The Science 2.0-Survey investigates the dissemination and use of online tools and social media applications among scientists of all disciplines at German universities (institutions of higher education) and research institutions (Leibniz, Helmholtz, Max Planck institutes). Results show that digital, online-based tools have found widespread use and acceptance in academia and must therefore be considered a central component of scientific working processes. Furthermore the data gathered also make it clear that certain usage patterns begin to emerge and stabilise as routines in everyday academic work.
The most popular tools are the online encyclopedia Wikipedia (95% of all respondents use it professionally), mailing lists (78%), online archives/databases (75%) and content sharing/cloud services such as Dropbox or Slideshare (70%). Meanwhile, social bookmarking services remain largely untapped and unknown among scientists (only 5% professional usage).
Online tools and social media applications are most commonly utilised in a research context. In addition to Wikipedia (67%), the top three tools used for research purposes are online archives/databases (63%), reference management software (49%) and content sharing/cloud services (43%). In teaching, learning management systems (32%) play a significant role, even though this mainly applies to universities. Video/photo communities (25%), online archives/databases (23%) and content sharing/cloud services (21%) are also used by scientists in the context of teaching. However, there seems to be some backlog in the fi eld of science communication. Scientists are rarely active in this area; 45 per cent of respondents say science communication is not part of their range of duties, while for another 40 per cent such activities comprise no more than 10 per cent of their daily workload. When active in the fi eld of science communication, scientists seem to favour classic online-based tools such as mailing lists (44%) or videoconferences/VoIP (35%), while typical Web 2.0 tools such as weblogs (10%) or microblogs (6%) are rarely used in this context. Social network sites (SNS) with a professional and/or academic orientation (30%), however, are relatively common for communication purposes in academia. The situation is similar for science administration practices where, although the use of online-based tools and social media applications is more common, no more than one-quarter of the scientists use a particular tool, while personal organizers/schedule managers (27%) dominate.
The main factors cited by scientists as preventing them from using online-based tools and social media applications professionally are a lack of added value for their own work (30%), insufficient technical assistance (21%) and insufficient time to become familiar with the handling of the tools (15%). In particular, many scientists do not use microblogs (53%), discussion forums (41%) and weblogs (40%) professionally because they cannot see any added value in using them.
With regard to the attitudes of scientists in relation to the use of online tools and social media applications, results show that they are aware of privacy issues and have relatively high concerns about the spread of and access to personal data on the Internet. However, scientists generally have few reservations about dealing with social media and show themselves to be open to new technological developments.
This report documents the results of a Germany-wide online survey of a total of 2,084 scientists at German universities (1,419) and research institutions (665). The survey explores the usage of 18 online tools and social media applications for daily work in research, teaching, science administration and science communication. In addition to the frequency and context of use, the survey also documents reasons for the non-use of tools, as well as general attitudes towards the Internet and social media. The survey was conducted between 23 June 2014 and 20 July 2014 and is a joint project of the Leibniz Research Alliance „Science 2.0“, led by the Technische Universität Dresden’s Media Center.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa.de:bsz:14-qucosa-191110 |
| Date | 12 January 2016 |
| Creators | Pscheida, Daniela, Minet, Claudia, Herbst, Sabrina, Albrecht, Steffen, Köhler, Thomas |
| Contributors | Technische Universität Dresden, Medienzentrum, Leibniz-Forschungverbund Science 2.0,, Technische Universität Dresden, Medienzentrum |
| Publisher | Saechsische Landesbibliothek- Staats- und Universitaetsbibliothek Dresden |
| Source Sets | Hochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | doc-type:workingPaper |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Relation | dcterms:isPartOf:Science 2.0-Survey |
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