Analyzing Research Visibility Through ResearchGate Engagement and Citation-Based Metrics: A Study of Basic and Applied & Health Sciences Faculty Members

The study analyzed the role of ResearchGate in enhancing the research visibility of faculty members of Basic Sciences (BS) and Applied & Health Sciences (A&HS) across select universities of India. For this purpose, the metrics available on the platform were divided into two broad categories: (i) ResearchGate Engagement Metrics (RG-EM): followers, reads & recommendations and (ii) ResearchGate Citation-Based Metrics (RG-CITM): citations & h-index. Secondly, the study investigated the extent to which ResearchGate metrics help in capturing the visibility of faculty members, and whether there exists any association among them. Manual data extraction was conducted by visiting the ResearchGate (RG) profiles of faculty members of the two central universities in the study. Majority of the faculty members had a profile on ResearchGate, and statistically significant differences in uptake due to academic rank was found only in case of A&HS. RG-EM had strong to very strong positive correlations with Scopus metrics for A&HS, whereas they were moderate to strong positive for BS. The study suggests that RG-EM might be helpful in understanding the role of ResearchGate in the visibility of researchers and may complement traditional citation-based metrics.