بررسي جايگاه انتشار التكرونيك در ارتباطات علمي اعضاي هيات علمي دانشگاه شيراز

A Study of the Status of Electronic Publishing in the Scientific Communication of Shiraz University Faculty Members

Introduction Communication is the essence of science, and scholarly journals are the most important scholarly communication channels. The advent of new information and communication technologies has evolved scholarly cormnunication. These technologies enable scientist to publish their works in the least amount of time possible for the most number of audiences including their peers. Electronic publication is a multidimensional phenomenon which has electronic peer reviewed journals on one side and self publishing of works on the other. This study addresses the latter. Although publishing articles in accredited peer reviewed journals in one of the most important criteria for evaluating scientistsʹ professional standing, electronic publication forms a vast network of interactions among scientists which not only could have an essential role in their scientific improvement, but also would be effective in the refinement of their works prior to submitting to accredited journals. However, regarding the multidimensional nature of electronic publication on one hand, and the academic reward system which substantially relies on publishing articles in peer reviewed journals on the other hand, researchers are faced with the question of whether to choose a medium which contributes to more visibility and accessibility among a vast group of audience or to choose a medium which rewards them in the scientific community. To answer this question, this study intends to examine the acceptance of electronic publication among Shiraz University faculty. Questions This article is seeking to answer the following questions: I. Have Shiraz University faculty accepted electronic publication as a form of scholarly communication? 2. What are the reasons for accepting or not accepting electronic publication" Method The research method was survey conducted among Shiraz University faculty who had articles in lSI journals during 2002-2003. The sample included 84 faculty members. Data was gathered by means of a two part questionnaire including 26 questions and analyzed using SPSS. Results Scientific communication methods: To clarify the most used communication methods, respondents were asked what scientific activities they have performed the previous year. The vast majority of respondents (98.2 percent) affirmed that they had published articles. The rating was followed by 73 percent who had participated in seminars, 63/4 percent who had conducted research projects, 30.1 percent who had published books and 1.5 percent who had electronic publications. Popular scientific activities: respondents were asked to rank the scientific activities they prefer to conduct. A substantial majority (92.1 percent) ranked writing articles as their first priority, while the majority (52.1 percent) chose electronic publication as their last priority. The interesting thing was that writing books was chosen by the majority (29.2 percent) as the last priority as well. In between, participating in seminars and conducting research project were chosen as second and third priority by most of the respondents having the response rate of 57.1 percent and 43.1 percent respectively. Advantages of electronic publication: Respondents were asked to rank the advantages they ascribe to electronic publication. The advantages were: "to pass peer review filter", and "to publish faster", to get informed from the readersʹ points of view sooner", and "to extend the number of readers". As determined by Friedman test, "to publish faster" with the mean of 1.71 stand as the first advantage. followed by "to get informed from the readersʹ points of view sooner" as the second advantage, "to extend to number of readers" as the third advantage and "to pass peer review filter" as the fourth advantage. Their means were 2.07, 2.71 and 3.5, respectively. Disadvantages of electronic publication: Respondents were asked to rank the disadvantages they ascribe to electronic publication. The disadvantages were: "lack of credibility", "lack of citations to electronic publications", "unworthiness in comparison to print publications" and "unwillingness to publish the works in a wide range". As determined by Friedman test, "lack of credibility" with the mean of 1.8 was the first disadvantage followed by "lack of citations to electronic publications", "unworthiness in comparison to print publications" and "unwillingness to publish the works in a wide range" as second, third and fourth disadvantages. Their means were 1.93.2.53 and 3.73, respectively. Discussions and Results Electronic publication is a relatively new phenomenon in the world of scientific communications especially in Iran. It goes without saying that acceptance of new things requires time and electronic publication is not an exception to the rule. The most important reason of those who regarded electronic publication as a form of sharing research results among scientists was "to publish faster". This result could be justified by proposing two factors; on one hand, limitation of journalsʹ space for publishing articles which results in a time lag between the acceptance of a paper and publication of it. and on the other hand, the time which is spent on reviewing a paper could be a deterrent factor which contributes to the delay in publishing papers. The most important disadvantage respondents ascribe to electronic publication was "lack of credibility". This result comes from this idea that most of the selft published articles are not peer reviewed and in the eye of scientists peer review is a process which guarantees the scientific standing of a work. As a whole, the results show that the respondents have not accepted electronic publication as a form of scholarly communication, but it is worth mentioning that electronic publication is a multi-dimensional issue which requires more research to clarify all its aspects, such as preprints and the effect of electronic publication on them, attitudes of users toward electronic journals and the effect of electronic publishing on the peer reviewing process.