ResearchGate 4+

I understand that ResearchGate is not a technology company per se. I think the site does a fantastic job bringing the research community together as a social networking web site.

Regarding its access on electronic devices the app designed for the iPhone is very good, but porting it over to the iPad tablet form factor is less than ideal compared to using a browser given that most use these tablets in landscape mode.

Since most major web sites now provide apps that meet both the phone and tablet form factors, I would suggest that ResearchGate contact Apple for assistance in creating their app also for the iPadOS form factor to make it more user friendly to the size of the screen but still provide the same useful functions like notifications.

Otherwise, the options become use the small iPhone app form factor on the iPad for notifications and a browser to access the web site if one feels the app screen size is too small.

Thanks

Update 26Feb2019: Well, clearly condone at RG is listening to concerns about UI mad functionality. In the PSY month they have issued half dozen or more updates. Works fine now on iPhone XS. Still some glitches in interface and limitations on functionality vs online version. But a huge improvement.

Original Review: The app seems to have nice features but because the graphical UI is poorly done on newer iPhones (unclear its actually coded for them, but if so they need a new coder). The result is that the interface elements such as drop down and back arrow are overlapping with system elements like time, location services, network and battery life. As a result, it’s nearly impossible to get those app buttons to register. It also looks poorly on these screens because both the top and bottom of the app are clearly not optimized to fit the screens well. It’s just off. I emailed them several months ago but no fix has occurred. Given it’s nearly u useable hard to give much over one star. I wouldn’t criticize for lack of compatibility with bleeding edge iPhone that was released, say, a week prior. But this screen configuration is over 16 months old and on Apple’s FOUR most recent models.

I have been using ResearchGate for over a year but have been deeply disappointed in it lately. My recent search for articles has come up fruitless. I found 20+ articles which may have had information pertinent to my research, but most of these were available by request only. So I pressed the “request to read full article” button, but it’s been over a week and I have had only one response from an author who stated “he didn’t have access to his paper anymore”. Now; I’m not giving a low rating because of his response, I’m giving a low rating for the lack of response from the other 20+ requests.

I just wonder what value this app has if most of its articles are available upon request, and most of these requests are not responded too?

I recommend ResearchGate makes providing the full article mandatory when posting on their site because otherwise their site is useless. I mean as a scientist, why would you post to have written a paper without posting the paper itself. That’s not the name of the game here.