[INDOLOGY] Discussing Academia.edu

[Audrey Truschke]

I concur with Dominik on the valuable features of academia.edu. I would add
that I find the sins of academia.edu quite minor compared to those of the
large for-profit companies that own scholarly journals. We all publish in
journals owned by Springer, John Wiley & Sons, and other commercial
scholarly publishers that make significant profit margins off of our
research, usually after taking the copyright and putting our work behind
paywalls.

If one wants to protest the commercialization of academic work and such, it
seems that journals are the place to start.

Audrey

Audrey Truschke
Assistant Professor
Department of History
Rutgers University-Newark

On Thu, Jan 26, 2017 at 11:20 AM, Dominik Wujastyk via INDOLOGY <
indology at list.indology.info> wrote:

> Many of us use Academia.edu as a shop-window for our publications and our
> academic identity.
>
> There was a piece by Sarah Bond published in Forbes on Monday
> <http://www.forbes.com/sites/drsarahbond/2017/01/23/dear-scholars-delete-your-account-at-academia-edu/#39e520de2ee0>
> this week that raises a number of criticisms of Academia.edu, and
> recommends deleting your Academia.edu account.
>
> I've read Bond's piece carefully, and I find its arguments extremely
> weak.  I don't wish to do a point-by-point rejoinder here.  But I do want
> to signal to colleagues that Bond's alarmist critique of Academia.edu is
> something that I personally will ignore.
>
> I remain very happy with Academia.edu, while recognizing that there are
> some issues that require vigilance and discussion.  I have written to
> Richard Price the founder of Academia.edu and a former Fellow of All Souls,
> Oxford, more than once in the past, and he has always answered personally
> and discussed my concerns seriously.  Similarly with other staff members.
> The areas where Academia.edu might need to watch its step are areas that
> apply to all other similar services.  The benefits that Academia.edu offers
> its users are substantial, for a combination of hosting research, for
> subject-specific awareness alerts, for networking, and for analytics.  I
> see no competitor out there that quite offers the same ecosystem with the
> same combination of benefits.
>
> Best,
> Dominik Wujastyk
>
>
> ​
> --
> Professor Dominik Wujastyk <http://ualberta.academia.edu/DominikWujastyk>
> ​,​
>
> Singhmar Chair in Classical Indian Society and Polity
> ​,​
>
> Department of History and Classics
> <http://historyandclassics.ualberta.ca/>
> ​,​
> University of Alberta, Canada
> ​.​
>
> South Asia at the U of A:
>
> ​sas.ualberta.ca​
> ​​
>
>
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