HOSTOS FACULTY AND THE CHANGING WORLD OF SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATION

Lisa Tappeiner
Sarah Brennan

INTRODUCTION

Hostos Community College likes to think of itself as a college unlike any other. With its revolutionary history, its cosmopolitan student body, and its location in the heart of urban America, it is truly unique. But in other ways, Hostos is typical of academia today. Its faculty span generations—from radicals who came of age in the ‘60’s to newly-minted PhD’s born in the Reagan era. Soon, faculty will be welcoming among their ranks digital natives, who grew up communicating with, being entertained by, and learning with digital media. Even before digital natives arrive in large numbers, educators and scholars are beginning to witness profound changes in the way scholarship is being produced, disseminated and used in education. This paper provides an overview of changes in how scholars communicate with each other and to the world, and describes a collaboration between the Center for Teaching and Learning and the Library that shows to what extent Hostos faculty are affected by and engaged in new modes of communication as researchers and as educators.

SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATION: AN OVERVIEW

The phrase scholarly communication has become increasingly widespread in library and information studies. It addresses a range of issues at play in the rapidly changing landscape of producing, publishing, and disseminating knowledge—including copyright, open access, fair use, plagiarism, and emerging social technologies. Until the late 1990’s, academic librarians provided access to scarce resources, published scholarship, to faculty and researchers at their institutions. Conversely, today’s digital information environment is characterized not by scarcity but by dynamism and abundance. Librarians and others who work with faculty to pro- mote scholarship at their institutions and who have a unique perspective on the transformation of scholarly communication can engage the campus in campus-wide discussions about new modes of digital publishing, standards, and the responsible use of digital resources in rapidly changing academic research and publishing environments.

Today, scholars are staying current in their fields and conducting research using online sources and interactive tools that were unthinkable just a decade ago. For instance, research on digital scholarship reveals that, for many researchers, reading and contributing to blogs serves as primary means for scholars to disseminate their work within their disciplines and forge relationships with new colleagues. (Manon and Smith, KJellberg). Others consider reader comments on social media websites as a form of peer-review (Manon and Smith). At the same time, traditional vehicles for disseminating current scholarship and research, particularly scholarly journals, are becoming increasingly expensive, despite the fact that much of the research they publish is funded by universities and government agencies, and that academics and government employees serve as unpaid editors and peer-reviewers to ensure quality and maintain reputation.

In many community colleges, where faculty are expected to dedicate most of their time to teaching rather than producing original research, scholarly communication comes into play at a different level. Course preparation, curriculum development, online learning, choosing supporting texts for classes have also been transformed by online scholarship, electronic formats for traditionally print materials, and digital rights management. Seeking alternatives to traditional educational resources is also appealing to faculty who see their students struggle with skyrocketing costs of textbooks. The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) (2005) found that “Increasing at an average of six percent per year, textbook prices nearly tripled from December 1986 to December 2004.” (Hilton and Wiley) Similarly, a 2007 federal study by the Department of Education’s Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance found that the “annual per student expenditures on textbooks can easily approach $700 to $1000” (Advisory Committee…) At the same time, more and more free, high quality educational resources are available online: entire courses from MIT, short, informative videos on YouTube from the Khan academy, digitized versions of the classics in world literature. Free open access materials cannot always be the solution to expensive course materials, but in a college that serves economically disadvantaged students, both the library and the Center for Teaching and Learning can identify and promote alternatives to traditional textbooks.

CENTER FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING: A CAMPUS RESOURCE FOR FACULTY SCHOLARSHIP, RESEARCH AND PUBLICATION

Traditionally, faculty in community colleges have been evaluated based on the quality of their teaching, but in recent years, Hostos Community College has joined many community colleges in requiring faculty to actively participate in re- search and scholarly growth as well as professional reputation. Faculty are expected to present at local, national, or international conferences or in community venues, to actively participate in professional organizations, and publish in respected peer- reviewed publications in their respective disciplines. Scholarly output and professional involvement have become key considerations in the reappointment, tenure, and promotion decisions.

Hostos Community College’s Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) encourages and supports faculty scholarship through a variety of activities. Every year they offer a schedule of enrichment activities, bringing scholars from off campus or providing a venue for campus faculty to engage in discussions of the research and pedagogy. In addition, the center provides resources, such as a webpage and email announcements alerting faculty to upcoming opportunities for professional involvement on campus, across CUNY, and beyond. CTL pays particular attention to junior faculty, offering orientation to the process of building professional portfolios and navigating the system for reappointment, tenure, and promotion. Finally, the CTL works to encourage pedagogical excellence and innovation on campus by promoting cross disciplinary dialogues, coordinating and facilitating initiatives such as ePortfolios, service learning, General Education, and mentoring. All of these activities lead to better teaching and a more cohesive, inter-disciplinary faculty.

In the context of rapidly changing modes of scholarship in the digital environment, the CTL can be a venue for conversations among disciplines and across campus about new forms of scholarly communication and how they relate to cur- rent standards and guidelines for the reappointment and tenure process. Another important and related role is to initiate dialogues among educators about new digital educational resources that are becoming available in all disciplines.

HOSTOS LIBRARY PROMOTES FACULTY SCHOLARSHIP

Although its primary purpose is to provide materials and services that support the Hostos curriculum, the Library also promotes faculty research at Hostos. Each academic department is assigned a faculty liaison, who selects materials to support programs in the department after becoming fully aware of faculty research interests. In many cases, Hostos librarians serve as research advisors, suggesting to faculty possible venues for publication and approaches to getting their work published. The library maintains subscriptions to journals that embrace the scholarship of teaching and learning and

has created a wiki guide that highlights resources for faculty research (http://oit.hostos.cuny.edu/librarywiki/index.php/Faculty_Research). It supports faculty scholarship further by offering such services as interlibrary loan and Metro card referrals to local research libraries. Most significantly, as part of a CUNY-wide consortium of nearly 20 libraries, it provides online access to literally tens of thousands of online journals through research databases, as well as scientific and social science data sets, and citation management tools.

