What we know about academic users of ejournals Virtual Scholar

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What we know about academic users of e-journals
(Virtual Scholar)

• Professor David Nicholas
• CIBER, UCL Centre for Publishing
• School of Library, Archive and Information
  Studies
• University College London
• david.nicholas_at_ucl.ac.uk
• www.publishing.ucl.ac.uk

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Massive environmental changes

• From control to no-control, from mediated to non
  mediated
• From bibliographic systems to full-text, visual,
  interactive ones
• From niche to universal systems
• From a few searchers to everybody
• From little choice to massive choice
• From little growth to massive growth
• From stability to volatility

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Paradigm shift, no grip, floundering

• Existing knowledge base obsolescent, flawed,
  wholly inadequate. Hard-copy paradigms
• We dont even know what questions to ask anymore
• We are left generalising about too many people
• Should be spending lots of time and money
  researching the userbut still are not

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What is going on then?

• Came from the Media and Heath fields with a
  proven methodology deep log analysis

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Deep log analysis attractions

• Size and reach. Enormous data set no samples
• Direct/immediate record of what people have done
  not what they say they might, or would, do not
  what they were prompted to say, not what they
  thought they did
• Data are unfiltered and provide a reality check
  sometimes missing from questionnaire and focus
  group
• Data real-time and continuous. Creates a digital
  lab environment for innovation and the monitoring
  of change
• Raises the questions that need to be asked by
  questionnaire, focus group and interview. These
  methodologies are an essential part of DLA

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Virtual Scholar programme

• Emerald Insight
• Blackwell Synergy
• ScienceDirect
• OhioLINK
• Oxford University Journals

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Key characteristics of the virtual scholar -big
and growing appetite

• Seemingly massive demand for scholarly
  information, and rising improved access the
  driver. That is the good news.
• Not only are more people being drawn into the
  scholarly net, also existing users can search
  much more freely flexibly. However, this is
  the bad news, while librarians have been
  responsible for many access initiatives, their
  contribution has not been widely recognised (to
  put it mildly).

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Key characteristics of the virtual scholar -
bouncing

• Widespread, pronounced and endemic form of
  digital information seeking in which a high
  proportion of users view only few web pages from
  vast number available and a high proportion
  (usually same ones) do not return to the same
  website often, if at all.
• Suggests, at best, a checking-comparing, dipping
  sort of behaviour that is a result of search
  engines, shortage of time and huge digital
  choice or, at worse, massive failure at the
  terminal.

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Key characteristics of the virtual scholar -
reading

• People appear to be skimming rather than reading.
  Download a devalued currency?
• Fact 1. People do not read online. However,
  users spend more time reading shorter articles
  online than longer ones. Neither of times,
  respectively, 42 and 32 seconds, suggested anyone
  was doing anything more than scanning.
• Fact 2. As length of article increases greater
  chance it will only be viewed as an abstract and
  less chance that it will be viewed full text.
• Implications. a) shorter articles have better
  chance of being read b) users must be
  downloading and reading offline, but all the
  time? Digital osmosis?
• Fact 3. In answer to Q Do you always read the
  full paper before you cite it in your work, over
  half of researchers said it depended/didnt.
• Implication. Seems to support usage data

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Key characteristics of the virtual scholar -
diversity

• Move away from hits to users. Nobody works with
  millions of diverse users. Real differences
  between various types of user, especially in
  regard to their subject field academic status
  and geographical location. We have also found, in
  some cases, big differences - according to
  gender, type of organisation worked for, type of
  university, and attitudes towards scholarly
  communication. We should rejoice in this.

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Some diversity examples

• Age of material. Users from Economics (71) and
  Engineering (71), made most views to current
  (one-year old) material in session Material
  Science (51) and Mathematics (52) users the
  least. Scholars from Spain and China more likely
  to view current material. Increased visibility
  has meant a large increase in usage of older
  material
• Return visits (over 5 months). Mathematicians
  most frequent visitors, with 41 coming back 15
  times. Engineers made least returns, with 54
  making 1 visit. Repeat visits increased with age.

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More diversity

• Abstract use. Increased markedly with age of
  users - 14 of those aged 36-45 undertook an
  abstract-only session, which was half that
  recorded for those aged over 56.
• Searching. E. Europeans (47) recorded a
  relatively high of searches resulting in zero
  returns. N. Americans appeared to be successful
  searchers - 74 of their searches resulted in one
  or more matches. However, overall, Germans most
  successful searchers (more hits, less zero
  searches).

