In some ways similar to the transition from the manuscript era to the age of print, a major paradigm shift in human communications is occurring. This change is being ushered by the digital convergence of traditional communications technologies and media (mail, phone, etc.) into a global, computer network (Di Cesare, 1992; Eisenstein, 1979; McLuhan and Powers, 1992). The global linking of computer networks (commonly called the Internet, short for internetwork) was founded and funded on the premise that it would offer fruitful and expeditious exchange of information between researchers using education, government, and military networks. The use of network communications leads to technological and social change. These occur whether or not social implications are made part of the planning for computer networks. Although some observers have warned against increasing isolation of individuals with increasing computer use (Danziger, 1985), computer networks tend to expand communication between people. Kiesler and Sproull (1987) noted that their research indicated that "people use computers to talk to people and people who use computers to talk to people talk to more people than do people who don't use computers." In the case of college and university faculty who use computer networks to learn and communicate, this could be an outcome of using computer networks as an integral part of their academic lives.
However promising the notion of enhanced communications for faculty scholarship by the use of computer networks, its newness has mitigated against acquiring much knowledge about its benefits and risks. Added to this is the lack of empirical understanding about how and why faculty respond to such innovations. Researchers studying faculty research productivity have called for more empirical studies of faculty scholarship (Peterson and Corcoran 1985; Dill, 1986). Keller (1985) points out that research about higher education is ironically threadbare (i.e., little funding and little interest) in light of how central colleges and universities are to the emerging information society. Creswell (1986) echoes the concerns of other researchers in this field (Peterson and Corcoran, 1985) in stating that "institutional personnel need to become serious students of the nature of their institutions, especially in assessing scholarly research on campus."
This proposed study seeks to explore (1) the extent to which faculty are using the relatively new medium of network communications in the pursuit of scholarship, and (2) to test a theory of status-related risk in an attempt to understand why some faculty may be using this new medium more than others. Although there are a few case studies of research conducted online (Cronin, 1994), there is little knowledge of how it is actually being used and what benefits and risks are associated with its use for scholarly activities. In the context of viewing faculty as models for scholarship, it seems practical and timely to study how they have been using this new medium for that purpose.
A typical university with its schools, departments, and programs and the administrators and faculty is an example of a stratified, hierarchical social structure (Bess, 1982). Despite the principle of academic freedom afforded by previous innovations such as tenure and peer-based review, there are clear norms interpreted by administration and peer committees. These norms largely equates tenure, promotion, and considerations of faculty duties and schedule to evidence of research and publication productivity (Schweitzer, 1989). This is true in part because of the prestige and funding it brings to the department and by extension to the school (Webster and Conrad, 1986). Research productivity is typically evaluated by citations in academic and often refereed (print) journals and measured in such "objective" factors as citation and publication counts (Creswell, 1985). However, with faculty reporting decreasing amounts of time for performing their varied duties, there may be diminishing time for research or the social and collegial contact that stimulates and refines the development of ideas. (Creswell, 1986).
Compared to e-mail and other network communications, traditional communications such as phone, fax, and mail can be costly, time-consuming, not always easy-to-use, and often restricted (Cronin, 1994). Although some social and collegial contact can be achieved through traditional communications, there is still the challenge of publishing or disseminating knowledge. This important component of scholarship is daunting to junior faculty as they are subject to the traditional academic reward system, i.e., publish or perish (Carnegie Foundation, 1989).
Faculty can use network communications for scholarship in several ways. They can form or join online mailing lists and newsgroups on the Internet which are devoted to specific scholarly topics. When they post questions or results of their research, they can benefit from responses and peer review from scholars around the world who share expertise and interest in their topic. For online equivalents of more traditional publishing models, there are a growing number of online scholarly journals that employ peer review and editorial selection. Many scholars, academic institutions, and scholarly organizations maintain lists on the World Wide Web that link to the sites of these journals (O'Donnell, 1995). However, despite their presence, some obstacles to use exist, such as its legitimacy as a venue for publications, an adequate number and variety of online journals, and the availability of online indexes. Another obstacle is the lack of guidelines for faculty regarding publication in online journals, especially when online articles are submitted for faculty evaluation (McNulty, 1995). A greater dilemma exists in the increasing costs of publishing print journals versus the increasing demand for publication (Astle, 1989) coinciding with a relative decrease in the total publication output by faculty over the past two decades while faculty numbers increased only slightly (Bieber and Blackburn, 1989).
