I wasn't planning on mentioning the Digital Britain report released earlier this week - it's rather lengthy, uninteresting from the legal education perspective, and many other commentators have covered the interesting aspects of creative technologies, IPR and other rights management (see TechnoLlama, panGloss, Charles Arthur, Chris Marsden, and TorrentFreak), and covered them well.
However, the National Centre for e-Social Science are "investigating the extent to which Web 2.0 tools
represent useful means of communicating, sharing and disseminating research
ideas and outputs for researchers across different disciplines, with a view to
exploring implications for the future of scholarly communications". And I thought this kind of fitted with the idea that new technologies are pervasive within the education system and that we might expect newer (and especially younger) researchers to be embracing such web 2.0 tools, more so as time goes on.
"The
study is aimed at:
(i) Informing researchers, institutions and funders
on the effectiveness of these new resources as means of communicating, sharing
and disseminating research ideas and outputs
(ii) Advising research
institutions and funders about the possible implications of the use of these
resources for the recognition and reward of research outputs
(iii) Providing
librarians, information professionals and publishers with a view about how they
might develop their roles in the scholarly communications process in order to
complement the evolution of new means of sharing information in research
communities.
To what extent
are Web 2.0 tools are being adopted as a scholarly tool in different
institutions and departments across the UK, in different subject fields and
disciplines, and at different stages of the scholarly communications process?
- -Which tools are being used, for what scholarly purposes and to what degree?
- -What are the demographic characteristics of researchers who use these
tools?
- -What factors influence researchers to adopt and use Web 2.0 tools?
- -Are there specific skills and training needs relevant to the adoption of
Web 2.0 resources by researchers?
- -Is there evidence that Web 2.0 tools are changing researchers' behaviour in
significant ways?
- -How do perceptions about quality, scholarly merit or permanence of content
affect researchers' use of Web 2.0?
- -Is there evidence of impact on perceptions and practices of how research
can be peer reviewed?
- -What are the ethical and legal implications of disseminating information
via Web 2.0, with regard to ownership of information, etc?
- -What is the relationship between Web 2.0 resources and established search
and discovery services?"
Prompted by the chance to win a new i-pod touch, I completed their survey!
Whilst the Digital Britain report concentrates mainly on the HEI provisions for supporting the development of a digital nation (i.e. graduates in ICT areas - see Chapter 6: Research, Education and Skills for Digital Britain), little is mentioned about the general use of web 2.0 tools within HEI - although there is some mention of embedding skills at primary and secondary level education.
I look forward to seeing some of the data generated from the NCeSS survey, particularly as some of the earlier questions asked about subject areas (and the relevant RAE 2008 subject codes) which might give some interesting comparisons not only for the research and teaching community, but regarding usage within disciplines (such as law) as well.
