it. In fact, the near complete lack on the site of information about RG itself, how things work, what it is for, and who's behind it, is the one thing that makes me least confident that the site is a serious enterprise. I had to go to Wiki to find out a little. Facebook is more transparent than RG. That's not a good sign.

Trond

I share your views 100%.

Brainstorming is just an auxiliary tool as well known no doubt about it and this is true even in commercial activities not only in science and research. Big companies use it in their decision related to advertising and new product development, but this fact does not imply that they do not have anything else to do for rest of the day.

Just talking about myself I can say that not only I can handle several tasks in the same time, but I even see it as a good and efficient method to work. I sit and write and a break from writing does not always imply 'not writing at all', but it can mean also writing something different. There are so many forums and the choice is free. What I can say that it is specific to RG is the change itself, RG is a new community. It's up to us to improve the depth of our discussions, RG is only a platform and the efforts to improve it are continuous. I will leave the discussion on the score because I have exhausted already my register on this issue. Have a nice evening, you all!

I especially agree with José Tella and Trond Amundsen. Publishing your RG score in your CV is as good as stating in your CV that you spend XX% of your working time drinking coffee and chatting on the corridor.

But then again, science is mostly about turning coffee into ideas...

And when then happens and the hard work is done, the eventual result is publications... Before that, the science doesn't exist except as an idea and a process. (I can say that, having drawers full of yet unpublished material...)

@Trond ... I dream of an opportunity to seriously use RG for open research and public peer review

@Emanuelle ... Yes, I fully agree, there is a high potential in this platform but there is a risk that it turns to a platform, where academics are chatting about ones opinion without providing what makes research reasonable: evidence. I think it is up to us ... somehow at least ... to change this or better to use the high potential.

However, the RG Score is a motivator for participation on the platform but as it is designed, it surely cannot serve for more.

As the scientist asking this question indicated that this discussion was being monitored by RG staff (with whom we else cannot get in touch), I take the opportunity to follow up on the lack of RG transparency mentioned in my previous entries. Something that's nearly shocking about RG is that the site contains no "About RG" info. If I'm not entirely wrong, there's not a single word on the site on the mission of RG, who's behind, how it works, or any contact details for RG and its management. It's almost unbelievable we've all (incl. me) signed up for RG without any such info. I'd strongly encourage the folks behind RG to emerge from the shades and provide such info easily accessible on the site.

Dear Trond

We all have the option of contactimg RG : go to the top right hand corner and click "account", then choose "Edit Settings", then choose"Contact Us".

I have contacted them on 2 occasions and I must say they are prompt in their reply. They will reply directly to your mail box(messages).

I have asked them about the RG score and this was their reply:

"The RG Score is based upon the positive interaction of other users with your contributions, and also on who those users are. So it won't make any difference how often you post answers, your score is only affected by the quailty of those answers and who upvotes them.

Regards,

User Care"

Like you and many others, I sure hope RG staff are closely following this thread and taking notice of us all. They need to be absouletly transparent about the RG score and need to take into account all our opinions to improve their algorithm that is used to calculate the RG score.

@Trond You are addressing to RG staff that monitor this discussion. I'll follow your example. For the scientific site, the RG has too small abilities for typing formulas and mathematical expressions. I even don't tell about grahs and other useful stuff. For me It is rather surprising and uncomfortable.

@Andreas told that discussion here looks like chatting in the corridor. I'd say that this more looks like chatting in cafe even without napkins on the tables to write down expressions that you discuss.

Thanks a lot, Issam! That's something, even if it's a rather well hidden contact option (why on earth under "edit settings"?). I've also found that I've been wrong when claiming there's no "About us" mission and contact info. It's only that it is invisible when you're logged in, for non-understandable reasons. You have to log out, leave the login page, and go to researchgate.net to find it. I only found it when doing a google search; couldn't find it from within RG. Bit of an irony. The "About us" info should be made easily accessible also when you're logged in. That would also provide a more straightforward contact option than "edit settings". I hope the management takes measures to fix this.

