Use and relevance of web 2.0 for researchers

This project will look at the extent of adoption of different web 2.0 tools in different subject fields and disciplines, and the different types of researchers who are using them.

The RIN has commissioned a team from the National Centre for e-Social Science (NCeSS), University of Manchester, and the Institute for the Study of Science, Technology and Innovation (ISSTI), University of Edinburgh, to conduct this project and the team’s own project homepage is here.

The project will enquire into the factors that influence researchers to adopt and use Web 2.0 tools, and conversely the factors that prevent, constrain or discourage usage.

The study will also explore whether and how web 2.0 tools are changing researchers’ behaviour in significant ways, and what implications this might have for researchers, institutions, librarians, information professionals and funders. We will seek evidence on whether web 2.0 tools are:

• making data easier to share, verify and re-use, or otherwise facilitating more open scientific practices
• changing discovery techniques or enhancing the accessibility of research information
• changing researchers’ publication and dissemination behaviour, (for example, due to the ease of publishing work-in-progress and grey literature), and
• changing practices around communicating research findings (for example through opportunities for iterative processes of feedback, pre-publishing, or post-publication peer review).

A full report is due out in April 2010. Any enquiries about this project should be directed to sarah.gentleman@rin.ac.uk