As the venue on campus that purchases and licenses scholarly and educational information resources, the library can initiate campus-wide dialogues about the role of new modes in scholarly communication in the research and education.

CTL/LIBRARY COLLABORATION ON SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATION

The missions of the Library and the CTL intersect in the crucial areas of support for faculty research and the promotion of resources that foster excellence in teaching. In the summer of 2011, the assistant director of the CTL and the Collection Development librarian teamed up on a Committee on Beautiful Ideas (COBI) project to inform and engage the campus community on issues related to scholarly communication and, more specifically, the open access movement in publishing and education. They published Open Hostos! blog on the Hostos Social Network (http://oit.hostos.cuny.edu/openhostos/), which is dedicated to informing the campus community about issues related to open access publishing and open educational resources. A second component of the COBI project was to survey campus faculty about their research habits and to gauge their knowledge of and interest in open access resources. The survey explored how faculty use information for research and classes, what kinds of information resources they use, and what they would like to learn more about. (see Appendix 1) These results have provided data that will help both the Center for Teaching and Learning and the Library to better meet the research and course preparation needs of faculty at Hostos.

DISCUSSION OF SURVEY RESULTS

The survey was conducted using the online tool SurveyMonkey during the fall semester of 2011. It was sent out the List of Teaching Faculty and thirty faculty members responded. Although the number of responses was relatively small, they represented a good sampling of disciplines and departments—including Allied Health, Natural Sciences, English, Mathematics, and Behavioral and Social Sciences. This discussion will focus on questions 2 and 3, which relate to using information to prepare for classes, and question 4, which addresses the use of in- formation resources for research. When preparing a new class, faculty continue to rely on textbooks and other books: 62% are very likely to use textbooks, and 44% are very likely to use other books. Also, not surprisingly, 26 of 30 respondents were either very likely or likely to consult with colleagues within the college. Sources of information most frequently used when preparing for classes include websites of professional organizations and research databases. Although few mentioned books specifically, one respondent painted an amusing picture: “I go to Barnes & Noble bookstore... [with a] folding chair and pull out books for evaluation.” Surprisingly, several respondents mentioned Wikipedia as a source of information used for preparing for classes. Although many faculty do not allow students to use Wikipedia for assignments, there are clearly a range of views across campus regarding its usefulness in academic pursuits. No one mentioned traditional reference sources, such as the Encyclopedia Britannica (either print or online), which provide general over- views and help with quick fact-checking. The responses to this question reveal that faculty are sticking to textbooks and consulting with colleagues when preparing for courses, and remaining loyal to discipline-specific online resources, such as websites of professional organizations and discipline-specific databases.

Another question that yielded interesting information was question 4: “When conducting research, what print and online resources do you use most often (journals, websites, blogs, books, primary sources, etc.)? Please provide titles and links, if possible.” Faculty provided specific names of key journals and professional websites in their fields when answering this question. These responses confirmed recent studies in information use of faculty, which found that they prefer to stay current by consulting a few core journals in their disciplines (Tenopir 2003 p. v). Moreover, social media, mostly blogs, make an appearance in the context of faculty research. In general, faculty are more open to using a variety of different kinds of information resources, including social media, for their own research than for their teaching.

CONCLUSION AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS

The survey results will better enable the Center for Teaching and Learning and the Library to provide resources and support for faculty as they prepare for classes and conduct research. It also provides a snapshot of faculty use of information in the dynamic and rapidly evolving worlds of scholarly publishing and educational technology. Finally, the survey also revealed a strong interest among faculty to learn more about open access resources, fair use, and copyrights. By conducting their own research, using information technology in their courses, and grading student work that acknowledges ideas and media that were created by others, Hostos faculty are already professionally engaged in these issues. The Library, the Center for Teaching and Learning, academic departments, and EdTech all have a role in engaging Hostos faculty in discussions about creating and using information in the academic world.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Open Hostos! blog

http://oit.hostos.cuny.edu/openhostos/

Faculty Research (Hostos library guide)

http://oit.hostos.cuny.edu/librarywiki/index.php/Faculty_Research

Open Education at CUNY (CUNY academic commons)

http://commons.gc.cuny.edu/groups/open-education-at-cuny/

Open Educational Resources Commons

http://www.oercommons.org/

Scholarly Kitchen (scholarly publishing blog)

http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/

WORKS CITED

Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance. Turn the Page: Making College Textbooks More Alfordable. May 2007. Web. 13 Jan. 2012.

Hilton, John L and David A. Wiley. “A sustainable future for open textbooks? The Flat World Knowledge Story.” First Monday 15:8 (2 Aug. 2010). Web. 12 Jan. 2012.

Kjellberg, Sara. “I am a blogging author.” First Monday 15:8 (2 Aug. 2010). Web.

12 Jan. 2012.

Maron, Nancy, and K. Kirby Smith. “Current Models of Digital Scholarly Communication: Results of an Investigation Conducted by Ithaka Strategic Services for the Association of Research Libraries.“ JEP : The Journal of Electronic Publishing 12 (Feb. 2009) Web. 13 Jan. 2012.

Tenopir, Carol. Use and Users of Electronic Library Resources: An Overview and Analysis of Recent Research Studies. Washington D.C.: Council on Library and Information Resources, 2003. Web. 16 Jan. 2012.

APPENDX I. HOSTOS SURVEY ON FACULTY RESEARCH (FALL 2011)