Quite right Trond. I had to try everything to find a way to contact RG. RG have an awful lot to do to improve this platform.

Thank you Issam for taking the initiative. However, the answer makes me wonder why, when checking the RG score, not just the interaction is listed there but also publications and followers. At least it explains why the publications are not considered in this quite strange cake diagram.

Dear Thomas

RG's answer that I have given above is the reason behind my earlier post. Publication's contributions to the RG score rerely exceed 1% depending on impact factor. Followers also rarely exceed 1%. The main factors that affect the RG score are the no. of upvotes on your answers and the RG score of those people who upvotes you. A considerable percentage of the RG score is related to questions asked.

I will suggest RG team to take opinion of users regarding weight-age for each factor to be included in RG score. For example, most of researchers wants that more weight should be given to number of publications or impact point. Presently RG score is more or less based on questions asked by researchers. I noted that most of the researchers having high score is due to questions they asked. Though it is not possible to satisfy every one on this platform but opinion poll may help to evolve best solution.

I think there is an irony in the use of the word Open. Open Access, Open Science etc. RG benefits from Open Access Green Route personal website archiving. Yet the magic RG Score formula, just like the ingredients in Grandma's sauce recipe, is a secret. I think this is a mistake from RG. The value of the formula surely can only be attributed by its users. If they don't know how it works, are unable to suggest improvements or provide an intelligent commentary then it has no value other than that attributed by RG. In other words it is a content driver and marketing tool, nothing else. For RG to pretend otherwise in a forum as informed as this one shows naivete. In other words, the gap between what RG say and what we know is too big. It is in fact, a credibility issue. Over claiming benefits will kill the product. Come on RG open up the formula and trust your users. They will draw their own conclusions anyway!

@ Michael: I don't think the question "how does it compare across disciplines" has much relevance here, which by itself is a sign of trouble for the score (it's a generally relevant and important question in comparisons of scientific merits). Simply because scientific merits have next-to-no bearing on the score. Scientists may have hundreds of publications and still a low score. The only thing that basically settles your score is engagement in discussions. Not by itself, but because your entries may be "upvoted" (the RG version of "like") which obviously becomes more likely the more entries you have. Whether your upvoted entries have any scientific content is entirely irrelevant as long as they're upvoted. And in particular if those upvoting them have high RG scores. Which they often have, because people active in discussions are likely to have many entries, some of which may be upvoted, which raises their RG score, etc. A positive feedback loop there, amongst "debaters".

Whether the actual exchange in any way contributes to scientific progress, or even have any scientific content, matters not.

@all:

I'm positive to RG. More and more of my colleagues seem to join, but many not. There is potential.

But the RG score is an embarrassment to the whole idea of creating a forum for scientific exchange and exposure of scientific works. It's Klout for academics, as some journalist commented. Kick the RG score out and the whole site will appear more serious and thus appealing to merited scientists, and young students alike, who focus on doing real, good science.

Alternatively, revise it considerably to primarily reflect scientific publications (e.g. 75% publications, 25% other). The simplest way of producing some sensible (yet of course not unproblematic) score would be to sum impact factors for all publications, as RG actually already does (though with some problems). Then one might or might not adjust that score a bit by including interaction as a less important factor.

Though the simplest is probably to kick it out. It hasn't always been there, as far as I understand, and need not be there forever. People should engage in discussions because they have something to say, not to increase their RG score.

In the meantime, we should just pretend the score doesn't exist.

I guess if the formula would obviously been made public, the result would be that everyone would already be aware that the aim of the RG Score is contributing (which is not bad at all). The mistake as I see it, is that the RG Score implies it would make one being a better researcher if having a high score. In the end, as we can see in this thread, people somehow feel tricked when finding out that it has nothing to do with the quality of research. Least, the RG Score indeed is not more useful as any other score. What really drives me crazy is this summing up of journal scores and forming a personal score. Firstly, a journals' score has nothing to do with the own ability to do research. It first of all means that one had the luck to place a publication in an old journal (it strongly depends on who n particular your reviewers were. Further, if you have a very particular topic, even the blindest reviewers know exactly who the author is or at least who is involved. Depending on the discipline, those publications even often are mass publications with a list of 10 authors where 8 did not even write a single word or read the paper. So why should someone inherit the Score of a journal where he/she placed a publication??

