Survey on the Demographics and Education of Scholarly Publishing and Communication Professionals

Back in August of this year, I began preparing my remarks for the ALPSP keynote I was to deliver the following month on the topic of innovation and its place in the changing scholarly publishing landscape. I wanted to lead off my talk with some data on our professional community – who we are, what we do, where we come from. But when I started digging around for relevant data, and reaching out to colleagues who would definitely know where to find this data if it existed, it quickly became clear that it does not, in fact, exist. I had to make do to a word cloud for my opening slide.

I used the opportunity offered by networking breaks at the ALPSP meeting to speak with several representatives of professional societies to secure their commitment to run a survey that would collect the demographic data I had not been able to find the month before. Soon thereafter, I liaised with Professor Albert Greco of Fordham University in New York – Al’s well known for his research on the publishing industry — to enlist his help in preparing the survey.

We are delighted to announce that the survey on the Demographics and Education of Scholarly Publishing and Communication Professionals is now launched. The purpose of this survey is, simply, to collect basic, anonymous data about individuals in scholarly publishing and communications, to further public understanding of the profession. We are not collecting names, places of work, or other identifying information. The data resulting from the survey will be shared widely through the sponsoring societies, which include SSP, ALPSP, STM, and CSE. Note, though, that individuals who are not members of these societies are encouraged to complete the survey too.

So if you consider yourself a member of the profession – broadly defined — we invite your participation. The survey includes 10 questions and should take no more than 5 minutes to complete. It will run through January 15, 2015. Please feel free to share the survey link with others in your organizations as well. Thanks!