Faculty Attitudes and Behaviors Regarding Scholarly Communication: Survey Findings from the University of California

摘要

The University of California's Office of Scholarly Communication (OSC) promotes and encourages University wide planning and action to develop scholarly communication systems that (1) meet the needs of the University's researchers, teachers, and students; (2) are economically sustainable; and, (3) leverage Internet technologies to support innovation in all forms of scholarship. With the assistance of consultants from Greenhouse Associates, the OSC initiated a multiphase study in 2006 that aimed to deepen our understanding of faculty perspectives and behavior on a range of issues and developments within the scholarly communication arena. The study explored UC faculty members sense of the overall health of scholarly communication systems, and their perspective on the role of tenure and promotion processes, copyright, alternative and emerging forms of publication and dissemination, policy interventions, and key services that the University does or could supply, including those of its eScholarship publishing services. Informed by a set of 37 structured interviews held in the spring of 2006, the OSC in November 2006 invited a random stratified sample of UCs ladder-rank faculty from all ten UC campuses to participate in a 32-question online survey. Using question sub-components, most questions covered several, or many, aspects of an issue. The 1118 respondents representing 23% of those invited from the sample and 13% of the UC faculty population came proportionately from all faculty ranks and disciplines.