The Web 2.0 offers a number of tools targeting directly academics. The presented study wanted to find out if the academics use these tools and what they think about them. The authors used a mixed methodology consisting of an e-mail questionnaire, in-depth interviews and case studies. The demographic data was a little surprising, showing senior and older researchers as adopters. This was different for SNS, these were more popular with younger researchers. Also, researchers who are involved in collaborative researcher are more likely to adopt and use Web 2.0 tools more often. Encouragement (from different sides like library services, conference organisers) was important for the use of Web 2.0 tools.
With regard to publishing, there is still a clear preference for print-published journals. On the other hand, most researchers thought that the importance of online publishing will grow in the future and many researchers considered it likely, that the traditional peer review will be supplemented by other methods. In interviews, frequent users pointed to the possibility to communicate with multiple users, using different tools and features to reach particular target group. The researchers have concerns about trust (although I would have interpreted the quoted concerns more like problems with loss of control – a typical web 2.0 issue).
All in all an interesting study, going deeper than the usually usage-frequency-oriented studies.
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Filed under: Conference, English Tagged: | elPub2010, SNS, web 2.0
