open access and library resources compete in importance

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Carnegie Mellon University

From the SelectedWorks of Denise Troll Covey

January 2011

Open Access and Library Resources Compete inImportance

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Open AccessandLibraryResourcesCompeteinImportance

Denise Troll Covey

Scholarly Communications Librarian


[email protected]

Janel A. Sutkus

Director, Institutional Research and Analysis


[email protected]

Purpose – Few assessments of academic library value have included the value of open access

resources, despite widespread agreement that dramatic changes in the scholarly landscape

challenge the library’s relevance and viability. This paper reports on faculty and graduate

student perceptions of the relative importance of various resources to particular teaching and

research activities.

Methodology – Faculty and graduate students were surveyed and group difference tests

conducted on the findings using independent samples t‐tests and Chi‐square cross tabulations.

Findings – Open access resources compete in importance with full‐text digital resources

provided by the library. Both are more important to research than teaching, but open access

resources are the most important resource in some teaching activities.

Implications – Understanding student and faculty use of open access resources has implications

for library acquisitions and instruction. Research is needed to improve our understanding of

factors that affect the shift to open access.

Keywords – academic library value, open access

1.Introduction

The academic library landscape has changed dramatically over the past decade. Changes in

user behavior, driven by technology, and increasing financial pressure, driven by the recession,

compel libraries to demonstrate their value to their institution. In this environment, decisions

about staffing, services, facilities, and the acquisition of materials must be informed by

evidence of need and importance. Libraries are conducting assessments of their value. Some

studies endeavor

to

show

the

return

on

investment

in

the

library.

Others

attempt

to

show

the

library’s contribution to the institution’s mission. At Carnegie Mellon, the University Libraries

chose the latter approach.

Carnegie Mellon is a relatively small, private, research university. Our mission is to create and

disseminate knowledge and art through research and creative inquiry and to serve our students

by teaching them problem solving, leadership and teamwork skills, and the value of

commitment to quality, ethical behavior, and respect for others (2008). To assess and enhance



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our contribution to this mission, the University Libraries needs both an analysis of trends in the

use of library resources and an analysis of the importance of various resources to student and

faculty work, regardless of whether we provide these materials. Developing an effective

strategic plan and appropriately allocating the Libraries’ human and financial resources to serve

the university’s mission requires us to understand our position in the larger information

landscape.

In 2010 Carnegie Mellon University Libraries surveyed campus faculty and graduate students.

The primary goal of the surveys was to assess the relative importance of various resources –

provided by the library or freely available (open access) on the web – to particular teaching and

research activities. The secondary goal was to understand faculty and graduate student

practice of making their work available open access.

The surveys were developed in collaboration with and administered and analyzed by the Office

of Institutional Research and Analysis. The faculty survey was conducted spring 2010, the

graduate student survey fall 2010.

2.Method

Several items in the surveys were loosely based on questions posed by the University of

Washington Libraries in a 2007 survey of research scientists. Considered leaders in creating a

culture of assessment in the academic library community, the University of Washington asked

respondents to rate the importance of selected library resources and of the library’s

contribution to selected activities. Similar to their survey, we captured demographic data to

conduct group difference tests of the importance of various resources by college affiliation and

research funding. Unlike the Washington survey, our surveys also enabled us to determine the

importance of

each

resource

to

each

activity

and

to

conduct

group

difference

tests

by

teaching

responsibilities, faculty track, faculty age bracket, and graduate degree program. Appropriately

interpreting the findings requires a rudimentary understanding of how Carnegie Mellon

operates. This background information is provided as needed throughout this article.

The surveys focused on activities on Carnegie Mellon’s main campus in Pittsburgh,

Pennsylvania, during the 2009‐10 academic year. All Pittsburgh‐based faculty on the research,

tenure, or teaching track, and all non‐student employees who taught or conducted research as

their primary function (e.g., postdoctoral researchers) were invited to participate in the faculty

survey during the spring semester of 2010. All Pittsburgh‐based graduate students enrolled

both

semesters

of

the

2009‐

10

academic

year

were

invited

to

participate

in

the

graduate

student survey during the fall semester of 2010. Reminder invitations were sent one and two

weeks after the initial invitations. Response rates are shown in table 1. Tables 2 and 3 show

the respondents’ demographic characteristics.



