Computer mediated communication and publication productivity among faculty

Cohen, J. A. (1995). Computer mediated communication and publication productivity among faculty in Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (AJCU) institutions (Doctoral dissertation, State University of New York at Buffalo, 1995). The purpose of this study was to investigate whether faculty who used Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) achieved greater scholarly productivity as measured by publications and a higher incidence in the following prestige factors: receipt of awards; service on a regional or national committee of a professional organization; service on an editorial board of a refereed journal; service as a principal investigator on an externally funded project; or performance of other research on an externally funded project. Furthermore, the study investigated whether faculty who used CMC at less research-oriented institutions realized disproportional benefit from their use of CMC. Finally, the reasons why faculty do not use CMC were investigated. The population for this study was full-time chemistry, philosophy, political science, and sociology faculty in U.S. institutions that were members of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (AJCU) and that fell into Carnegie Classifications Research Universities III, Doctoral Universities I-II, and Master’s Universities and Colleges I-II. Findings of this study were based on a survey return rate of 71.4%. Faculty frequency of use data were collected for the several forms of CMC, including: electronic mail to or from faculty on the same campus; electronic mail to or from faculty at other campuses; electronic discussion groups (e.g. Listserv); Gopher; the World Wide Web (e.g. Mosaic); and electronic journals. A positive relationship was found between the frequency of use of CMC and publications, including coauthored publications. CMC users also had a higher incidence of prestige factors. In addition to statistically significant relationships between CMC use and productivity measures,