UK Survey of Academics 2012

Last month results of survey of British academics were published. The questionnaire had 3,498 responses. Responses are often presented by broad disciplinary groupings (Humanities./ Social sciences/ Science/ Medicine and veterinary), as they did find disciplinary differences. There were some questions about research (e.g. motivations for choosing research subjects, use of digital tools for quantitative research (though not qualitative, oddly), whether they collaborated in research) and also some questions about the use of technologies in teaching (though I think the options in these questions were a bit limited). There were questions about how the academics started a subject or known item search, preferences between print and digital forms, how they kept up with new developments in the field, use of digital tools etc.

One of the questions asked the respondents to identify which roles they saw as important for the university library. The lowest score was for research support: “The library provides active support that helps to increase the productivity of my research” (about 30%) The highest (about 80%) was for “The library pays for resources I need, from academic journals to books to electronic databases”. About 60% of respondents (they could select all answers they thought applied, in this question) selected each of "The library supports and facilitates my teaching activities” and "The library helps undergraduates develop research, critical analysis, and information literacy skills"

Housewright, R., Schonfeld, R. anfd Wulfson, K. (2013) Ithaka S+R | Jisc | RLUK UK Survey of Academics 2012. JISC. http://repository.jisc.ac.uk/5209/1/UK_Survey_of_Academics_2012_FINAL.pdf
Photo by Sheila Webber: Daisies, Sheffield, June 2013