Presented by: Michael A MabeDirector of Visiting ProfessorAcademic Relations Dept Information Science

Elsevier City University, London

WHAT DO AUTHORS CARE ABOUT?

What over 50,000 STM Authors Tell Us Each Year

Understanding What Authors Say They Want

• Anthropology of scholarly behaviour• Recording what they say• Measuring what they do

• Principle of triangulation

What Do We Know Already?

• User behaviour research• Information model for the journal

History of User Studies

• 1950s and 1960s– Merton, Price and Garfield

• 1970s– Garvey and Griffith, NSF Office of Science

Communication, Don King, Woolgar and Latour

• 1990s– Coles, TULIP, SuperJournal, Tenopir and

King

Robert Merton • Inventor of the focus group• Merton’s social norms of scientific conduct

– Universalism: new work is assessed by universal impersonal criteria

– Communality: scientific knowledge should be common property

– Disinterestedness: prime concern is the advancement of knowledge

– Organized scepticism: knowledge should be continually subjected to critical scrutiny

• Reflects stated values rather than actual behaviour: what they do is not what they say. – R Merton Sociology of Science, U Chicago P, 1973

William Garvey and Belver Griffith

• American Psychological Association research surveys into author and reader behaviour

• Early finding about reading– Survey data suggested journals readings low– Actually a mistake, failure to scale results from the

sample to the whole scholarly universe– Unfortunately contributed to wide-spread library

myth about “low use” of journals

– Garvey & Griffith Science Communication Amer. Psychologist 26(4).14, 1963

Time Scales: After Garvey

Workk starts

PreliminaryOral Report

6 months

Work completed15 months

Report to medium-sized restricted

audience

Oral Report at NationalAnnual Meeting18-24

months

Part of literature

Journal Publication2-3 years

Paper reviewed by annual

review volume or

journal5+ years

Paper cited in other articles6+ years

Original material incorporated into

texts and references12+ years

Rhetorical Processes

• Publication is not just communication• Articles are written to persuade audiences that

– a singular observation made by one observer is generally true for all observers at all times

– The research reported is an enactment of the idealised scientific method

• Networks of articles collectively construct the paradigm pro tempore for the collective scientific world view in a discipline

– A G Gross Rhetoric of Science Harvard UP, 1996

ACCEPTANCE AS FACTACCEPTANCE AS FACT

CRITICAL EVALUATION

COMMUNICATIONOBSERVATIONOBSERVATION

Private Co-workers Invisible college Speciality Discipline Public

research

Peer reviewed paperin a journal

Pre-print

monograph historytextbook

referencework

Review

paper prizes

Sciencejournalism

1st draft Seminar/workshop/conferenceDraftfor

commentDraftmss

Create

Discuss& revisit

Criticism

Formalpublic

evaluation

Formalconfirmation

Acceptance& integration

Rhetorical Status of Research Information

Woolgar and Latour

• Anthropological approach to the study of the science system

• Steve Woolgar (now at the Oxford Internet Institute) and Bruno Latour spent time as observers in science laboratories studying the behaviour and culture of practising scientists

• First example of an ethnographic approach

– Woolgar & Latour Laboratory Life, Princeton UP, 1979

NSF Funded Studies

• Office of Science Communication• Studies on the alternatives to paper and

the way the paper system behaves• Main studies conducted by King

Research

– King, McDonald, Roderer Scientific Journals in the US, Hutchinson, 1981

• Precursor to Tenopir & King’s recent book

Methodologies for Studying Behaviour

• Study the Users– Authors, Editors, Referees, Readers,

Librarians• Opinions and behaviour

– Numbers and groupings

• Study the Outcomes– Papers, journals, publishers, libraries

• Number, growth and organizational structure• Ulrich’s, ISI, websites etc.

Opinions and Behaviour

• Opinions: traditional market research– Questionnaires and Focus Groups

• Research to establish “language”• Open not closed questions• Sample selection• Channel biases• Moderators ideally independent

• Behaviour– Move (inferred use of journal issue)

– Cite (inferred value)

– Download (inferring reading)

– Link (inferred importance)

Key Research Studies

• Opinion-based– Coles 1993– Elsevier Editorial Strategy Survey 1993-6– Tenopir & King 1995-2003

• Behaviour– Use: various library shelving studies– Citation analyses: Garfield 1960s…– Download behaviour: 1993-4 TULIP, 1995-6

SuperJournal, 2001/2 Nicholas and City University Studies

• Outcomes– De Solla Price, Garfield, and many others

Motivation for publication

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Dissem

ination

Impro

ved fu

ndingEgo

Caree

r pro

spec

ts

Patent p

rotecti

onOther

Motivation

% R

espo

nse

1st Motive2nd Motive

Coles 1993: Motivation to Publish

Real drivers

Coles 1993: Choice of Journal

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

Reason for choice

% R

espo

nse

1st Choice

2nd Choice

quality

colle

ction

speedhab

it

Elsevier Research 1999 –2003

How do authors choose a journal to publish in?• They already know the subject coverage of their

research paper and its quality and approach• They select the set of most appropriate journals

in terms of subject coverage • They match the general quality of their paper

(best, good, ok) to a class of journals (top, middling, run-of-the-mill) with the same subject and approach

• From that class they select a specific journal based upon experience

Elsevier Research 1999 – 2003

Impact Factor

Reputation

Editorial Standard

Publication speed

Access to Audience

International Coverage

Self Evaluation

A&I Coverage

Society Link

Track Record

Quality/Colour Illustrations

Service Elements, e.g. author instructions, quality of proofs, reprints, etc

Experience as Referee

A

B

C

?