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Table 1. Response.

Faculty Grad students

Initial invitations 1,262 1,000

Initial respondents 169 205

Initial response rate 13.4% 20.5%

Reminder invitations 1,093 795

Reminder respondents 105 61

Reminder response rate 9.6% 7.7%

Reminder invitations 988 734

Reminder respondents 34 39

Reminder response rate 3.5% 5.3%

Total 308 305

Response rate 24.4% 30.5%

Table 2. Faculty respondent demographics.

College Respondents

Taught

undergrad

course

Taught

graduate

course

Received

research

funding

Used

research

funding

CFA Fine Arts 24 8% 22 13 5 5

CIT Engineering 62 20% 42 36 47 54

HNZ Public Policy 11 4% 3 9 4 5

HSS Humanities and Social Sciences 70 23% 56 27 31 39

MC Science and Mathematics 71 23% 47 29 46 54

SCS Computer Science 49 16% 15 26 37 43

TSB Business and Economics 21 7% 14 18 13 16

Total 308 199 158 183 216

65% 51% 59% 70%

Age Group Respondents

Taught

undergrad

course

Taught

graduate

course

Received

research

funding

Used

research

funding

Under 30 24 8% 12 6 10 21

31‐36 40 13% 22 13 29 33

36‐40 39 13% 26 20 25 32

41‐45 37 12% 25 21 24 28

46‐50 43 14% 25 27 27 28

51‐55 40 13% 28 21 22 25

56‐60 32 10% 23 22 18 19

61‐65 24 8% 19 11 14 15

Over 65 29 9% 19 17 14 15

Total 308 199 158 183 216

65% 51% 59% 70%



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Table 3. Graduate student respondent demographics.

College Respondents Ph.D.

Research

Master’s

degree

Professional

Master’s

degree

Taught

any

course

Used

research

funding

CFA Fine Arts 14 5% 2 2 10 2 2

CIT

Engineering

111

36%

80

14

17

21

44

HNZ Public Policy 34 11% 7 3 24 6 3

HSS Humanities and Social Sciences 19 6% 17 1 141 11 6

MCS Science and Mathematics 27 9% 26 1 0 9 13

SCS Computer Science 52 17% 41 4 7 10 27

TSB Business and Economics 48 16% 12 4 32 3 6

Total 305 185 29 91 62 158

61% 10% 30% 20% 52%

Demographic groups responded to the surveys at different rates. To compensate for this

disparity and its potential to bias the relationship between respondents’ answers and their

demographic characteristics, the collected data were weighted to simulate what might have

happened if the

entire

population

responded.

Data

from

the

faculty

survey

were

weighted

based on a cross‐tabulation of primary college affiliation and age; data from the graduate

student survey were weighted based on a cross‐tabulation of college affiliation and program

type (Ph.D., research Master’s, professional Master’s) and the weights were applied to all

analyses.

The primary analytic method for the survey findings was group difference testing. With

continuous data (e.g., ratings of importance), independent samples t‐tests were conducted to

compare the mean of one group to the mean of another group. With nominal data (e.g., self ‐

archiving practices), cross‐tabulations with Chi‐square were used. All group difference tests

were conducted

strictly

among

groups

of

faculty

or

groups

of

graduate

students.

No

comparisons were conducted across faculty and graduate student groups.

3.TheImportanceof Resources

We asked faculty and graduate students to rate the importance of various resources to various

activities using a unipolar scale with five options from very important to unimportant , and a

sixth option of does not apply to me. The scale used in the analysis is shown in table 4 and the

mean scores are shown in table 5.

Table 4.

Very important 4

Important 3

Moderately important 2

Of little importance 1

Unimportant 0

Does not apply to me Not included



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Table 5. The importance of resources to activities.

