Impact of Web 2.0 on Scholarly Communication

Impact of Web 2.0 on Scholarly Communication Rob Procter, Robin Williams, James Stewart, Alex Voss, Meik Poschen, Helene Snee, Yuwei Lin Workshop on Scientific Writing and New Patterns of Scientific Communication 5th International Conference on e-Social Science, Cologne, 24 June 2009

Project  Study ‘Use and relevance of web 2.0 resources for researchers’ funded January 2009 to September 2009 by the Research Information Network (RIN), UK  Project partners:  National Centre for e-Social Science (NCeSS), University of Manchester  The Institute for the Study of Science, Technology and Innovation (ISSTI), University of Edinburgh Workshop on Scientific Writing and New Patterns of Scientific Communication, e-SS’09, Cologne, 24 June 2009

RIN - http://www.rin.ac.uk/  The Research Information Network in the UK is currently sponsored by the four Higher Education funding bodies, the three National Libraries, and the seven Research Councils  Role: undertake evidence-based research into information and data issues that relate to professional academic researchers to develop policy, guidance and advocacy on that basis. Workshop on Scientific Writing and New Patterns of Scientific Communication, e-SS’09, Cologne, 24 June 2009

Research Question To what extent are Web 2.0 tools are being adopted as a scholarly tool in different institutions and departments across the UK, in different subject fields and disciplines, and at different stages of the scholarly communications process? Workshop on Scientific Writing and New Patterns of Scientific Communication, e-SS’09, Cologne, 24 June 2009

Project Aim  Understand changing practices of scholarly communication and publication by researchers  Explore the role of new Web-based services in this change  Results will be used to inform investment decisions in research support by UK research councils and HEIs  To inform debate on the future of research and publication practices Workshop on Scientific Writing and New Patterns of Scientific Communication, e-SS’09, Cologne, 24 June 2009

Scholarly communication  Often refers primarily to the process of publication of peer-reviewed research  Broader view in the RIN Web 2.0 project: range of activities that scholars undertake as part of their everyday activities Workshop on Scientific Writing and New Patterns of Scientific Communication, e-SS’09, Cologne, 24 June 2009

RIN Web 2.0 Study (1) Objectives  Who is using what, where?  What is shaping that use?  The implications for Scholarly Communications Workshop on Scientific Writing and New Patterns of Scientific Communication, e-SS’09, Cologne, 24 June 2009

RIN Web 2.0 Study (2) Methods  Quantitative and representative survey of UK scholarly community to discover basic use and awareness  50 in-depth interviews on scholarly communications and Web 2.0  5 case studies of promoters, developers and users of specific ‘Web 2.0’ services Workshop on Scientific Writing and New Patterns of Scientific Communication, e-SS’09, Cologne, 24 June 2009

Where we are now  Survey stage  6000 email request for participation in the survey went out (as of yesterday), 842 of which were not contactable (i.e. email bounced).  Response rate: 500/(6000-842) = 9.7%  Aim: 800 responses  Start of interviews with users and non-users (of Web 2.0) informed by the survey this week  Use case phase started with nature.com (Nature Publishing Group) and myExperiment Workshop on Scientific Writing and New Patterns of Scientific Communication, e-SS’09, Cologne, 24 June 2009

Survey  Main objective: Assess the current contours of engagement with and use of Web 2.0 tools in different types of scholarly communication by UK academics: profiling use by age, position, discipline and gender  Inform the interviews with non-/adopters  Preliminary descriptive results are based on approximately 470 responses (as of last week)  Number in line with our calculations to achieve a margin of error of no more than +/-5% around our results. Workshop on Scientific Writing and New Patterns of Scientific Communication, e-SS’09, Cologne, 24 June 2009

Survey Sampling: Motivation  Need to survey a random sample of UK academics representative if possible self-selection needs to be avoided  No list of researchers in the UK  But can check a generated list by comparing answers against HESA statistics Workshop on Scientific Writing and New Patterns of Scientific Communication, e-SS’09, Cologne, 24 June 2009

