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This research provides a systematic analysis of 115 previous literatures on the use of academic social networking sites (ASNs) in scholarly communication. Previous research on the subject has mainly taken a disciplinary and user perspective. This research conceptualizes the use of ASNs in scholarly communication in the space between social interactions and the technologies themselves. Keyword analysis and scoping review approaches have been used to analyze the comprehensive literature in the field. The study found a geographic variation in what motivates academics to use ASNs. Scholar discovery and sharing are the primary driving factors identified in the literature. Four main themes within the research literature are proposed: motivation and uses, impact assessment, features and services, and scholarly big data. The study found that there has been an increase in scholarly big data research in recent years. The paper also discusses the key findings and concepts stated in each theme. This gives academics a better understanding of what ASNs can do and their weaknesses, and identifies gaps in the literature that are worth addressing in future investigations. We suggest that future studies may also extend the existing theoretical framework and epistemological approaches to better predict and clarify the socio-technical dimensions of ASNs use in scholarly communication. In addition, this study has implications for academic and research institutions, libraries and information literacy programs, and future studies on the topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As more scholarly content is born digital or converted to a digital format, digital libraries are becoming increasingly vital to researchers seeking to leverage scholarly big data for scientific discovery. Although scholarly products are available in abundance—especially in environments created by the advent of social networking services—little is known about international scholarly information needs, information-seeking behavior, or information use. The purpose of this paper is to address these gaps via an in-depth analysis of the information needs and information-seeking behavior of researchers, both students and faculty, at two universities, one in the USA and the other in Qatar. Based on this analysis, the study identifies and describes new behavior patterns on the part of researchers as they engage in the information-seeking process. The analysis reveals that the use of academic social networks has notable effects on various scholarly activities. Further, this study identifies differences between students and faculty members in regard to their use of academic social networks, and it identifies differences between researchers according to discipline. Although the researchers who participated in the present study represent a range of disciplinary and cultural backgrounds, the study reports a number of similarities in terms of the researchers' scholarly activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]