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December 06, 2007
Faculty Attitudes and Behaviors Regarding Scholarly Communications
Faculty Attitudes and Behaviors Regarding Scholarly Communication: Survey Findings from the University of California
http://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/responses/activities.html
There are options to download the full report (124pp!) or the executive summary and summary of findings. There is also a copy of the survey itself.
I found this study very interesting as this issue figured prominently in our institutional repository assignment. This study surveyed 1118 faculty members in the University of California system to discover faculty knowledge and opinions on issues in scholarly communications.
The overall results of the survey, generally speaking, were that faculty felt there are lots of problems in scholarly communications which don't apply to them personally. Many felt that other disciplines were affected more than their own. They also said that in spite of the cost of journals and questions of copyright retention, they were unlikely to discontinue publishing in peer reviewed journals. The most significant reason for this reluctance was skepticism that tenure and promotion processes would adjust to the open access system.
Apparently, university administrations need to weigh in on the question of tenure and promotion through open access publishing to encourage faculty to make the leap. Then this decision must be communicated to faculty clearly and repeatedly, as survey results indicated that administration outreach has thus far been ineffective in educating faculty.
ETA posted by Julie Wyatt
Posted by colldev at December 6, 2007 11:19 AM