Earlier this year, University of Alberta Libraries [UAL] sought feedback from faculty about the impact of digital information technologies on their research and teaching via the Ithaka Faculty Survey. In addition to the reports and data already posted here, Ithaka recently provided the Libraries with an analytical narrative of the results of the survey, that also provides some comparisons against aggregated findings of all participating CARL [Canadian Association of Research Libraries] institutions.

A key goal of the survey is to provide evidence-based strategic insights into how faculty members perceive the role of the Libraries and identify areas of opportunity for innovation. The results from the survey revealed the following strategically relevant key insights and opportunities.

Key Insights

• In general, a substantial share of faculty value the library's role in serving as a gateway for the discovery of scholarly content
• Across all disciplines, faculty view the library's role as a purchaser of collections as critical to their ability to conduct research
• Arts and humanities faculty highly value and recognize the library’s role in providing access to needed research materials and scholarly content, and in the provision of research and teaching-related support for students in developing research and information literacy skills
• Faculty in the medical/veterinary/health science and science disciplines are much more likely to prefer only electronic versions of scholarly resources including monographs and journal articles, when compared with their colleagues in the arts, humanities, and social sciences
• In general, respondents value the library’s role in providing access to subscription-based online repositories of research data, indicating that faculty members may value specialized research content and collections in addition to access to traditional literature

• To focus on enhancing engagement among faculty members in science disciplines regarding library-provided research and instructional support services
• To enhance strategic communications or targeted outreach to faculty members in medical/veterinary/health science and arts and humanities disciplines specifically regarding how the Libraries can support faculty in organizing, managing, and preserving
• To continue to develop services surrounding the curation of data

For Further Information

• Review the University of Alberta - Analytical Memo for the full narrative of insights and opportunities
• Review the University of Alberta Faculty Survey: Report of Findings, Faculty Survey Feedback, and the Libraries Response to Feedback
• Visit our Research Data Management web site to learn how to organize, access, share, and archive your data

University of Alberta Libraries [UAL] recently sought feedback from faculty about the impact of digital information technologies on their research and teaching. All University of Alberta faculty were invited to participate in the survey via email, which ran from December 22, 2014 through the end of January, 2015.  The survey gathered benchmark data in the areas of:

• Data Preservation and Management
• Discovery
• Role of the Library
• Student Research Skills
• Digital Research Activities
• Formats
• Market Research

The survey results are now available below.  These survey findings will have great value to our institution in tracking how scholarly practices and attitudes are evolving.  They also confirm many of our current directions, and will help us to develop and implement strategies for supporting faculty needs in a rapidly changing environment.

• Read the University of Alberta Faculty Survey: Report of Findings
• Read the Faculty Survey Feedback
• Read the UAL Response to Feedback
• Share your feedback on the faculty survey results and response with us
• Visit the Ithaka S + R web site to learn more about the survey and to view previous survey results