Academia.edu: marketing of social networks as the novum organum of open science

Abstract

He article considers several functional principles of the organization of Academia.edu scientific social network in the perspective of communicative and system approaches. This network is considered as an integral part of the Open Science project, which is a high-tech alternative to both traditional systems of scientific publication and reviewing, and commercial databases of scientific articles. The structure of Academia.edu site, combining key features of the social network and the electronic base of scientific articles, is analyzed from the point of view of the communicative models used in it, new research strategies, and technical opportunities for disseminating and popularizing its results. The author distinguishes five main functional groups of this social network: 1) publication, 2) communication, 3) search, 4) statistics and 5) evaluation, affirming the principal possibility of describing the logic of the last two functional groups in the terms of Social Network Marketing (SMM). The analysis of the organization of the network allows to conclude that there is a tendency in Academia.edu in particular and Open Science project in general for a gradual transition from anthropocentric models of scientific research to problem-centric ones with the concomitant development and improvement of statistical tools for assessing the effectiveness of scientific activity. The author is forecasts a further increase in the role of electronic databases, social networks, and search engines, including those based on machine learning systems and artificial intelligence within the framework of development of Open Science project