Web Mining (1)  Yahoo search for “mailto” and university domain name – 1000 results max (Yahoo API limitation, google same)  For list of 132 domain names in ac.uk domain  Gives us 92965 unique urls to look at  Harvesting these takes a long time, so prioritise:.ac.uk domain names first (4911) Workshop on Scientific Writing and New Patterns of Scientific Communication, e-SS’09, Cologne, 24 June 2009

Web Mining (2)  Pattern matching results in 6120 distinct emails  Filtering out addresses such as “info@...”, “postgrad@...”, “admin@...”  Now is a good opportunity to check for domain names not used in initial round… Verified using lookup service at whois.ja.net Initially: 132 domains, then 344, then 577  Goto 1 Now 187k URLs, 43861 unique email addresses Workshop on Scientific Writing and New Patterns of Scientific Communication, e-SS’09, Cologne, 24 June 2009

Quality Assurance (1)  Initial aim was to create as long a list as possible, now need to start selecting  Need to ensure, as far as possible, that we: Use only email addresses that are active Select people who are research active (as researchers or investigators) Email each person only once (despite multiple email addresses and aliases) Cover a range of institutions, disciplines, levels of seniority etc. Workshop on Scientific Writing and New Patterns of Scientific Communication, e-SS’09, Cologne, 24 June 2009

Quality Assurance (2)  Processing harvested website content using lingpipe for name extraction gives candidate names  Need given name or title, surname to send meaningful invitation email Can match some names to gender (Mr/Ms) where no academic title is available Workshop on Scientific Writing and New Patterns of Scientific Communication, e-SS’09, Cologne, 24 June 2009

Quality Assurance (3)  Automated processing gets you only so far…  Utilising peoples’ skills with crowdsourcing Workshop on Scientific Writing and New Patterns of Scientific Communication, e-SS’09, Cologne, 24 June 2009

Survey Structure (1)  Personal information section (including institution, research area/discipline)  Scholarly Communications  Use/importance of use of different forms of publication, communication and resource media  Knowledge and experience of 'Web 2.0' Services  Awareness/use of new internet services and tools sometimes known as 'Web 2.0’ Workshop on Scientific Writing and New Patterns of Scientific Communication, e-SS’09, Cologne, 24 June 2009

Survey Structure (2)  Use of the Web 2.0 in scholarly communications General use/importance of Web 2.0 tools in research Use/importance of specific Web 2.0 tools and services in research  Survey Follow Up request Workshop on Scientific Writing and New Patterns of Scientific Communication, e-SS’09, Cologne, 24 June 2009

Survey: First Results  Summary of the data & initial descriptive analysis examining the patterns of responses of a) all respondents; and b) ‘early adopters’  We define ‘early adopters’ of Web 2.0 by the combination of the following three survey responses:  Q3.2 How often do you do (at least one of) the following (write a blog; comment on others’ blogs; contribute to a private wiki; contribute to a public wiki; add comments to online journal articles; post slides, etc.) in the course of your research activities?: frequently  Q4.4 Do you publish your work in progress publicly on a website, blog, etc?: yes  Q5.5 How would you describe your attitude to using new technologies in scholarly communications?: enthusiastic Workshop on Scientific Writing and New Patterns of Scientific Communication, e-SS’09, Cologne, 24 June 2009

Age Distribution Please specify your age. Under 25 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 over 65 Workshop on Scientific Writing and New Patterns of Scientific Communication, e-SS’09, Cologne, 24 June 2009

Position Please specify your position. Professor Reader Senior Lecturer Lecturer Research Fellow Research Assistant PhD Candidate Workshop on Scientific Writing and New Patterns of Scientific Communication, e-SS’09, Cologne, 24 June 2009

