MERITS OF THE ACADEMIA DATABASE

I have recently joined the academic database Academia (www.academia.edu), and, having already put up a number of my papers, can report that I am more than satisfied. It is true, as some have pointed out on the internet, that the free variant is of very limited use (it informs of papers but gives no access to them) and that to get anything useful out of this site one has to choose the paying variant. Some contrast this unfavourably with Google Scholar, but Academia does have its advantages, over both the Google facility and another rival, Orcid. Unlike Google Scholar though like Orcid, Academia is user-controlled: authors can put up their material themselves, whereas Google Scholar creates entries automatically and there is no way for authors to create, amend, remove or restore its entries on their own work. Also, unlike both Orcid and Google Scholar, Academia, with more than 115 million users, allows direct search on an enormous and ever-growing full-text database, currently with 24 million papers – a facility that was lacking even on the otherwise exemplary and now sadly defunct site GetCited. On the downside, Academia’s interface feels a shade clunky and some functionalities are hidden away and take some finding – but that may be simply a matter of getting used to it.

I can certainly say already that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, and would recommend this site to any researcher seeking a broader platform for their work.