Oya Y. Rieger, arXiv Program Director, Cornell University Library, June 2016
Acknowledgements: Many individuals were involved in designing and testing the survey and helped out with the data analysis. Special thanks go to Deborah Cooper, Andrea Cruz, Jim Entwood, Martin Lessmeister, Leah McEwen, Chloe McLaren, Chris Myers, Vandana Shah, Gail Steinhart, Simeon Warner, and Jake Weiskoff. Also, we are grateful for the guidance from the arXiv’s Member Advisory Board and Scientific Advisory Board.
Q1 - I use arXiv in the following ways: (Please choose all that apply)
Answer | % | Count |
I am an arXiv reader | 93% | 31862 |
I am an arXiv author | 53% | 18270 |
I am an arXiv submitter | 50% | 17189 |
I am an arXiv (other type of user): Please describe | 2% | 845 |
Q2 - The number of articles I have published/submitted on arXiv is:
Answer | % | Count |
1 article | 11.99% | 2570 |
2 articles | 8.96% | 1920 |
3 - 4 articles | 15.19% | 3254 |
5-10 articles | 23.06% | 4941 |
More than 10 articles | 40.80% | 8743 |
Total | 100% | 21428 |
Q3 - My current occupation is: (Please choose ALL that apply)
Answer | % | Count |
I am an academic faculty member (professor) at a college or university | 27% | 8868 |
I am an academic staff member (researcher or postdoc) at a college or university | 22% | 7207 |
I am a researcher at a non-profit or governmental agency | 8% | 2707 |
I am a Masters/Ph.D. student | 30% | 9890 |
I am an undergraduate student | 5% | 1514 |
I am (please describe) | 13% | 4353 |
Q4 - As a user, my main subject area of interest in arXiv is: (please choose all that apply)
Q46 - Would you like to see additional subject categories added to arXiv?
Answer | % | Count |
No | 73.76% | 22537 |
Yes | 26.24% | 8019 |
Total | 100% | 30556 |
Q5 - I have been using arXiv for:
Answer | % | Count |
0 - 2 years | 19.54% | 6470 |
3 - 5 years | 28.96% | 9592 |
6- 10 years | 25.44% | 8425 |
11 or more years | 26.06% | 8632 |
Total | 100% | 33119 |
Q50 - My age is:
Answer | % | Count |
younger than 30 years | 37.42% | 12364 |
30 - 39 years | 31.27% | 10332 |
40 - 49 years | 13.76% | 4545 |
50 - 59 years | 9.30% | 3073 |
60 - 69 years | 5.77% | 1908 |
70 years and over | 2.47% | 817 |
Total | 100% | 33039 |
NOTE: 68.96% of the respondents are younger than 30 years
Q6 - My main place of work is located in:
Total 31,255 responses
Other Countries: 1% or less representation each from 113 countries
Q54 - How important is it to improve on the following CURRENT arXiv services?
Question | Very important | Somewhat important | Not important & should not be doing this | No |
Improve search functions to allow more refined results (e.g., narrow down results by additional search terms, filter by publication year or institutional affiliation, etc.): | 70.38% | 19.34% | 6.14% | 4.13% |
Improve support for submitting research data, code, slides, and other materials associated with a paper (e.g., I want to be able to upload my datasets/machine- readable tables with my article): | 41.95% | 22.64% | 14.03% | 21.37% |
Improve support for linking research data, code, slides, and other materials associated with a paper (e.g., I want to be able to link to my slides on SlideShare): | 40.65% | 25.20% | 17.70% | 16.45% |
Improve support for submitting research papers by updating the TeX engine: | 39.36% | 23.17% | 16.71% | 20.76% |
Improve the email alert system so that readers can customize their settings and choose to receive alerts about specific sub-topics: | 37.85% | 26.48% | 20.25% | 15.42% |
Improve the trackback mechanism (linking papers back to blogs and commentaries that cite thos papers): | 36.52% | 29.50% | 20.30% | 13.67% |
Simplify the submission process by providing clearer instructions and simpler language: | 32.45% | 22.55% | 25.20% | 19.80% |
Number of responses: 26,420
Q67 - How important is it to develop the following NEW arXiv services? -
Question | Very important | Somewhat important | Not important & should not be doing this | No opinion |
Add direct links to papers in the references (support reference extraction): | 63.04% | 26.89% | 5.78% | 4.29% |
Offer citation export in formats such as BibTeX, RIS, etc.: | 57.68% | 23% | 10.95% | 8.37% |
Enable extraction for the BibTeX entry for the arXiv citation: | 55.54% | 23.82% | 9.72% | 10.91% |
Provide Citation Analysis tools (examining the frequency and pattern of a paper's citation): | 52.95% | 27.08% | 14.28% | 5.69% |
Support compliance with public/open access mandates (funding agency policies that require research results to be made public) by allowing final versions of papers to be submitted with information such as funding sources and grant numbers: | 42.06% | 26.21% | 13.68% | 18.05% |
Enable submitting an article to a journal at the same time as it is uploaded to arXiv: | 39.28% | 23.09% | 25.23% | 12.40% |
Offer a rating system so readers can recommend arXiv papers that they find valuable: | 36.28% | 21.76% | 35.56% | 6.40% |
Enable linkages (interoperability) with other repositories (e.g., run by libraries), so that a paper accepted by arXiv is accepted at the same time by the other repositories: | 35.25% | 28.14% | 17.25% | 19.36% |
Develop an annotation feature which will allow readers to comment on papers: | 34.89% | 23.62% | 34.08% | 7.41% |
Number of responses: 26,890
Q21 - Where do you go to find arXiv papers? Please choose all that apply:
Answer | % | Count |
Go directly to arXiv.org (arXiv homepage) | 79% | 22804 |
ADS | 14% | 4144 |
Inspire | 13% | 3773 |
Google Scholar | 35% | 10016 |
Google search engine | 50% | 14440 |
arXiv email alerts | 14% | 4086 |
Other search engines | 5% | 1402 |
Subject gateways for arXiv, such as the Math Front | 4% | 1203 |
Other (please specify): | 9% | 2662 |
Q22 - If you have used the arXiv homepage for finding papers, how easy is it to navigate?
Answer | % | Count |
Very easy | 14.85% | 3916 |
Easy | 32.05% | 8450 |
Somewhat easy | 25.20% | 6644 |
Somewhat difficult | 21.60% | 5696 |
Difficult | 5.02% | 1324 |
Very difficult | 1.27% | 336 |
Total | 100% | 26366 |
Q23 - If you have used the arXiv homepage, how do you usually navigate our main page? Please choose all that apply.
Answer | % | Count |
Go to link "new" or "recent" under a particular category | 63% | 16503 |
Use arXiv search engine and enter a specific arXiv-id, author name, or search term | 63% | 16478 |
Receive daily mailing list, and then look for a particular article on the search field | 14% | 3692 |
Other, please explain: | 3% | 853 |