Usage patterns at the Research Cooperative
As Administrator of the Research Cooperative, I am trying to grasp what works best for everyone who joins.
Although I have no way to prove this, I have an impression that most of the members who keep themselves anonymous (with no public profile information) are researchers.
Although it is not an effective way of doing science, many such members may feel that asking for help with writing and publishing is a private matter, and so prefer to be invisible (until actually needing to communicate with an editor or translator).
Among those who do provide public profile information, there is a good mix of people offering services, and people who are happy to display their research interests and achievements.
For the people who offer services, it is obviously more effective to not be anonymous. Service providers generally do make a basic minimum of information public on their personal profile page, but often do not go further to make their work more visible.
For those who would like to offer services, there are four main locations to provide information and increase your visibility. In each case, it is also possible to add tags that make will make your work and special skills even more visible. Please look carefully at each of the following areas.
1. Personal profile page - with a link to any other website that is your main working or business site, if you have one (alternatively, you can make our network your main working site). In addition to the basic profile biography, more can be achieved by using the profile blog provided, or by adding images that are related to your work in some way (this is especially effective for those working as illustrators, or in media design).
2. Service forum for OFFERS - e.g. to offer help with editing or translating.
3. Service community group - where a discussion thread can be started to introduce the services you provide, or to discuss anything related to your work.
4. Country focus group - discussion topics for the country where you are physically based or most active, e.g. Research Co-op USA, Research Co-op India, or Research Co-op Brazil.