Survey Results: Multilayered Publications

This is the second post in a seven-part series in which we will share some of the results of our survey for scholars with you.

The second topic covered in our recent Faculty Survey was the notion of “Multilayered Publications.” Multilayered publications would be online publications that go beyond their print counterparts by including additional asides from the authors, additional sidebars, and links to multimedia primary sources used by the authors that are available on the internet. The scholars were asked if they would like to publish or use multilayered publications. A good portion of the 285 respondents, 63%, were interested in authoring multilayered publications. But there was even stronger interest in using multilayered publications, with 89% of the 284 respondents indicating they would use multilayered works in their teaching or research. Across both groups, respondents were particularly excited about the chance to link to multimedia primary sources.

Here is what a few respondents had to say about multilayered publications:

-         “Online and multi-media platforms have worked very well for me in the classroom and this would enable students to become further engaged with the material.”

-         “I would definitely use multimedia primary sources during a class lecture, since it provides a more engaging perspective for students.”

-         “Since I have a great many interviews I conducted and am still conducting and documents that I either photocopied or still have in my possession I feel that being able to have these sources available to researchers, readers, and students on line would be very useful.”

-         “I am not experienced with these and am usually not comfortable reading from the computer for long periods of time, but I do feel that these examples would be useful and would also be very appealing to the young people I teach!”

-         “It seems very useful for showing how much scholarship is itself a layered process; I can imagine directing students to such a site.”

The LCRM staff, through informal discussion with scholars and knowledge of other publishing projects, had sensed there is a greater demand to use these books than produce these books, and our survey confirmed these results. We would love to hear your thoughts about what would make authoring a multilayered work more appealing.

The LCRM staff would again like to express our gratitude to everyone who took the time to participate in the survey. You’ve clearly given us some food for thought. If you still want to participate in the LCRM project we invite you to add to the discussion on a specific topic by adding a comment to this and our other posts about the survey.

Survey Methodology and Disclaimer:  We used the Odum Institute software to host our survey and help us analyze results.  We are not statisticians and do not claim that our survey or the reports on results are scientific, although they may be indicative of trends.  We welcome comments or questions about the results.

Check back soon for Part 3 of our survey results!