Resources

Provided by the University LibrariesOpen access

resources

Digital full‐text

materials

Databases Physical

materials

Tasks / Respondents Faculty Grad Faculty Grad Faculty Grad Faculty Grad

Keeping current

in

their

field

3.56 3.38 3.39 3.37 2.45 2.49

3.23

3.41

Finding information in other fields 2.99 2.73 3.19 3.12 2.40 2.53 3.39 3.47

Being productive 3.59 3.42 3.36 3.38 2.59 2.83 3.23 3.34

Being an effective instructor 2.90 2.65 2.70 2.79 2.60 2.59 3.10 3.01

Enriching student learning 2.89 2.71 2.69 2.76 2.64 2.53 3.09 3.11

Saving time 3.44 3.13 3.25 3.23 2.27 2.26 3.32 3.40

Preparing grant proposals 3.10 2.96 2.97 2.94 1.97 2.26 2.89 2.98

We expected digital materials to be more important to faculty and graduate students than

physical materials and this turned out to be the case. Respondents rated digital full‐text and

databases provided by the library and resources freely available on the web as important or

moderately important

for

all

activities.

They

rated

physical

materials

provided

by

the

library

as

only moderately important for all activities. The importance of physical materials did not

exceed the importance of digital materials on any task.

Assuming that graduate students regularly interacted with technology from an earlier age than

many faculty, we expected graduate students to value open access resources more than faculty

do. This appears to be the case, though the difference is probably not statistically significant.

What is noteworthy is the relative importance of open access resources and full‐text digital

materials provided by the library. With one exception, graduate students consider open access

resources to be more important in the activities assessed than digital full text provided by the

library. For three of the seven activities, even faculty rated open access resources as more

important than

digital

full

text

provided

by

the

library.

Faculty and graduate students appear to value different resources for different activities. In

terms of keeping current in their field, faculty value the contribution of full‐text digital materials

provided by the library significantly more than any other resource; graduate students value the

contribution of open access resources slightly more than that of digital full text provided by the

library, suggesting that graduate students, more than faculty, use open access resources in their

primary work. Faculty and graduate students agree that full‐text digital materials provided by

the library make the greatest contribution to their being productive, and that open access

resources make the greatest contribution to finding information in other fields, being effective

instructors, and

enriching

student

learning

experiences.

They

disagree

about

what

resources

are most important to saving time and preparing grant proposals. Faculty rated full‐text digital

materials provided by the library as most important to these activities. Graduate students

rated open access resources as much more important than digital full text provided by the

library for saving time and somewhat more important for preparing grant proposals.

Based loosely on age, we expected faculty to value physical resources more than graduate

students do. To our surprise, there appears to be little if any significant difference, though



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CFA = Fine arts CIT = Engineering HNZ = Public policy HSS = Humanities and social sciences

MCS = Science and mathematics SCS = Computer science TSB = Business and economics

students and faculty disagree somewhat about the contributions of physical materials. Both

groups value the contribution of physical materials to being effective instructors, but faculty

most value the contribution of physical materials to enriching student learning experiences.

Graduate students most value the contribution of physical materials to being productive, an

unexpected finding.

The overall mean scores are of limited usefulness in strategic planning. We assumed that

college affiliation, teaching and research activities, research funding, faculty track, faculty age,

and graduate student program would play a significant role in how faculty and graduate

students valued resources. We therefore calculated several sets of group means and tested

them against each other to identify significant differences. Where no significant difference

existed, the groups placed equal importance on that resource.

3.1.FindingsbyCollege

Significant differences by college need to be interpreted cautiously. The survey data associate

respondents only with their home college. However, much of the work conducted at Carnegie

Mellon is interdisciplinary. Many faculty members have appointments or engage in significant

collaborations with faculty in multiple departments or colleges. Many graduate degree

programs are likewise collaborative ventures of multiple departments or colleges.

Furthermore, within a single college, such as the College of Humanities and Social Sciences,

each department can have very different scholarly practices.

