E-Journal Survey *FIRST DRAFT*

A study of the impact of e-journal access on the information-seeking behavior of Notre Dame Faculty and Graduate Students

C. Brach, S. Jones, C. PilkintonUniversity Libraries of Notre Dame

“The Survey” Was conducted in March 2005 Contained 20 questions Respondents were Notre Dame Faculty and

Graduate Students (about 520) Survey was sent via e-mail using the Survey

Monkey format Respondents were asked for their status

(faculty or graduate student), primary college affiliation, and the number of grants applied for or received, and articles accepted or published in the past 3 yrs.

Data was related to College or discipline, faculty or graduate student in order to show if and/or where differences exist in e-journal use among groups

Important Notes

This is sampling of survey responses to questions that demonstrate differences among user groups at Notre Dame—a “first pass”. Further analysis will follow at a later time

User groups are divided by college and research interests when the data indicate there are differences: College of Arts & Letters is sometimes divided between Humanities and Social Sciences

Data is given for faculty and graduate students if there are interesting differences

For each response, the percent we are reporting is based on the total number of responses to each question because not all survey respondents answered every question. Put another way, we are only reporting the number of responses to individual survey questions that is based on the actual number of responses to each question.

We have no figures for Business graduate students and so where we make comparisons between faculty and grad student behavior, the business faculty are not included on the charts.

E-Journal Survey—What we hope to learn

Is research are being done differently because of the change from print to electronic? How has it changed?

How important is “the convenience factor”?

Are there differences among disciplines?

Are there differences between faculty and graduate student behavior?

Question 1. I use electronic journals for professional research: daily or weekly results are shown

Frequency of E-Journal Use by Faculty

47.3

52.349.0

59.1

37.034.0

7.3

31.8

18.0

40.9

51.955.354.5

84.1

67.0

100.0

88.9 89.4

0.010.020.030.040.050.060.070.080.090.0

100.0

HumanitiesT&R Faculty

(A&L)

SocSciencesT&R Faculty

(A&L)

All Arts &Letters T&R

Faculty

Business T&RFaculty

EngineeringT&R Faculty

Science T&RFaculty

% Using Weekly % Using Daily Total % Daily or Weekly Use

Question 2. What percentage of your research is currently done using journals in electronic format?

What percent of research using journal literature is done using electronic format?

Respondents who replied 50% or greater.

020406080

100

Per

cen

t

Faculty

Graduate Students

Question 2 cont. What percentage of your research is currently done using journals in electronic format?

FacultyWhat % of the research using journal literature

is done using electronic format? Respondents who replied 50% or greater.

95.5 90.9 96.3 91.5

52.7

0

20

40

60

80

100

Humanities SocSciences Business Engineering Science

Perc

ent

Graduate StudentsWhat % of the research using journal

literature is done using electronic format ?Respondents who replied 50% or greater.

97.9 95.9 99.1

68.6

0

20

40

60

80

100

Humanities SocSciences Engineering Science

Per

cent

Question 4. Has the availability of e-journals led you to use a wider variety of titles?

Comparison of Grad Students vs Faculty who use a wider variety of titles:

0 20 40 60 80 100

Humanities

SocSciences

Engineering

Science

AVERAGE

Percent

graduate st

faculty

A view of the Question 4 data more closely:

Has availability of electronic journals led you to use a wider variety of titles?

Those who answered "somewhat" or "much" greater variety:

0

20

40

60

80

100

Perc

ent faculty

grad

Do you cite a greater variety of journal articles than in the past?

Those who answered "somewhat" or "much"greater variety:

0

20

40

60

80

100

Perc

ent

faculty

grad

Question 5. The number of articles I read has increased as more journals become available electronically.

What percent of research using journal literature is done using electronic format?

Respondents who replied 50% or greater.

020406080

100

Per

cen

t

Faculty

Graduate Students

Question 6. Convenience of access to e-journals has increased my ability to do research for publication.

Hum

aniti

es T

&R

Faculty

(A

&L)

SocS

cie

nces T

&R

Faculty

(A

&L)

Busin

ess T

&R

Faculty

Engin

eering T

&R

Faculty

Scie

nce T

&R

Faculty

S10

20406080

100

Percent of faculty who agree or strongly agree

Question 7. I can prepare a grant application more quickly due to the convenience of online journals.

Faculty and Graduate Students Who Agree or Strongly Agree

0 20 40 60 80 100

Humanities

SocSciences

Engineering

Science

Percent

grad

faculty

Question 8. I browse a wider range of journals because of the convenience of electronic access.

Graduate Students and FacultyWho Agree or Strongly Agree(470 out of 587 Respondents)

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Humanities

Social Sciences

Engineering

Science

grad

faculty

Question 9. Access to electronic journals via the Libraries has expanded what I consider to be "core" journals for my research.

Faculty Who Agree or Strongly Agree

0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%

HumanitiesT&R Faculty

(A&L)

SocSciencesT&R Faculty

(A&L)

BusinessT&R Faculty

EngineeringT&R Faculty

Science T&RFaculty

Grad Students Who Agree or Strongly Agree

0.0%10.0%20.0%30.0%40.0%50.0%60.0%70.0%80.0%90.0%

HumanitiesGraduateStudent

Social SciencesGraduateStudent

EngineeringGraduateStudent

ScienceGraduateStudent

From the survey comments:

The best thing we have been able to do for our faculty that has revolutionized their work is providing direct seamless access to a wide variety of e-journals.

Electronic journals cut my literature research time in half. I don't have to waste time going through stacks of journal issues. I don't even have to leave the lab to do a lit search. This makes doing research and lit reviews much more efficient.

Availability of electronic journal is fundamental for research in our lab. Among the advantages of having many journals available I can think of the following: decreases enormously the time spent doing literature searches, increases the volume of paper/articles that can be studied, sometimes reading just the abstract would not be enough to know if the article will be really useful or not, if the e-version is not available one would have to order a print and this would become much more expensive and the article might end in the trash because it was not what one expected.

Comments continued: A strong e-journals collection is ESSENTIAL to scholarship in

the sciences and should be a PRIORITY for ANY major university.

A good library is an indispensable component of a research university. Recent reductions in subscriptions are cutting to the bone, and the quality of the research being done here will eventually be affected.

I fully support making all of the library's information available electronically. This will make research more timely, and reduce needless obstacles, but more importantly, it will contribute to the sharing and production of knowledge--two ideals that should be at the heart of our work in universities.

Expanded access to online journals is essential for science

and engineering to be competitive.