Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Academic edu: Is Anonymity a Good Thing?

One of the cool things about academic.edu is seeing who follows your work. Its is a great way to see what others are doing, and to find new people to reach out to in your areas of interest. This aspect of the system is public, open and transparent.

I wish the analytics section was the same way. It would be really great to discover who is looking at my work on the web, not only where they are from. I know that there are many reasons why, even if it could be done, that the system should remain "nameless." Yet, it would be of great value to me to see, for example, who is looking at my work on writing and publishing, as a means of seeing what types of resources they may need.

I know, be careful what you ask for; the consequences of too much openness on the web, (i.e. identity theft) are all too well-know.

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