With that in mind, we expected faculty and graduate students in the College of Engineering

(CIT), Mellon College of Science (MCS), and School of Computer Science (SCS) to value full‐text

digital materials and databases provided by the library more than their peers in other

disciplines.

We expected

faculty

and

graduate

students

in

the

College

of

Fine

Arts

(CFA)

and

College of Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) to value physical materials more than their

peers. We expected those in disciplines with a self ‐archiving culture, such as SCS, to value open

access resources more than their peers in disciplines without a self ‐archiving culture.

With rare exception, the significant differences that surfaced in the survey met our

expectations for faculty. Compared with all other faculty , on four or more of the activities

assessed:

Full‐text digital materials and databases provided by the library are significantly more

important

to

CIT

faculty

and

significantly

less

important

to

CFA

faculty.

Databases provided by the library are also significantly more important to HSS faculty.

Physical materials provided by the library are significantly more important to CFA and

HSS faculty and significantly less important to SCS faculty.

Open access resources are significantly more important to SCS faculty.



7



Compared with all other graduate students, on four or more of the activities assessed:

Databases provided by the library are significantly more important to HSS graduate

students.

Physical materials provided by the library are significantly more important to CIT and

HSS graduate

students.

The finding for CIT is unexpected. In general, graduate students appear to value physical

materials more than faculty, and CIT graduate students value physical materials significantly

more than most of their peers.

3.2.FindingsbyOtherDemographics

Most faculty at Carnegie Mellon are appointed to either the tenure, research, or teaching track.

Tenure‐track faculty are expected to teach and to conduct research. Research‐track faculty are

not expected to teach, but to secure funding and conduct research. Teaching‐track faculty are

not expected to conduct research, but to teach. Each track has its own policy and requirements

for promotion.

Graduate students are enrolled in a Ph.D. program or master’s degree program. Master’s

degree programs may be research‐oriented, possibly preliminary to enrolling in a Ph.D.

program, or professionally‐oriented. The two types of master’s degree programs are referred

to as research master’s and professional master’s degree programs.

We expected full‐text digital materials provided by the library to be more important to those

who conduct research than to those whose primary responsibility is teaching. The results meet

our expectation.

Among

graduate

students,

in

four

or

more

activities,

full

‐text

digital

materials

provided by the library are significantly more important to Ph.D. students than to master’s

degree students, though surprisingly there was no significant difference between research

master’s and professional master’s degree students. Among faculty, in four or more activities,

those with research funding value full‐text digital materials provided by the library significantly

more than those without research funding. Teaching‐track faculty value digital full text

provided by the library significantly less than faculty not on the teaching track.

As expected, on four or more activities, open access resources are significantly more important

to research‐track faculty than to faculty not on the research track, and significantly less

important

to

faculty

over

age

65

than

to

faculty

age

65

and

younger.

Physical

resources

provided by the library are significantly more important to faculty who teach undergraduate

courses than to those who do not teach undergraduates, and significantly less important to

faculty with research funding (all research‐track faculty and many tenure‐track faculty) than to

those without.



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4.Self ‐archivingPractice

We also asked faculty and graduate students to indicate whether they self ‐archived their work and

if so, in which of multiple locations. The results are shown in table 6. We expected at least 40

percent of the faculty to have self ‐archived their work (Troll Covey, 2008), but did not know what

to expect

of

the

graduate

students.

To

our

surprise,

83

percent

of

faculty

and

graduate

students

responded that their work was available open access. As expected, personal and departmental

websites are the most popular places to self ‐archive. More faculty self ‐archive in a disciplinary

repository than graduate students. Faculty and graduate students self ‐archive in Carnegie

Mellon’s institutional repository, Research Showcase, at similarly low rates.

Table 6. Self ‐archiving practice.