The opportunity for conferencing as a component of scholarship is subject to similar constraints as social and collegial communications. Except for the rare sabbatical leave or a capped expense based on formal invitation to present a paper at a conference, most faculty are largely office-bound. However, except for "triple threat" faculty researchers who can find time and energy to successfully conduct research, yet manage to also teach three (or more) classes per week, meet with students, and perform administrative and committee responsibilities for the program and department, most faculty are hard-pressed to find adequate time within their schedule for scholarly activities.
In sum, despite its potential to overcome many of the limitations of traditional communications, the use of network communications still poses risks to faculty who try to use an innovative and formally unrecognized medium for scholarly publication, especially if it is submitted for faculty evaluation (Martin, 1992; McNulty, 1995). Although this view is typical of a new communications medium, there are indications that changes in these attitudes are quickly changing on the part of both administrators and faculty. As noted in a recent study of ten online scholarly journals (Butler, 1995), "electronic publication has not led to a failure to receive awards" and that "very few contributors have actually been challenged regarding their e-publication or asked to justify it through formal review channels."
At the time of this study (Spring 1996), many online venues for scholarly communications are present for academics. These venues include online books, journals, discussion lists (i.e., mailing lists), newsgroups, and a wide range of real-time conferencing technologies that incorporate text, audio, image, and video.
As noted in a May 18, 1995 press release for the 1995 edition of the Directory of Electronic Journals, Newsletters, and Academic Discussion Lists (Association of Research Libraries, 1995) "The number of journals, newsletters, and serial-like academic publications continues to increase daily and scholarly communication expands in exciting new ways.
Nonetheless, it is not always simple to find what is available. The new edition of the Directory is a compilation of entries for nearly 2500 scholarly lists and 675 electronic journals, newsletters, and related titles such as newsletter-digests -- an increase in size of over 40% since the 4th edition of April 1994 and 4.5 times since the 1st edition of July 1991." In this same introduction to the 1995 edition, they describe a breakdown by type of Internet service as "about 140 titles seem to be available on the Web only (or on the Web and in print) and close to 350 are available either on the Web and gophers or lists, or through Web links to gophers or other ASCII sites." As journals are used to represent scholarly work in all academic disciplines and articles in peer-reviewed journals are typically used for faculty evaluation, it may be useful to estimate the presence of these online journals as a baseline for this study. Besides the potential for reducing the growing costs and delays associated with publishing print versions of academic journals, there are other advantages that both publishers and scholars can realize: "The Net also offers the possibility of implementing peer review more efficiently and equitably, and of supplementing it with what is the Net's real revolutionary dimension: interactive publication in the form of open peer commentary on published work.
Most of this "scholarly skywriting" likewise needs to be constrained by peer review, but there is room on the Net for unrefereed discussion too, both in high-level peer discussion forums to which only qualified specialists in a given field have read/write access and in the general electronic vanity press." (Harnad, 1993).
Some journals are available as uniquely online publications and some are online versions of their print counterparts (Gessner 1996). Although the number and variety of online scholarly journals are increasing, it is difficult to categorize them (Guedon, Jean-Claude, 1994). However, both numbers and topical categories as shown in lists maintained by scholars and scholarly projects on the World Wide Web indicate a relatively small, but quickly growing diffusion of online scholarly publications that could serve all academic disciplines. For example, In the Introduction to the ARL 1995 edition of the Directory of Electronic Journals, Newsletters, and Academic Discussion Lists, they note "The number of refereed titles in this Directory has just about doubled in the past year from 74 titles to 142 whose editors describe them as "peer reviewed." which is already a considerable number when allowing for a year's growth since the 1995 edition.
A survey based on a sample of 39 peer-reviewed journals in 1994 (Roes, 1994) revealed the following relative breakdown by discipline from highest to lowest number of journals: Mathematics, Education, Social Sciences. Notable was the scarcity (only three as of 1994) of peer-review online journals in the field of computer science and information technology, especially for a field which has dominated much of the online discussion and publication since the beginnings of the Internet.
The Web site of The Register of Leading Soc.Sci. Electronic Journals (http://coombs.anu.edu.au/WWWVL-SocSci.html) lists 88 journals related to the social sciences. The Online Journal project surveyed science, technology and medicine (STM) online journals (http://journals.ecs.soton.ac.uk/survey/survey.html). In the introduction to this survey, they note the following: "The provision of online journals is accelerating. This survey of full-text, peer-reviewed journals in the areas of science, technology and medicine (STM) discovered over 100 online titles towards the end of 1995. Hundreds more online journals are promised by publishers in 1996. Despite this, it is clear that the new 'online' medium is not being exploited since many new online journals are simply electronic editions of paper journals. The survey highlights this dilemma." As of March 1996, there were 186 peer-reviewed journals listed under science, technology and medicine (at the World Wide Web Virtual Library site at http://www.edoc.com/ejournal/academic.html).
