Survey of US Higher Education Faculty 2023, Need for & Use of Information About Copyright

Survey of US Higher Education Faculty 2023, Need for & Use of Information About Copyright

This report looks closely at the extent and kind of information about copyright practices needed by faculty at US colleges and universities.  The report helps its readers to answer questions such as:  how much do faculty need information about copyright? How much have they used and benefited from information about copyright provided by academic libraries?  What policies in this area do faculty want libraries to follow?  How satisfied are they with current policies? What are the demographic characteristics of faculty who have consulted attorneys about copyright issues? Which faculty go to librarians and which rely on peers for copyright advice?  Which copyright issues most concern faculty? Are they more inclined to query about copyright issues related to open access? Or to issues related to making material available in their classes? The study presents specific data for faculty interest in a broad range of copyright issues, including but not limited to open access, copyright for data, issues with commercial article sharing platforms, negotiation of author contracts, use of audio-visual materials, copyright issues in citation and much more.A plurality of 46.28% were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied while 12.03% were very satisfied and 31.02 satisfied while 6.08% were dissatisfied and 1.49%, very dissatisfied. Dissatisfaction was highest among associate and assistant professors; among the former 11.37% were either dissatisfied or very dissatisfied while for the latter, 5.56 were dissatisfied in 2.78% very dissatisfied. Adjuncts were also relatively unhappy and nearly 10% were either dissatisfied or very dissatisfied.