Faculty Attitudes and Behaviors Regarding Scholarly Communication: Survey Findings from the University of California is a report of the results of a survey of more than 1000 academics about “faculty perspectives and behavior on a range of issues and developments within the scholarly communication arena.”
From the executive summary:
Results of the survey – available in summary and statistically detailed forms in sections II and IV of the report respectively – reveal a profile of UC’s community of scholars where:
- Faculty are strongly interested in issues related to scholarly communication.
- Faculty generally conform to conventional behavior in scholarly publication, albeit with significant beachheads on several fronts.
- Faculty attitudes are changing on a number of fronts, with a few signs of imminent change in behaviors.
- The current tenure and promotion system impedes changes in faculty behavior.
- On important issues in scholarly communication, faculty attitudes vary inconsistently by rank, except in general depth of knowledge and on issues related to tenure and promotion.
- Faculty tend to see scholarly communication problems as affecting others, but not themselves.
- The disconnect between attitude and behavior is acute with regard to copyright.
- University policies mandating change are likely to stir intense debate.
- Scholars are aware of alternative forms of dissemination but are concerned about preserving their current publishing outlet.
- Scholars are concerned that changes might undermine the quality of scholarship.
- Outreach on scholarly communication issues and services has not yet reached the majority of faculty.
- The Arts and Humanities disciplines may be the most fertile disciplines for Universitysponsored initiatives in scholarly communication.
- Senior faculty may be the most fertile targets for innovation in scholarly communication.
It’s quite a big read but this passage from one of the earlier summary pages struck a chord with me – especially following on from some IR related chats with academic staff:
"The disconnect between attitude and behavior is acute with regard to copyright.
While faculty tend to agree that management of copyright is an important factor in the evolution of scholarly publishing, fewer than half report that it is an important factor in their own scholarly publishing, and even fewer take action to retain copyright rights."