Survey of users about advantages and disadvantages of electronic technologies for accessing journals

The survey results summarised in this file came from two separate exercises, an email survey and a print survey. The survey instrument went through several pilot stages, and was modified as a result. The instrument was specifically designed around a series of balances between completeness versus time required to fill in, and open versus closed questions. At each stage, users were invited to add additional responses as well as free-form comments at the end. The final set of questions was organised in five groups. The first group dealt with general demographic issues: the industry category of the respondent and their primary employment role. The intention here was to see if responses would vary according to the respondent's circumstances. A range of general categories was provided and respondents could add their own category if they wished. The second group asked about their access to computing technology either at home or at work. The specific questions asked whether they had any access to any of a personal computer, a CD-drive (for CD-ROM based publications), a sound card or equivalent, a colour screen, a direct network connection or modem access, or any other form of technology they wished to specify. The third group asked them how often they used particular forms of electronic publishing: subscribing to an email list, accessing an ftp server, accessing a gopher server, accessing the Web, using a CD-ROM, viewing electronic journals, viewing the e-journal Psyche (see below), or publishing electronically. The fourth group asked them to provide their feelings (using a standard 5-point Likert scale from Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree) about a series of possible advantages of electronic publishing. They could also add up to two other advantages if they wished. The fifth group asked them to provide their feelings (using the same scale) about a series of disadvantages of electronic publishing. As before, they could add up to two other disadvantages if they wished.