Library Research Services Faculty Survey results

What was the survey for, and how was it designed?

Since Data Services is a new program at ZSR within Digital Initiatives and Scholarly Communication, DISC decided to conduct a survey last Spring to evaluate faculty research needs. We wanted to discover the tools and kinds of data they may need help with, what kind of research they’re doing, how they do their research and the challenges, and what they want to get out of library faculty workshops. At the end, we included free response questions so they could share anything else that would help us better support their research. Molly, Kyle and I designed the survey before the end of the Spring semester, and conducted it in late April.

Who responded to the survey?

In all, we got 231 responses from Wake Forest faculty, with 177 complete responses (answered every relevant question and submitted the complete survey) with responses from every faculty body (Division 1 – 5, Graduate School, Business, Divinity, and Law Schools, and ZSR). We had good participation from tenured and tenure-track faculty, but got over 30 responses from teaching faculty too! In terms of funding, 137 respondents used WFU funding, 72 had private grants, and 64 had federal grants (NSF and NIH were the top two federal funders). Only 35 respondents were required to do a Data Management and Sharing Plan (DMSP) for their research. A data management plan is required for most federally funded studies, where researchers explain how they are gathering, storing, and sharing data from their studies.

What were our biggest takeaways?

We saw plenty of opportunities to tailor our support to current faculty needs, particularly in data management. Faculty who are on funded studies may benefit from help with their DMSPs, since only 3 respondents said they got help from the library (out of 35). We saw opportunities for teaching file management and research data management based on their research concerns. The top three concerns were “Backing up my digital files”, “Ensuring long-term access to my original data”, and “Organizing my research data”. And data management was the top challenge in the research process for our faculty. Out of the workshop options we included, data management and data visualization topped the list, but we got at least 30 interested for every topic we provided.

To give them a chance to share, we asked open-ended questions about what support we could provide. Faculty members mentioned more access to digital resources, such as performance arts recordings, newspaper archives, and research databases and journals (specifically for Finance and Economics).

We got requests for new software tools as well, including Overleaf (an online academic writing platform), BioRender for scientific illustrations, and Tableau and NVivo for data analysis and visualization. There may be a need for advanced AI research tools like ChatGPT Plus too. In terms of research methods, faculty suggested training for digital humanities platforms, systematic review, and GIS workshops for spatial data (maps). For those who work with music and historical documents, as well as our qualitative researchers, transcription services are needed. We actually have a great transcription product called Theirstory already, so making sure faculty know which tools and platforms are currently offered is also important.

Overall, faculty felt well supported by our library, with a lot of appreciation for inter-library loan, materials purchasing, and research sessions with RIO and liaison librarians. Colleen, Hu, Kathy, and Tanya got specific shout-outs for helping faculty patrons with research support, archives, and purchasing research materials!

Visualizations

Who took the survey?

Which elements of the research process do you find most challenging?

Which ZSR Library services have you used to support your research?

How will the survey responses inform our work?

Kyle and I are working to share the survey with stakeholders across the library, and we’re getting feedback from Admin Council, subject librarians in relevant areas, and also all of you! So far, the library has been excited to hear what faculty shared, and we will be making recommendations on which workshops to offer and which areas to focus on for data services and digital initiatives this year.

From the first takeaways, we see opportunities to help faculty build data management best practices, learn about data visualization, digital humanities, and GIS tools, and provide consults on the research process to address their challenges. Faculty use a wide variety of software tools, and we can’t possibly support everything, so we’ll prioritize tools based on survey feedback. There was interest in all the workshops we suggested, but data management topped the list for my role. We also collected (voluntary) contact information from respondents for an individual followup conversation. I’m hoping to reach out to engaged faculty to start a conversation about how the library can better support them in the future.

One of the most common themes in the survey was “ZSR is awesome!” so keep up the great work, everyone!