Scientific social networks: Affiliation, use and opinion of researchers from AGACOM

The evolution of the Internet and, specially, the appearance of new information and communications technologies (ICT) inaugurated a different way of understanding research. In fact, words like e-Research or e-Science refer to a new condition of scientific activity, in which tools like social networks allow to disseminate knowledge in an open, collaborative and interactive way that leads to the adjective of Science 2.0 and, at the same time, contributes to enrich the knowledge society, feeding those known as invisible colleges of science. However, even though scientific social networks allow users to share in public their researches in a specific system of knowledge exchange, the participation by Galician communication researchers affiliated to Galician Association of Communication Researchers (AGACOM) is not too high, as well as the use made in them, defined with the adjectives insufficient and passive. In spite of that, their opinion about these kinds of tools is positive as far as their future use is concerned, which demonstrates that, somehow, online social networks are tools which are being developed and popularized, but so far, they have not reached their scientific maturity yet.