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Analysis of the Questions, Answers and the Reasons of the Users in Research Gate in the Field of COVID-19

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 PhD candidate in Knowledge and Information Management; Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran.

2 PhD candidate in Knowledge and Information Management; Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran

3 Assistant Professor. Knowledge and information science, National Research Institute for Science Policy, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Coronavirus and Covid-19 outbreaks have raised many questions for the public. In a short time, people were able to find the answers they needed to these questions in a variety of ways. Now, it is clear that some people use social media Question Answering (QA) Systems to answer their questions about this disease. So, this study analysis the questions, answers and the reasons of the users who use Question Answering System of ResearchGate in the field of COVID-19. This study is a survey. The Research Gate scientific social network crawler was used to extract the data. 1337 questions and 4857 answers of Q&A system of ResearchGate were collected and analyzed in the last two months of 2020 (November and December) in the field of COVID-19 or Coronavirus. The total number of retrieved data was analyzed and none were omitted. By using a checklist prepared and approved by 8 experts in information science, the type of questions (conceptual, methodological, experiences and skills and questions from other scientific sources) and answers based on citations (to the source via the Internet, to the expert, to the book, article and other offline resources) were evaluated. Due to concerns that not answering the questionnaires could pose a problem, 620 researcher-made questionnaires were distributed online to users to determine why they are using the ResearchGate question and answering system. These reasons were Finding Information, Getting Opinions, Being entertained, Socializing, Being update about contact’s information, Sharing personal Experiences, Getting promotions which have been mentioned in perez and Gomez’s research. 305 questionnaires were completely answered and all of them were analyzed according to Likert scale. Most of the questioners are men (60.6%) and 55.9% have a doctoral degree or even higher. About 61% of the respondents are men and 66.4% have a doctoral degree or higher. Americans asked the most questions (about 39%) and Europeans answered the most (about 31.5%). Respondents asked more questions about people's personal skills and experiences, and respondents referred more to Internet resources. The least resources which were used are books, papers and other offline resources. Also, users are more likely to use the ResearchGate Q&A system to find information (about 17.73%) and get Opinions (about 16.52%). The least common reasons for users to participate in this system is to be entertained or getting promotions which shows that, People use ResearchGate more as a network to access scientific information and to gain personal knowledge about other researchers than as an entertainment and leisure tool. In addition to, having a RJ score above 10 indicates the questions and answers are high quality. in order to find information and opinions of others in the field of Covid-19, people can ask their empirical and skillful questions using the question and answering system of ResearchGate. Questions and answers are of high quality due to the RJ rating above 10. Furthermore, this system allows users to identify specialists based on referrals provided to them and ask their questions directly in the field of Covid-19.
Introduction
 Virtual question and answer systems are facilities that these social media provide to their users. These systems are based on Web 2 technology and with a special system for users so that people can share their knowledge with others in the form of questions and answers. Membership in these systems is free and possible for everyone, and people with different information needs can Send your questions and receive answers from users all over the world and choose the best answer from them. Answers that can be shared without time and place limitations. COVID-19 outbreaks have raised many questions for the public. Now, it is clear that some people use social media Question Answering (QA) Systems to answer their questions about this disease. So, this study analyzes the questions, answers and reasons of the users who use the Question Answering System of ResearchGate in the field of COVID-19.
Literature Review
Examining the reasons for user participation, factors such as altruism (Yang, et al, 2011), motivational effects (Meng, et al. 2013), game effectiveness in stimulating voluntary participation (Cavusoglu & Huang, 2015), commitment, common language and common vision Fang, & Zhang, 2019)), users' self-efficacy, expertise and perceived common similarity (Bao & Han, 2019) and social factors such as exchange ideology, community support and social norms (Ondis, 2021) as the causes of users' participation in question and answer networks. The social response has been raised. Perez and Gomez (2011) have mentioned the reasons for using online networks mostly for fun and socializing and less for getting promotion and sharing personal experiences by stating their 7-category. However, despite the research conducted in the field of Covid-19, what kind of questions and answers have been raised about this disease in ResearchGate's Q&A network (referring to internet resources, referring to experts, referring to articles, books, etc.) and what is the RG rank of the questioners and respondents in the subject area of Covid-19, still needs to be investigated. Investigating the reasons for users' participation in the ResearchGate question and answer system as respondents and questioners is also still in question.
Methodolog
This study is a survey. The ResearchGate scientific social network crawler was used to extract the data. 1337 questions and 4857 answers from the QA system of ResearchGate were collected and analyzed in the last two months of 2020 (November and December) in the field of COVID-19 or Coronavirus. By using a checklist prepared and approved by 8 experts in information science, the type of questions (conceptual, methodological, experiences and skills, and questions from other scientific sources) and answers based on citations (to the source via the Internet, experts, books, articles, and other offline resources) were evaluated. Due to concerns that not answering the questionnaires could pose a problem, 620 researcher-made questionnaires were distributed online to users to determine why they were using the ResearchGate QA System. These reasons were Finding Information, Getting Opinions, Being Entertained, Socializing, Being Updated about contact information, Sharing Personal Experiences, and Getting Promotions which have been mentioned in Perez and Gomez’s research. 305 questionnaires were completely answered and all of them were analyzed according to the Likert scale.
Results
 Most of the questioners are men (60.6%) and 55.9% have a doctoral degree or even higher. About 61% of the respondents are men and 66.4% have a doctoral degree or higher. Questioners have asked more about people's personal skills and experiences, and respondents have referred more to Internet resources. The least used resources were books, papers and other offline resources. The most people have asked about the experiences and skills of other people in the subject of Covid-19. The most important reason that encourages people to use the Research Gate network and the question-and-answer systems of this network is to find the required information, which accounts for 17.73% of the obtained points. After that, more people refer to Research Gate and participate in it in order to know the opinions of other researchers and to feel social and participate in collective activities. On the other hand, reasons such as having fun and getting promoted with the lowest points show that people use Researchgate more as a platform to access scientific information and gain personal knowledge of other researchers than a network for entertainment and spending their free time.The least common reasons for users to participate in this system are to be entertained or get promotions which shows that, People use ResearchGate more as a network to access scientific information and to gain personal knowledge about other researchers than as an entertainment and leisure tool. In addition, having a RJ score above 10 indicates the questions and answers are in high quality.
Conclusion
Examining and evaluating the quality of answers sent in question-and-answer communities, in addition to the benefits for the user who sends questions to have better criteria for evaluating the quality of received answers, the management of social networking sites is also Having such criteria can have better performance. In this way, many social networks have used the reputation system, a system in which users can earn points based on participation in site activities or their rank on the site by considering factors such as the number of questions answered. Given, the number of answers voted as the best answer and other factors to promote. Based on the search and exploration of the conducted researches, it is obvious that considering that the first social networks that were created were part of the public networks, most of the researches have assigned the subject area to themselves. There is a constant for predicting and evaluating the quality of answers, which is due to the lack of research on the subject, despite its importance. This research can be used as an incentive for researchers to use scientific social networks to obtain the information they need. Also, the final results can be used by designers in order to form the algorithms for the design of social networks and making them professional. In this way, the designers will be informed about the preferences and interests of the users, and finally it will be possible to have higher quality and more user-friendly networks.

Keywords

References
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New Media Studies
Volume 9, Issue 36
December 2023
Pages 216-187
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