?

??

Marginal Factors:

Which Journal?

Key Factors:Key Factors:

Which Category?Which Category?Journal Hierarchy

within a Discipline

J J

J J

J J

JJ

J

JJ

Most Important Factors:

•Reputation•Refereeing quality•Refereeing speed•Impact factor •Production speed•Editor/Editorial Board•Physical quality•Publisher services

Constructing a Journal Information Model

• What researchers want as an author• What researchers want as a reader• How does a journal deliver this?• How does the entity responsible for the

journal do this?• What are the consequences? Can the

model account for or predict publishing behaviour?

Information Functions of the Journal

• Classical journal functions– Registration– Certification– Dissemination– Archiving

What do researchers want as authors?• REGISTRATION: to register a discovery as theirs and made

by them on a certain date– to assert ownership and achieve priority: being first

• CERTIFICATION: To get their research (and by implication, themselves) quality stamped by publication in a journal of known quality– to establish a reputation, and get reward: being in the best journal

• DISSEMINATION: To let their peers know what they have done– to attract recognition and collaboration: being read by all your peers

• ARCHIVE: To leave a permanent record of their research– renown, immortality: a secure place in the literature

What do researchers want as readers?

• Reassurance as to its status and quality– prestige and authority ⇒ CERTIFICATION

• Material that is appropriate to their research interest– specialisation and relevance ⇒ DISSEMINATION

• Tools that allow the material to be located and browsed– browsing and indexing ⇒ NAVIGATION

• Availability of sources over time– persistence and continuity ⇒ ARCHIVE

Behavioural/Functional Model

NeedsREADERS• constant citation• authority• specialisation• continuity • navigation

FunctionsJOURNAL• registration• certification• dissemination• archive• navigation

Provided by the publishing entity through– third party authority (rhetorical independence)– brand identity management– long-term management of continuity– technology

NeedsAUTHORS• ownership• reputation• recognition/audience • renown

Effect of Nature of Content on the ModelNature of content

Objective knowledgeabout external facts in the world

Subjective knowledgeabout internal critical processes

All authors equallyable to make “discoveries”

Credit goes to who is “first”

Registration functionVerystrong

Veryweak

Priority and speed ofpublication paramount

Each author has hisown critical faculties

Each author’s “discoveries”can only be his

Priority and speed unimportant

sciences humanities

The Effect of Subject Area on the Model

Subject variation

Small to Medium ScaleExperimental

Theoretical& Large Scale Experimental

Peer review as methodologicaland quality filter

Certification functionVerystrong

Veryweak

Theoretical paper,review re- “does”theorem or proof

Small fields where quality of researchers’ work is known to peers

Most quantitativeMost quantitativedisciplinesdisciplines

HEPHEPTheoretical PhysicsTheoretical Physics

MathsMaths

Effect of Coauthorship Levels on the Model

1 Level of Co-authorship 100s

Crucial

Unimportant Registration

Certification

Traditional journal culture

4

Aveco-authorshiplevel 2002

Pre-print orself-archiving

culture?

High Energy Physics

Author Studies: 2003 Results

• Major ongoing study at Elsevier through the Author Feedback Programme

• Continuous monitoring of author perceptions via questionnaire survey covering all 1200 primary Elsevier titles (225,000 sent per year, 79,000 returned, 35% response rate) in science, medicine, technology, social science

• Authors are asked to rate performance of the Elsevier title they have just published with against their previous journal publishing experience

• This allows us to gather comparative data on authors irrespective of where they publish

Questionnaires: An Example

Respondents: Status and Roles

• Almost all authors are tenured/professional researchers• Hardly any are (graduate) students• Almost all authors are engaged in R&D as their main role

Respondents: Organization

• Majority of authors work in the university sector

Respondents: Age Profile

• Most authors are between 26 and 65 years old, with 60% between 36 – 55

• Age 26+ represents first post-doctoral job

• Outside of US most authors retire from 60 – 65

Respondents: Productivity

• 74% of authors have published 1.2 – 10 papers/yr• The mode have published about 5/yr

Respondents: Refereeing Activity

• 83% of authors acted as a referee in the last year

• Nearly a third refereed more than 4 papers in this period

Respondents: Editorial Board Activity

• Majority of authors do not serve as editorial board members

Respondents: Priority Ranking

2165

7=7=43

• Quality• Speed• Editor• Services

Network Maturity

The network maturity scores cover authors' use of Email, WWW, Telnet and FTP.  To simplify the analysis, the usage of these four networks is expressed as a mean percentage.

Although FTP and Telnet are included in the maturity scores, the greater weighting is given to WWW and Email usage.  It is reasonable to assume that a frequent user of Email and the WWW, who also uses FTP and Telnet, is likely to be more "comfortable" with IT, than a frequent user of Email and the WWW, who does not use FTP and Telnet.

Network MaturityScore

usage

Email WWW Telnet/FTP

High >80% daily daily weekly

Middle 70-80% daily daily occasional

Low <70% daily weekly never

Network Maturity: Rank Order

Conclusions

• Most authors are professional researchers in a university environment, publishing about 5 papers per year. As authors they are very journal-focused.

• Most authors act as referees at least once (a minority several times) a year and are not editorial board members

• They choose to publish from a set of journals selected first on specialisation and coverage and then subdivided by quality and utility. The actual journal chosen depends upon personal experience. These choices are intimately connected with brand identity issues of journals NOT publishers

• They care passionately about the quality and speed of the journals they use but not to the exclusion of all other factors

• Results are broadly similar across all subjects – but adoption and comfort of use of IT still varies widely