Gender  The ratio of male to female respondents is 62:38  According to HESA data (2008), the ratio of male to female academics in the UK is 58:42  75% of early adopter respondents are male.  57% of non-adopter respondents are male.  82% of sceptical respondents are male Workshop on Scientific Writing and New Patterns of Scientific Communication, e-SS’09, Cologne, 24 June 2009

10.0% 12.0% 14.0% 0.0% 2.0% 4.0% 6.0% 8.0% 1 3 Infection and 5 Other 7 Health 9 Psychiatry, 11 Nursing and 13 Pharmacy 15 Pre-clinical 17 Earth 19 Physics 21 Applied 23 Computer 25 General 27 Civil 29 Metallurgy 31 Town and 33 Archaeology 35 Accounting 37 Library and 39 Politics and Discipline 41 Sociology 43 45 Education 47 American 49 Asian 51 Russian, Communication, e-SS’09, Cologne, 24 June 2009 53 German, Please describe your research interests by selecting as many of the 2008 RA E categories below that apply. 55 Iberian and 57 English Workshop on Scientific Writing and New Patterns of Scientific 59 Classics, 61 Theology, 63 Art and 65 Drama, 67 Music

Dissemination Ratings: Overall Please rate the importance of the following for the DISSEMINA TION of your research. Demonstrations, exhibitions and performances Email lists and web groups Personal communications Online Open Notebooks Wikis or blogs Personal web pages Institutional web pages Edited Books Monographs Online pre-prints (pre-published electronic copies) Open access, online-only journals Online subscription journals Print-based subscription journals Conference or workshop presentations Conference or workshop proceedings 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 Workshop on Scientific Writing and New Patterns of Scientific Communication, e-SS’09, Cologne, 24 June 2009

Dissemination Ratings: Early Adopters Please rate the importance of the following for the DISSEMINA TION of your research. Demonstrations, exhibitions and performances Email lists and web groups Personal communications Online Open Notebooks Wikis or blogs Personal web pages Institutional web pages Edited Books Monographs Online pre-prints (pre-published electronic copies) Open access, online-only journals Online subscription journals Print-based subscription journals Conference or workshop presentations Conference or workshop proceedings 0.00 0.50 1.00 1.50 2.00 2.50 3.00 Workshop on Scientific Writing and New Patterns of Scientific Communication, e-SS’09, Cologne, 24 June 2009

Please rate the likelihood of the following changes in scholarly communications within your field over the next 5 years. 400 Likelihood 350 300 250 Likely 200 Unlikely of Changes 150 100 50 No opinion 0 Existing peer review Formal peer review New types of online Open access online processes will will be increasingly publication, using publication supported become increasingly complemented by new kinds of media by an author-pays unsustainable reader-based formats and content, funding model will ratings, annotations, will grow in predominate downloads or importance citations Please rate the likelihood of the following changes in scholarly communications within your field over the next 5 years. 20 18 16 14 12 Likely 10 Unlikely 8 6 No opinion 4 2 0 Existing peer review Formal peer review New types of online Open access online processes will become will be increasingly publication, using new publication supported increasingly unsustainable complemented by reader-based ratings, kinds of media formats and content, by an 'author-pays' Early Workshop funding model willWriting and New Patterns of annotations, downloads or citations will grow in on Scientific predominate Communication, e-SS’09, Cologne, 24 June 2009 importance Adopters Scientific

How often do you do the following in the course of your research activities? (Please also indicate if you do Participation in them outside of work). 400 Web 2.0 350 300 scholarly 250 200 Never Occasionally Frequently (At least once a week) communication 150 100 I do this outside of work activities 50 0 Write a blog Comment on Contribute to Contribute to Add Post slides, Participate in other people's a private wiki a public wiki comments to texts, images, an Open blogs (e.g., online journal code, S ource Wikipedia) articles or algorithms, software more general videos or project media other media publications on an open or public content sharing site How often do you do the following in the course of your research activities? (Please also indicate if you do them outside of work). 30 25 Never 20 Occasionally 15 Frequently (At least once a week) 10 I do this outside of work 5 0 Write a blog Comment Contribute Contribute Add Post slides, Participate on other to a private to a public comments texts, in an Open people's wiki wiki (e.g., to online images, S ource blogs Wikipedia) journal code, software articles or algorithms, project Early more videos or general other media media on an open publications or public content Workshop on Scientific Writing and New Patterns of Scientific Communication, e-SS’09, Cologne, 24 June 2009 Adopters sharing site

