A new study of the behavior of scholarly researchers has been launched, aiming to map the changing nature of how readers from all over the world find academic content. The latest survey follows on from work undertaken every three years since 2005, and an upcoming report will provide an update on trends in how readers find and access research articles online.  This year, the survey will additionally look into how Open Access affects discovery.

Readers from every academic discipline are invited to participate. The survey findings and all the raw survey data will once again be made freely available. The 2018 report, which you can access here, provided a wealth of information.

The survey is being carried out by Simon Inger and Tracy Gardner, from Renew Consultants, who have worked within the scholarly publishing community for over 30 years.  It is being supported by TrendMD alongside a number of other societies and publishing organizations.  

The survey is designed to take participants no more than 8 minutes to complete. All responses are given anonymously, almost every question is optional, and no tracking devices are used.

At the end of the survey, participants will be redirected to a separate site where they can optionally enter a prize draw to win one of three $100 Amazon vouchers and elect to receive a copy of the findings of this survey. The drawing site is separate in order to keep the survey responses unlinked from respondent identities.

Please go here to participate.

This survey has been supported by the following organizations and you may be invited to take this survey by one or more of them. You only need to take the survey once, even if you’ve been invited multiple times.

  • American Medical Association
  • American Psychological Association
  • American Society for Microbiology
  • Annual Reviews
  • Bone & Joint Publishing
  • IOP Publishing
  • Kudos
  • Royal Society of Chemistry
  • Taylor and Francis Group
  • TrendMD
  • Wiley