Venue Faculty Grad

Personal website 46% 33%

Departmental website 27% 27%

Disciplinary

repository

19%

9%CMU Research Showcase 5% 7%

Work not available open access 17% 17%

We expected more faculty and graduate students in disciplines with a self ‐archiving culture to self ‐

archive than those in disciplines without a self ‐archiving culture. We expected more of those

whose primary responsibility is research to self ‐archive than those whose primary responsibility is

teaching. We expected those who self ‐archive in disciplines with a disciplinary repository to

prefer self ‐archiving in that repository. Among faculty, the data meet our expectations:

Significantly more faculty with research funding self ‐archive than those without research

funding.

Significantly more faculty who teach graduate courses self ‐archive than those who do not

teach graduate courses. There was no significant difference in self ‐archiving practice

based on teaching or not teaching undergraduate courses.

Compared with faculty in other colleges, significantly more SCS faculty self ‐archive on a

website, significantly more faculty in MCS self ‐archive in a disciplinary repository, and

significantly fewer faculty in CIT self ‐archive anywhere.

Significantly more tenure‐track faculty self ‐archive in a disciplinary repository than faculty

not on the tenure track.

The picture

is

somewhat

different

with

graduate

students:

Compared with graduate students in other colleges, significantly more graduate students

in SCS and CFA self ‐archive on a website; significantly more graduate students in MCS, HSS,

and TSB self ‐archive in a disciplinary repository; significantly more graduate students in



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MCS and HNZ self ‐archive in Carnegie Mellon’s institutional repository, Research

Showcase; and significantly fewer graduate students in CIT self ‐archive anywhere.

Significantly more graduate students with research funding self ‐archive than those without

research funding.

Significantly more graduate students who teach self ‐archive than those who do not teach.

Significantly more

Ph.D.

students

self

‐archive

than

master’s

degree

students.

Significantly more students enrolled in research master’s degree programs self ‐archive

than those enrolled in professional master’s degree programs.

We also asked graduate students about plans to make their thesis, dissertation, or final project

available open access. Respondents could select multiple options. Overall, the most popular

choice (43 percent) was depositing their work in a Carnegie Mellon open access repository other

than Research Showcase. However, more graduate students (37 percent) plan to deposit their

work in Research Showcase than in a non‐CMU repository (23 percent). The least popular choice

(20 percent) was making their work available open access in ProQuest.

Open access plans varied across colleges. Table 7 indicates venues where significantly more

graduate students in each college plan to deposit their work in comparison with their peers in

other colleges. Plans in CIT are noteworthy given that significantly fewer CIT graduate students

currently self ‐archive. In addition:

Significantly more Ph.D. students than master’s degree students plan to make their

dissertation or thesis available open access in any venue.

Significantly more research master’s degree students than professional master’s degree

students plan to make their work available open access in Research Showcase or ProQuest.

Significantly more graduate students who teach or have research funding, compared to

those who

do

not,

plan

to

make

their

dissertation

or

thesis

available

open

access

in

Research Showcase, another CMU repository, or ProQuest.

Table 7. Open access plans for dissertation, thesis, or final project.

College

Research

Showcase

Other CMU

repository

Non‐CMU

repository

ProQuest

CFA

CIT X X X

HNZ

HSS X X X

MCS

X XSCS X X X

TSB



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5.Conclusions

Resources provided by the University Libraries contribute to the university’s mission of creating

and disseminating knowledge and art. Library resources are important to faculty and graduate

students throughout the university, though what resources they value most for various activities

differs significantly

across

academic

disciplines

and

primary

responsibilities

(teaching

or

research).

Overall, databases and digital full text are more important than physical materials. Faculty and

graduate students rated digital full text as the most important resource contributing to their

productivity. Full‐text digital materials provided by the library are significantly more important to

those whose primary responsibility is research. In contrast, physical materials provided by the

library are significantly more important to those whose primary responsibility is teaching.

Though rated overall as only moderately important, physical materials provided by the library

continue to be important to some demographic groups. Compared with their peers in other

disciplines, physical materials are significantly more important to faculty in CFA and HSS and to

graduate students in CIT and HSS. Physical materials are also significantly more important to

faculty who teach undergraduate courses than to those who do not, but they are not more

important to graduate students who teach than to those who do not. Faculty and graduate

students disagree about the activities to which physical materials make the greatest contribution.

