For researchers in the United States or Europe, finding a collaborator in China can be difficult—language differences and time zones get in the way, and Facebook and other social-networking services used by Western researchers are blocked in China.
A new online service hopes to help connect Chinese academics with those outside their country’s borders. It’s called Anianet, and it boasts about 6,000 registered users, though many of their profiles are thin on details so far.
The Web site allows researchers to post a résumé or CV, as well as to upload research documents, photographs, and video clips. So far most Chinese researchers on the site have chosen to provide only the most minimal details, with many posting only a photo and research field. That would be little help to someone trying to evaluate the researcher’s work.
The site’s founder and chief executive, Greg Tananbaum, said that it is up to users to decide how much information to share, but that his staff often contacts new users to encourage them to add more information. “We go back and attempt to explain why it’s more advantageous” to add more, he said. He also pointed to a few longer profiles with videos and documents attached.
“We have members who have e-mailed us notes of thanks and said, ‘I have connected with a conference and was invited to speak,’” he said.
Instructions for setting up a profile on the site are provided in Mandarin and in English, and three staff members are on hand to look over profiles and fix obvious spelling and grammar errors, according to Mr. Tananbaum.
“What we’re trying to do is to focus on a very definable and discrete issue—which is that Chinese scholars struggle to make their accomplishments and research known in the West,” Mr. Tananbaum said.
The site recently formed a partnership with Springer, the journal publisher, to offer links from the site to relevant articles from its publications, though no money changed hands in the arrangement.