ResearchGate Score, full-text research items, and full-text reads : a follow-up study

This contribution focuses on the scholarly social network ResearchGate (RG). We take the cue from a recent change in the information shown on each researcher’s profile page, which now discloses the number of full-text reads, in addition to the already provided number of overall reads. Building on the findings of two previous studies (Orduna-Malea et al. in Scientometrics 112(1):443–460, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-017-2396-9; Copiello and Bonifaci in Scientometrics 114(1):301–306, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-017-2582-9), we delve into the relationship among full-text research items uploaded in that platform, full-text reads of the same items, and the so-called RG Score. The dataset examined here provides conflicting results. Firstly, the number of full-text publications and reads is significantly different, along with the RG Score, for the analyzed samples. Secondly, the RG Score implicitly rewards the ratio between the full-texts available to users and total research items. Moreover, the same score seems to be affected to a greater degree by the level of overall reads. However, apart from an indirect relationship, it does not reward how much attention the full-texts get in comparison to the other research items featured in the scholars’ profile pages.