I set up a profile on Academia.edu and have been pretty impressed with their interface. They have several features on the profiles pages that are tailored to academic needs, including a very natural way to upload CVs and pdfs of publications. I get the impression that they are working steadily to improve the interface further. Also, the profile page comes up pretty high in the google rankings when you google my name---so it functions as a very easy to update and portable homepage, a nice thing for a post doc.
------------------------------------------------ Yasmin Lucero Postdoctoral Fellow Northwest Fisheries Science Center 2725 Montlake Boulevard East, Rm 171W Seattle, Washington 98112 http://yasmin.lucero.googlepages.com On Thu, Nov 19, 2009 at 10:38 AM, Kevin Burls <[email protected]> wrote: > www.Academia.edu is a somewhat successful site that operates as an > academic > family tree of sorts. Where it's filled in, there can be useful in finding > students of a particular advisor or topic. I think if people really got > into > it, the site could be a useful repository for academic lineages. It also > seems to have a good bit of international participation already. > > > On 11/19/09 5:45 AM, "William Silvert" <[email protected]> wrote: > > > I've joined a few of the various social networks and find them of little > > professional value, although I have met up with some old friends and > > schoolmates. However it strikes me that this kind of networking could be > of > > considerable value to scientists, and I am posting to enquire whether any > > suitable networks exist. It may of course be that I simply don't know how > to > > use the networks I belong to. > > > > It would be handy to be able to classify one's friends/colleagues by > interest > > and to be able to post messages to various specific interest groups. This > > seems similar to the idea of lists on Facebook, but I have not yet found > any > > way to send messages specifically to one or more of these lists. > > > > Some of these interest groups already exist as formal groups of course, I > am > > sure that there must be several organised groups dealing with climate > change. > > On the other hand I doubt that there are groups specifically interested > in > > vibrio or in ctenophores, so it would have to be an ad hoc group. I > envisage a > > system where individual scientists would define their own interest areas > and > > be able to communicate easily with colleagues with overlapping interests. > For > > example, if I am working on the possibility that pollution is depressing > > oxygen levels in some region and this is encouraging the dominance of > > jellyfish, I could send it to people I know whom I have classified as > > interested in pollution, in hypoxia and in gelatinous zooplankton, and > perhaps > > to others working in the same region. > > > > Of course some of the existing networks are ideal for a few scientists. I > find > > Twitter absolutely useless, but for astronomers searching for comets it > must > > be a fantastic tool. > > > > Anyway, I would welcome any comments and advice on ways in which these > modern > > networking tools can be used for science. Email lists have certainly been > > useful, but I find that in some areas they are too narrowly defined and > > structured to work well. > > > > Bill Silvert >