It should be noted that compared to the estimates for printed journals is over 130,000 (Roes, 1994), the total number of (all) online journals at approximately 6,000 (Gessner, 1996) is still quite low and may be viewed as a factor in their acceptance and use. However, the premise of this study is that the mere presence or the explosive growth of online academic journals or the many other online venues for scholarly communications (e.g., academic mailing lists, newsgroups, Web publications, etc.) does not fully predict or characterize the use by faculty of computer networks for the many types of scholarly communications. Knowledge of faculty attitudes and acceptance of these new forms of scholarly communications is unknown and slower to appear (Roes, 1994; Gessner, 1996) and these attitudes may be an important determinant in the growth of these online venues.
Accordingly, this study seeks to further characterize the context of this change in scholarly communications. It will examine the extent and type of use of network communications by faculty for scholarly work and the reasons why they use or don't use this innovation.
The research literature on faculty productivity has shown that faculty scholars and other researchers can benefit from enhanced and expanded communications with their peers (Blackburn, 1972; Dill, 1986)). If network communications were used by faculty scholars, an increase in the quality and quantity of scholarly communications might be accompanied by an increase in research productivity. An empirical study of faculty use of network communications implementation could provide a starting point for understanding how this technology has been adopted and used for scholarly purposes. A cross-sectional survey of faculty users can examine their current extent and types of use, as well as the reasons which influence the degree or manner in which they accept or reject the use of this innovation. As shown in the following review of literature, researchers in this field have suggested examining implementation issues.
On a theoretical level, the results of the study can contribute to an understanding of how status/risk theory, articulated by Giacquinta (1973, 1975a, 1975b) and some of his students, might be efficacious in characterizing choices and uses of this new medium during its implementation.
The descriptive data and its analysis can provide a model of how university faculty are (and are not) using network communications for scholarly purposes.
In addition, the results can be used by academic (or other) computer and network support personnel to determine how they address the needs of users. Lastly, practical implications of this study could support planned change by those involved in university efforts to encourage research by faculty. Specifically, administrative and faculty committees can use the findings to examine the value of clarifying their expectations for this innovation, especially how legitimate scholarship conducted in this new medium can be applied to faculty evaluation. Some empirical work suggests that planning that takes into account the needs of users of innovations could support implementation (Seashore and Miles, 1990; Huberman and Miles, 1984). Planned change that would encourage, reward, and support faculty scholarship in the use this new medium could produce benefits for the university and society.
Implementation is used in this proposal to denote "the process of putting into practice an idea, program, or set of activities and structures new to people attempting or expecting to change" (Fullan, 1991, p.65). In this study, implementation is examined by type, level, and frequency of use. Although implementation is often thought of as a stage that lasts for a few years at most, this time period can be quite prolonged, as in the case of implementing computer networks (Sproull and Kiesler, 1991).
Network communications, used as a term in this proposal, involves the use of computers connected to local and wide area networks, online information services, and/or the Internet. It also involves software-based services and applications such as e-mail, newsgroups, mailing lists, the World Wide Web, real-time audiovisual computer conferencing, ftp, gopher, and telnet. Computer-mediated communications is a somewhat broader synonym.
Organization: In his book, Modern Organizations, Amitai Etzioni (1964, p.1) quotes Talcott Parsons (1960) for a definition of an organization as "social units (or human groupings) deliberately constructed and reconstructed to seek specific goals."
Perquisites (i.e., perks) are the rewards or benefits that may accrue to statuses, for example, job security, pay raises, and promotion (Giacquinta, 1975b, p.103).
Status is used in this proposal to denote the position one holds within an organization. Giacquinta (1975b, p.103) notes that individuals can occupy multiple statuses within an organization and outside it. For example, this study uses several variables which have been determined by previous studies to be correlated with receptivity and use of educational innovations. Organizational statuses discussed in this proposal include faculty tenure and academic specialty.
Scholarly work or communications, as used in this proposal, encompasses contact with colleagues or other scholars, gathering support for scholarly work, conducting research, and publishing or disseminating results of scholarly work (Dill, 1986). In some academic fields, this work may be research leading to a book; in other fields it may involve quantitative or qualitative studies with published results in the form of articles.
Status-related Risk is used in this proposal to denote the potential advantages as compared to disadvantages that subjects perceive to the perquisites of their statuses (or change in statuses) were an organizational innovation to be carried out (Giacquinta, 1975a, p.41).
Traditional communications, in this proposal, refers to faculty communications conducted via face-to-face contact, print, mail (postal), phone, and fax.