MANAGING INFORMATION FOR COMPETITIVE

Managing Information For Competitive



Table of Contents

Introduction and Background3

Results3

Conclusion7

Concerned about research communication?8

REFERENCES9

Managing Information For Competitive

Introduction and Background

The way in which research is communicated is changing rapidly. To investigate how these changes are affecting those involved, JISC set up an online survey to investigate concerns about scholarly communication. A link to the online survey was sent to various email lists (e.g. JISC working groups, UCISA) and via circulation by the UUK, the Research Councils and to some named contacts.

Results

195 people responded across a range of job roles within institutions. Most (78%) described their role within their university or college as Researcher, but large percentages described themselves as Research author (49%), Reviewer or editor (34%), Librarian (30%) or Lecturer (30%). Figure 1 shows the percentage of each role.



Base: All respondents (195). Percentages sum to >100% as multiple responses allowed.

Figure 1: the percentages of roles represented in the respondents

Approximately a third of respondents (37%) described their research area as social sciences. Around a tenth described themselves as either having no research area (13%; presumably those with more administrative responsibilities), or researching Arts & Humanities (12%), or Multi-disciplinary and Life Sciences (both 11%). The remaining 16% was made up of Physical Sciences (5%), Engineering (4%), Maths/computer science (3%), Management & business (2%) and Other (2%). The methodology applied means that the results are not necessarily representative of the key scholarly communication concerns of the UK higher education community as a whole, rather they provide an indicative impression of key concerns among a sample of academics across HE. (Devon Silks 2008 Pp. 47)

Figure 3

Respondents are clearly concerned with research communication issues both within and outside the academic community. Respondents do appear slightly less concerned with communication of research outside the academic community, but still two-fifths mentioned they were so ...