The Status of the Presence of Faculty Members in Knowledge and Information Science in Scientific Social Networks

The emergence and expansion of the use of the Internet has created a new paradigm of communication and a kind of interactive Internet, called social network. Social networks are divided into two general groups, such as Facebook, Twitter and so on and specialized networks such as Research Gate, Mandeley and Accademia. The present article aimed to determine the necessities, challenges and strategies of activity in scientific social networks from the point of view of the faculty members of knowledge and information science.

This qualitative study was a grounded theory. The main method of data collection was a semi-structured interview. Data analysis was based on the analysis of three levels of Strauss and Corbin coding by using MAXQDA software. The sampling was carried out in a purposeful way and the main criterion regarding the number of interviews was to reach the theoretical saturation.

 Analysis of data led to the extraction of the 4 main categories including the contexts (communication interaction, knowledge search, knowledge sharing), challenges (lack of time, lack of awareness and skills), requirements (personal knowledge management, university support, activity of scientific organizations, governmental support) and effective factors (understanding of need, network capabilities), as well as 11 sub-categories and 57 classes.

The central concept of the research, called "scientific socialization", was formed in this study f. Scientific socialization brings the scientific spirit of social relations that passes through the process of socialization to the members of the community.