Casting the Net: Exploring Scholarly Publishing Practices and Preferences at UniSA

Scholarly publishing continues to undergo changes, influenced by shifts in technology, open access initiatives, and evolving scholarly communication practices. To gain greater understanding of academic publishing behaviours and preferences of researchers at our institution, a scholarly publishing survey was conducted at UniSA during August and September 2023. It covered a wide array of topics, including current author practices, use of author identifiers, publication choices, research promotion and open access considerations.

The paper and presentation will step through the process from initialisation, planning, creation of the survey questions, how the pilot and live surveys were conducted, and progress with data analysis. Initial (and any subsequent) identified trends in researcher preferences and behaviour at UniSA will be discussed. I will highlight what went well, what I would do differently and any plans for further analysis or expansion of the survey.

Author Bio

Sarah is the Manager, Library Services at UniSA’s City East campus. She leads the operational team of professional staff supporting the health sciences faculties, and contributes to the library-wide Research portfolio. Sarah has extensive experience working in both Australia and the UK in various roles within the academic and legal sectors. This includes client-facing and technical liaison roles at Flinders University Library and the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford which utilised her expertise in digital infrastructure, scholarly publishing and open scholarship. Most recently she presented a session at THETA 2023 entitled “Implementing AI in Higher Education: Examining benefits and requirements”.

Author Bio

Cathy is the Research Connections Librarian at UniSA’s, based at the City East Campus. Her work focusses on maximising the visibility of UniSA’s research via the institutional repository, providing individual metrics, impact and researcher profile support, co-ordinating workshops and working across the research community to ensure consistent and strategic support. Previously, Cathy held Academic Librarian roles with the Division of Health Sciences and the Division of Education, Arts and Social Sciences, working as part of a team of Academic Librarians supporting the teaching, learning and research needs of academic and research staff, and undergraduate and postgraduate students. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2664-4539