The Case of the Academia.edu Mentions

I am registered on this website under the name of a fictional explosives company. Apparently said fictional company has a substantial footprint in academia! I have been mentioned in “578 papers, including one Museum Studies paper” and “five highly-cited papers”. Now as much as I’d love to be a scholar, I am not… And now I am curious to see how many papers Elmer J. Fudd has authored.

This website, which registered under the .edu domain before criteria were in place to qualify for use of that domain, bills itself as a free open access research journal. It is a privately run, for-profit company that bases its revenue on hosting third-party advertisements, and by pushing a premium subscription that allows users to access detailed metrics and make advanced searches. Whilst useful for accessing free papers uploaded by the authors themselves, it is a social media venture that does not place the fostering of public knowledge at the forefront of its obligations or activities.

Anyway, if you like what I’ve written, we should network. See you in the pitfight over grant money, darling!