New report from UC on schol. comm.

["James J. O'Donnell" <jod@georgetown.edu>]

In a new report from the University of California Office of 
Scholarly Communications, "Faculty Attitudes and Behaviors 
Regarding Scholarly Communication," researchers report and 
analyze 1,100+ survey responses covering a range of scholarly 
communication issues from faculty in all disciplines and ranks. 
Faculty are seen as mainly conforming to the norms in their 
disciplines and feel strongly that promotion/tenure processes are 
central to reinforcing conservative behaviors.

The full report, executive summary, and the survey instrument are 
available at the "Publications & Activities" page of the UC 
Office of Scholarly Communication: 
http://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/responses/activities.html.

Worth a detour, in comparison with the recent Ithaka report on 
university presses and their prospects 
(http://scholarlypublishing.org/ithakareport/), embedded in a 
Michigan site that fosters discussion and commentary about the 
document) and numerous discipline-based studies and reports in 
the same vein (e.g., from classicists, 
http://www.apaclassics.org/Publications/e-publishing.html). 
There seems to be a common theme - mild perplexity that the 
actual practices of scholars and scientists lag behind the 
possibilities that are seen on all sides.

Jim O'Donnell
Georgetown U.