User Preference Survey

The User Preference Survey has been distributed and the compiled results are currently being analyzed. View survey instrument (PDF, 54K).

Overview

The CMI User Preference Survey is examining possible barriers to using digital journals, types of use suitable for digital journals, elements in the users' environment that might promote or discourage use of digital, and characteristics of journal presentation and content that might be important to digital or print use and preference.

Preliminary Studies

This survey is based on the findings of formative interviews conducted at the UC San Diego and Santa Barbara campuses. Eighty individuals were drawn from the four major academic areas. Interviews were conducted with faculty, library staff and students, asking questions concerning their experiences and choices when using print and digital journals.

Research Design and Methods

The survey contains fifteen questions of variable length. It will take approximately 15 minutes to read and answer. 20,000 individuals will be contacted with a target of 7,500 responses. An initial paper mailing of the survey with an invitation to participate will go to faculty, researchers, health workers and graduate students, followed by several email reminders. Undergraduate students and professional staff will be invited to participate through multiple emails only. Both mail and email invitations to participate will provide instructions on how to answer the survey either in paper or web format, a statement of voluntary participation, informed consent and the project web site for more information and survey results. UCSB Social Science Survey Center (SSSC) will administer the survey.

Subjects

There are five subpopulations for the User Preference Survey, Faculty and Researchers, Health Workers, Staff, Graduate Students and Undergraduates:

• Faculty and researchers are individuals in the teaching and research classifications, including clinical researchers, but excluding graduate and undergraduate students employed in these classifications. To achieve a precision of ±5% at the campus level, 3,097 responses need to be obtained, requiring a sample of at least 7,200.
  
  
• Health workers are those individuals in the physician, nurse and medical resident classifications at those five campuses with hospital residency programs. They will be considered as one population. A ±5% precision across campuses requires a sample size of 368, and an attempt to reach about 900.
  
  
• Professional staff are those individuals in the management (MSP) and professional (PPS) classifications, specifically excluding executives, clericals and crafts. With a precision of ±5% across campuses, about 400 staff responses are required and a sample size of 1,600 is planned.
  
  
• Graduate students are those currently enrolled excluding those whose first term of attendance is Fall 2002. A sample with +5% precision at the campus level requires sampling 3,215 individuals, and contacting around 7,500.
  
  
• Undergraduate students are current undergraduates, excluding those whose first quarter of attendance is Fall 2002, will be considered one population. A simple stratified sample with ±5% precision across campuses, with 400 responses requires around 1,400 sampled.
  

Plans are to survey librarians separately.

Recruitment

UCOP IR&C Corporate Data is being used to identify and contact faculty, researchers, health workers and staff. Graduate and undergraduate student contact data will be obtained via the Institutional Research Offices at each campus and supplemented by SSSC data. Individuals have been selected at random from this data.

Schedule

Deployment of the survey is planned to commence the beginning of February 2003 and will remain in the field for three weeks. Data will be analyzed during the spring term, and preliminary results will be available in April 2003.

Human Subjects Use and Approval

This survey is subject to campus level human subjects review and approval to assure that participant rights are protected. The survey has received appropriate approval from each campus.

Confidentiality Measures

The survey will not ask for personal identifiers. All data will be anonymous and not associated back to the individual. This includes the web response option, which does not record the IP address of respondents. Completed surveys will be analyzed by the investigator and at the project's end, shredded or deleted. Only project staff will have access to raw data.

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