Scholarly Communication Issues

The University of California Office of Scholarly Communications has recently released a new study of UC faculty and their perseption and barriers related to scholarly communication issues. This study analyzes their current practices and barriers (such as promotion and tenure processes at UC) that hinder them from making needed changes to the scholarly communications process.

In general, interest is strong in scholarly communications issues. Approximately 1,100 scholary communication surveys were returned, which is approximately 23% of solicited faculty and 13% of overall OC faculty. However, knowledge and awareness about current scholarly communications issues are more limited. The majority of faculty do not feel that scholarly communications issues affect them directly and most are unwilling to change their habits and activities from what is normally and currently done.

Awareness of alternatives in scholarly publishing is low, but those that have an interest in alternatives to traditional scholarly publishing have a strong base at UC. Approximately 21% of respondents have published in open access journals and about 14% have posted their peer-reviewed work to an institutional repository.

The study concluded that senior faculty and faculty in the Arts and Humanities were more willing to change their behaviors related to scholarly communications. The university will use the data gathered from this study to inform discussions throughout the university about challenges and opportunities related to scholarly publishing and providing insight into the University e-scholarship publishing review.

An abstract of the study can be found at http://www.arl.org/news/enews/enews-augsep07.shtml#5 and the full study, an executive summary, and the text of the survey can be found at http://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/responses/activities.html

posted by Annie Powell