Online Profiles (LinkedIn, Academia.edu)

[erosanddust]

Hey, all! I'm interested in hearing thoughts about creating professional online profiles on sites such as LinkedIn, Academia.edu, or even a personal website. How many of you use these platforms, and what for? Are they popular in the field? How valuable do you find them?

[__________________________]

My impression is Linkedin is irrelevant for academia, though I still have one from before I started grad school that had some vague semblance of usefulness (I guess?) for when I was in the "real world."  I recently started an account on Academia.edu simply so I could download a couple articles that I was having trouble tracking down through other avenues.  I'm not savvy at all with social media, but Academia.edu looks like it could be useful for sharing information like that; it makes recommendations on recent papers and things based on the research interests you put on your profile, so that's something.  I think that's ultimately what it's useful for; my impression is that it can be like tape trading for academics.

[sarabethke]

10 hours ago, mollifiedmolloy said:

My impression is Linkedin is irrelevant for academia, though I still have one from before I started grad school that had some vague semblance of usefulness (I guess?) for when I was in the "real world."  I recently started an account on Academia.edu simply so I could download a couple articles that I was having trouble tracking down through other avenues.  I'm not savvy at all with social media, but Academia.edu looks like it could be useful for sharing information like that; it makes recommendations on recent papers and things based on the research interests you put on your profile, so that's something.  I think that's ultimately what it's useful for; my impression is that it can be like tape trading for academics.

I have an academia.edu account, but no papers uploaded (which is the point of it) because I'm kind of confused about how it's helpful for me. If I don't have anything published quite yet, would it be useful at all to put up seminar papers or things I've read for conferences? Even if I plan on eventually adapting them for publication? And when I am published I won't be able to just post those articles, correct? Is an earlier version of it okay or not okay or, again, useful in any way? I feel a little silly just having my face up there and interests but without anything to really show.

[twvancamp]

For what it's worth, I got notifications that my Academia page had been viewed several times over the past few weeks. When I checked the views they were all from cities where I had applied to programs. Like mollified I had just set one up to download articles, so my page is blank. After realizing that programs were checking I updated my info/pic/etc. but still don't have any uploads. 

[empress-marmot]

3 hours ago, sarabethke said:

I have an academia.edu account, but no papers uploaded (which is the point of it) because I'm kind of confused about how it's helpful for me. If I don't have anything published quite yet, would it be useful at all to put up seminar papers or things I've read for conferences? Even if I plan on eventually adapting them for publication? And when I am published I won't be able to just post those articles, correct? Is an earlier version of it okay or not okay or, again, useful in any way? I feel a little silly just having my face up there and interests but without anything to really show.

There are a few other people with my name running around the world, and one of them has a blog named something like "SassKittenThoughtz102." Obviously, that's not the first result I want people to see if they google my name.

I fixed this problem by creating a personal website, a twitter, an academia.edu, a linkedin, and a g+ page in my name. Linking accounts together, so I've heard, makes your accounts appear higher in the results pages. All the accounts link back to my personal site, which has a current cv.

Excessive, maybe. But SassKittenThoughtz102 was embarrassing me.

[sarabethke]

2 hours ago, twvancamp said:

For what it's worth, I got notifications that my Academia page had been viewed several times over the past few weeks. When I checked the views they were all from cities where I had applied to programs. Like mollified I had just set one up to download articles, so my page is blank. After realizing that programs were checking I updated my info/pic/etc. but still don't have any uploads. 

Most of my searches are local, so I assume they're my students googling me lol but I had a search from one of the programs I applied to too! I don't know if that's standard, or special, but I hope it's special lol They're probably not searching for all 500 applicants, right??

[__________________________]

8 hours ago, sarabethke said:

I have an academia.edu account, but no papers uploaded (which is the point of it) because I'm kind of confused about how it's helpful for me. If I don't have anything published quite yet, would it be useful at all to put up seminar papers or things I've read for conferences? Even if I plan on eventually adapting them for publication? And when I am published I won't be able to just post those articles, correct? Is an earlier version of it okay or not okay or, again, useful in any way? I feel a little silly just having my face up there and interests but without anything to really show.

ummm... I dunno... I wouldn't advise uploading course papers like that.  If/when you do publish something, you should also probably check in with the publisher (people have gotten in trouble for things like that, and now some new journals will say on their websites whether they allow uploading of forthcoming/published essays on Academia.edu).  But my profile has literally nothing on it; I treat it like Twitter: you don't have to actively participate and throw yourself out there to benefit from it.  I don't think anyone's gonna search you up on the interwebs and laugh at you for having a silly Academia.edu page.  If you want to look at examples, you can go on the website and search your department/prospective department and see what others have done I guess?

[sarabethke]

10 minutes ago, mollifiedmolloy said:

ummm... I dunno... I wouldn't advise uploading course papers like that.  If/when you do publish something, you should also probably check in with the publisher (people have gotten in trouble for things like that, and now some new journals will say on their websites whether they allow uploading of forthcoming/published essays on Academia.edu).  But my profile has literally nothing on it; I treat it like Twitter: you don't have to actively participate and throw yourself out there to benefit from it.  I don't think anyone's gonna search you up on the interwebs and laugh at you for having a silly Academia.edu page.  If you want to look at examples, you can go on the website and search your department/prospective department and see what others have done I guess?

Okay, thanks! Yeah, it's just weird because all the profs have stuff (obviously) but I don't have a lot of current grad student examples. I'll just leave it how it is

[kurayamino]

I have both, but I'm not sure about their usefulness at the moment. On my academia profile I have the titles of my conference papers listed, but not the paper itself. I get all sorts of weird hits from google because of it, but I find that to be really amusing. When I attend other conferences I do notice my profile hits go up? So I guess people just use that to try and get a pin on who you are as a person, especially since my facebook profile is not google searchable. I definitely wouldn't post my papers there or anything.

 

This was published in the Chronicle and seems interesting. http://chronicle.com/article/As-Academiaedu-Grows-Some/234414

[tawodi]

From what I've heard Academia.edu is helpful to have when you go on the job market. I have an account and I post conference papers but not my seminar papers. I've also had several hits from schools I've applied to, I think that it's a way for professors in the program to get more of an idea about the work that you do.