Open access resources compete with library resources in importance. Though the competition is

more striking in graduate student responses than faculty responses, for several activities even

faculty rated open access resources as the most important resource. Open access resources are

significantly more important to research‐track faculty than to other faculty, but they are also

important in teaching. Faculty and graduate students rated open access resources as the most

important resources contributing to their being effective instructors and enriching student

learning experiences.

These

findings

augment

the

discovery

in

another

study

conducted

by

the

University Libraries in 2010 that faculty found roughly 22 percent of the materials they used in

their academic work freely available on the web (St. Clair, Troll Covey, and Linke, forthcoming).

Open access resources are changing the scholarly information landscape and the library’s position

in it.

In addition to using open access resources, most Carnegie Mellon faculty and graduate students

make their work available open access. Research responsibilities and funding appear to drive self ‐

archiving practice, as does disciplinary culture and the availability of disciplinary repositories.

Given that key publishers in engineering allow self ‐archiving, the unexpected finding that,

compared

to

their

peers

in

other

disciplines,

significantly

fewer

faculty

and

graduate

students

in

CIT currently self ‐archive warrants investigation.



11



6.Next Steps

We need to situate the survey findings and determine next steps within the larger context of

changes occurring in the scholarly information landscape. The increasing availability and use of

open access resources is an important change. The transition from print to electronic journals is

veritably complete,

providing

much

of

the

digital

full

text

valued

by

our

faculty

and

graduate

students. The transition from print to electronic books is accelerating. Each of these changes is a

harbinger of opportunity to reallocate human and financial resources.

Significant disciplinary differences identified in the surveys must be investigated in light of the

interdisciplinary research and teaching conducted at Carnegie Mellon. Liaison librarians plan to

consult their constituencies to determine if the survey findings resonate with their perception of

the importance of various resources. The librarians will also explore how faculty and graduate

students use physical materials provided by the library, with particular attention to differences

between faculty and graduate student use in CFA and CIT. Understanding how different groups

use physical materials is critical to developing a strategy and pace for transitioning from physical

books to e‐books across the disciplines.

The findings on self ‐archiving practice and graduate student plans to provide open access to their

dissertation or thesis are encouraging. We need to understand the dearth of self ‐archiving by

faculty and graduate students in CIT and to take aggressive steps to populate our institutional

repository. The faculty and graduate student surveys and faculty focus groups conducted in 2010

(Troll Covey, 2011) indicate that we must promote Research Showcase as an open access venue

for faculty and graduate student work, harvest material they have self ‐archived elsewhere, and

provide incentives to garner their direct participation.

In the

future

we

plan

to

investigate

what

percentage

of

materials

used

by

faculty

and

students

are

found freely available on the web and to conduct a study of undergraduate student perceptions

and values related to libraries in general and the University Libraries in particular. These studies

and those already conducted will inform our strategic plan and drive our resource allocation. As

more materials become available open access and disciplines increasingly rely on these materials,

we expect to recover financial resources and human capacity, enabling us to acquire important

materials that are not available open access and to develop new services designed to support

teaching, learning, and research.

References

Carnegie Mellon 2008 Strategic Plan, http://www.cmu.edu/strategic‐plan/2008‐strategic‐

plan/2008‐strategic‐plan.pdf (accessed 24 June 2011).



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St. Clair, G., Troll Covey, D. and Linke, E. (forthcoming), “A Model for Campus Information

Consumption.”

Troll Covey, D. (2008), “Faculty Self ‐Archiving Practice: A Case Study,” white paper,

http://works.bepress.com/denise_troll_covey/35 (accessed 24 June 2011).

Troll Covey, D. (2011), “Recruiting Content for the Institutional Repository: The Barriers Exceed

the Benefits,” Journal of Digital Information, Vol. 12 No. 3,

http://works.bepress.com/denise_troll_covey/56/.

open access and library resources compete in importance

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