Social Matching Systems for Research Collaboration
Matthew Archer, Douglas Zytko · 2019
Social matching systems, while popular for dating and platonic connections, can also play a role in the workplace, particularly for initiating collaborations between professionals from traditionally disparate fields of practice. In this paper we present a profile page design to support university faculty in self-presenting to nonacademic partners in their local community for collaborative research opportunities, as informed by a focus group study. We then discuss preliminary insight from a survey to faculty prompting them to create their profile page and provide feedback on its design. The created profiles indicate that faculty embrace profile pictures as tools for conveying their expertise and resources rather than their physical appearance. Furthermore, functionality to link the profiles of users who are currently working together should be considered as a way to convey combined collaboration potential.