However, RG is not the same as the RG Score. I think chatting here sometimes really is, let's say "amazing" and somewhat "inspiring". As for me, I do culture research and it is quite interesting to recognize how different views can be out there on something I consider being common. So, there indeed is a value in this platform, which at least linked in or facebook did not provide for me.

The original question was, if the RG Score should be included in CVs. The answer from most of the posts is clear ... "NO, it shouldn't" and there are manifold reasons why this is the case.

@Thomas: I actually agree that individualizing journal impact scores is, at best, a very imprecise measure of a scientist's real impact. A better individual measure is citations, but then we're into the "how does it compare across disciplines" issue again. Plus we have ISI Web of Science for those who want to check.

More importanly, does RG really need any "RG score metric" at all? We can all see from publications whether people have done things that interest us, and from discussion contributions whether they express interesting views or contribute interesting knowledge.

So the score is redundant. I regret my previous suggestion of creating some hybrid score weighted towards publication merits. Bad idea. We just don't need any score. RG would be better off without it.

@all

Summarizing, their are 3 solutions to the RG score:

1-RG does nothing, we carry on by ignoring it.

2-RG take our considerations into account, modify their algorithm and make it public. In this case their will still be people unhappy. this will then have to be an ongoing process of modification and improvement and may be an endless process!

3-Kick out the RG score as Trond has suggested.

It seems to me 3 is the best and most sensible thing to do by RG.

I completely agree with Jeff: If I was send a CV as part of a job application, that application would go straight into the "round file" aka waste paper basket. An employer who would do otherwise, I would not want to work for. Best regards, jan

Dear all,

what do you think about counting score in different areas? I offer to do the upvoting in discussions more complicated, and make there areas in which one's reply can be upvoted. For example, if reply have special value in biology or physics or culture or chemistry (or chatting/helping in RG), the person who wants to upvote this reply could choose special area of upvoting. This way RG score can be separated in several RG scores, - for valuable activity in special areas. And near the name of researcher can be noted the max value of these separate scores.

So meeting the person for the first time in RG one will be able to find out that person's score is for physics/mathematics/helping and then one will know that the person with this score is qualified physicist/mathematician/chatter. So this way questions like "who are these persons with high RG score" will be solved.

Dear Petr, if the RG score would not be fundamentally flawed as a measure of scientific reputation one could debate certain improvements. As of now, it is a measure of some of one's activity on RG and a bit of how your activities resonate with your RG peers, not more. Best regards, jan

Dear Jan,

the RG score is an invention of managers who are employed in RG. Those managers receives salary for the invention of RG score. So because of this i do not think that RG will cancel the RG score.

When some managers offered formula for RG score, they (i think) did not do any serious numerical calculations and behaviour predictions for their model, otherways RG would publish these formulas without any hesitate. So I suppose that there is rather trivial formula focused on motivating to fulfill discussions with content.

So maybe it is possible to convince RG staff to change RG score in more reasonable way. But I do not beleive that RG staff will cancel their management invention at all.

My WG score is 24.36. Will I put my WarGames score into my CV?

Ian, yes, for instance when you apply for a position as a WG test gamer ;-)

If this is ever counted as voting, my vote is to kick out this nasty meaningless measure that is RG. It is similar to impact factor from ISI, everyone likes to take a look and use it for comparison but no one really knows how it is calculated. The era of ocultism is long gone, folks...

Luiz: "The era of ocultism is long gone, folks..." - it obviousely is not! (another case where the ugly facts don't suit our beautiful theories :-))