Do you publish your WORK IN PROGRESS? Publishing 350 300 work in 250 200 No progress 150 100 Yes No, but I intend to in future 50 0 Privately, within a Openly, within my Publicly, on a small network of research website, blog etc collaborators community Do you publish your WORK IN PROGRESS? 20 18 16 14 12 No 10 Yes 8 No, but I intend to in future 6 4 2 0 Privately, within a Openly, within my Publicly, on a Early small network of collaborators research community website, blog etc Adopters Workshop on Scientific Writing and New Patterns of Scientific Communication, e-SS’09, Cologne, 24 June 2009

Do you use blogs, wikis or other Web 2.0 tools to communicate with the following? Communicating 350 300 with different 250 200 No Yes audiences 150 100 50 No, but I intend to in future 0 Research Users of your The general public communities research beyond outside your own academia (e.g., field policy makers, industrial clients, the media) Do you use blogs, wikis or other Web 2.0 tools to communicate with the following? 20 18 16 14 No 12 10 Yes 8 6 No, but I intend to in future 4 2 0 Research Users of your The general public communities research beyond outside your own field academia (e.g., policy makers, Early industrial clients, the media) Adopters Workshop on Scientific Writing and New Patterns of Scientific Communication, e-SS’09, Cologne, 24 June 2009

What bodies are encouraging the use of Web 2.0-based services in your research field? Factors 450 400 encouraging 350 300 use of Web 250 Yes No 200 Don't know 2.0 150 100 50 0 My local My My Libraries Computer Research Other Conference research department institution and S upport and Funding funding organisers group Information S ervices Councils body S ervices What bodies are encouraging the use of Web 2.0-based services in your research field? 20 18 16 14 12 Yes 10 No 8 Don't know 6 4 2 0 My local My My Libraries Computer Research Other Conference Early research group department institution and Information S upport S ervices and Funding Councils funding body organisers Communication, e-SS’09, Cologne, 24 June 2009 Adopters Workshop on Scientific Writing and New Patterns of Scientific S ervices

Early Adopters (1)  ‘Early adopters’ report some interestingly different characteristics and behaviours compared with the respondents overall:  Proportions of early adopters involved in collaborative research are higher in all categories  Early adopters rank wikis, blogs and personal web pages more highly for disseminating their research  A majority of early adopters report ‘using Web 2.0 tools to communicate with audiences beyond their immediate research community’ Workshop on Scientific Writing and New Patterns of Scientific Communication, e-SS’09, Cologne, 24 June 2009

Early Adopters (2) A greater proportion of early adopters report ‘making research data available online’ A greater proportion of early adopters report that they are being encouraged to use Web 2.0 based services, in particular by: ‘my local research group’, ‘my department’, ‘research and funding councils’ and ‘conference organisers’ A greater proportion of early adopters agree that changes in scholarly communications are likely Workshop on Scientific Writing and New Patterns of Scientific Communication, e-SS’09, Cologne, 24 June 2009

Thank You ‘Use and relevance of web 2.0 resources for researchers’ http://www.ncess.ac.uk/research/hub_research/useandrese archofweb2/ Meik Poschen meik.poschen@manchester.ac.uk Workshop on Scientific Writing and New Patterns of Scientific Communication, e-SS’09, Cologne, 24 June 2009

Workshop on Scientific Writing and New Patterns of Scientific Communication, e-SS’09, Cologne, 24 June 2009

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Impact of Web 2.0 on Scholarly Communication

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