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The use of online digital resources and educational digital libraries in higher education

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Abstract

This paper summarizes results from a national survey of 4,678 respondents, representing 119 institutions of higher education in the United States regarding their use of digital resources for scholarly purposes. This paper presents the following results: (1) demographics commonly used in higher education to categorize populations such as institution type or level of teaching experience could not reliably predict use of online digital resources, (2) valuing online digital resources corresponds with only higher levels of use for certain types of digital resources, (3) lack of time was a significant barrier to use of materials while, paradoxically, respondents indicated that they used them because they save time, (4) respondents did not tend to intentionally look to the Internet as a trusted resource for learning about teaching.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Broad-based Knowledge, Richmond, CA, USA

    Flora McMartin

  2. Carleton College, Northfield, MN, USA

    Ellen Iverson & Cathryn Manduca

  3. University of Wisconsin—Madison, Madison, WI, USA

    Alan Wolf

  4. Morrill Solutions, Madison, WI, USA

    Joshua Morrill

  5. George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA

    Glenda Morgan

Authors
  1. Flora McMartin
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  2. Ellen Iverson
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  3. Alan Wolf
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  4. Joshua Morrill
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  5. Glenda Morgan
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  6. Cathryn Manduca
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Correspondence to Flora McMartin.

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McMartin, F., Iverson, E., Wolf, A. et al. The use of online digital resources and educational digital libraries in higher education. Int J Digit Libr 9, 65–79 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00799-008-0036-y

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