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Key characteristics of the virtual scholar -
trust

• Authority and relevance to be won (and checked).
• Determining responsibility/authority a problem,
  take a researcher working from office
• Conducting Google search to find Synergy. On
  connection cookie identifies them and full text
  access provided. Now that researcher used a
  Microsoft Browser, then Google, then Synergy and
  then arrived at Journal of Computer-Mediated
  Communication. Might or might not have known
  that a) the Library had paid the subscription,
  hence full-text access b) Synergy came from
  Blackwell and journal was published on behalf of
  International Communication Association. Where
  does authority lie and what does it mean?
• Differences between age groups. Tesco example.

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Key characteristics of the virtual scholar
increasing dominance of search engine searching

• Big implications
• Key usage driver Nucleic Acids Research
• People using search engine were
• far more likely to conduct a session that
  included a view to an older article
• more likely to view more subject areas, more
  journal titles, and also viewed more articles and
  abstracts too.
• Undergraduates most likely to have used the
  search facility 46 had compared to 26 of
  postgraduates, 19 of researchers and 15 of
  professors or teachers.

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Nucleic Acids Research article views 2003-2005
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Challenges - decoupling

• From users. Anonymous, work remotely. Not even
  conscious of library involvement. Publishers have
  got closer. We have COUNTER, but not enough
• From Faculty. As the library tax increases and
  information seen to be free and ubiquitous,
  impact and outcome data increasingly demanded.
  The car park question.
• From publishers. Librarians have alienated their
  old mates, the publishers, over OA and
  repositories. Had such a cosy relationship.
• Between rock and a hard place somehow comes to
  mind

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Challenges getting closer to the user

• Have been bleating on about users for years, but
  have not made anywhere near as much progress here
  as we have with technology
• Libraries full of technological processing
  people. How many have a department dedicated to
  following the users every move and relating that
  to academic outcomes and impacts?
• Even in face of a possible melt down (for some)
  there is a sense that only technological
  innovation is the answer federated searching the
  latest solution or the last hurrah?
• The big challenge is understanding/accommodating
  the concept of the digital information consumer
  and dealing with questions arising from the logs

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Challenges information literacy, brand etc

• Problems in information seeking suggests that
  information literacy programmes could be
  evidence-led and outcomes tested
• People searching horizontally implications for
  information providers?
• Accreditation, trust, brand, authority what can
  be done and is federated searching the answer?

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Conclusion

• Warning. What I have been talking about does not
  come from the opinions/perceptions of small
  numbers of people. Not talking it up, just
  sharing data and ideas with you.
• It is not too late, still more to be won than
  lost
• But not much time, e-books (and we are studying
  the impact) could be the tipping point
• Need leaders, demonstrating best practice through
  a genuinely evidence-based, user-focussed,
  consumer-friendly, Google-compatible and flexible
  service

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Some illustrative readings www.publishing.ucl.ac.
uk

• Huntington P, Nicholas D, Jamali HR , Rowlands I.
  Article decay in the digital environment a usage
  analysis by date of publication employing deep
  log methods. Journal of the American Society for
  Information Science Technology, 57(13) 2006,
  pp1840-1851.Nicholas D and Huntington P. Digital
  journals are they really used? Interlending and
  Document Supply, 34(2), June 2006,
  pp74-77Nicholas D and Huntington P. The virtual
  scholar. Online Information 2006, 19-22
• Nicholas D, Huntington P, Jamali HR, Dobrowolski
  T. Characterising and evaluating information
  seeking behaviour in a digital environment
  spotlight on the 'bouncer' Information Processing
  Management 43, 2007, pp in pressNicholas D,
  Huntington P, Jamali HR, Tenopir, C. Finding
  information in (very large) digital libraries a
  deep log approach to determining differences in
  use according to method of access. Journal of
  Academic Librarianship, 32 (2), March 2006,
  pp119-126Nicholas D, Huntington P, Jamali HR ,
  Tenopir C. OhioLINK ten years on what deep log
  analysis tells us about the impact of Big Deals.
  Journal of Documentation, 62 (4) July 2006,
  482-508Nicholas D, Huntington P, Jamali HR,
  Watkinson A. The information seeking behaviour of
  the users of digital scholarly journals.
  Information Processing Management, 42(5), 2006,
  pp1345-1365.Nicholas D and Rowlands I. Towards
  evidence-based publishing. Science in Parliament,
  63(4), Autumn 2006.