Undergraduate and Postgraduate Students’ Needs and Expectations of Digital Scholarship Spaces in a Comprehensive University Library: A Survey

Abstract

The development of digital and mobile technology has led to the emergence of digital scholarship, which is a challenge but also an opportunity for higher education institutions to improve their space and relevant services to support students’ success. The purpose of this study is to explore university students’ needs and expectations on digital scholarship spaces and relevant services in an academic library, as well as the differences in this based on gender, academic identity, and subject being studied. We conducted a survey at Shipai campus of Jinan University in Guangzhou to collect and analyze users’ needs and expectations. Among the digital scholarship service, the demand scores of the top three services are text recognition and full-text processing with 7.00, academic paper writing, submission, publication, and dissemination consulting services with 6.86, and digitization of printed documents with 6.72. Elsewhere, the demand score of the top three spaces are the online digital scholarship space with 6.57, the research project application and exchange space with 6.43, and the text analysis, data analysis, Big Data, and visualization service center with 6.27. With the improvement of academic identity, the demand for digital scholarship services is higher. Gender has led to differences in a small number of space needs, while the differences brought about by the subject being studied are more significant. This research contributes to the understanding of how the digital technology, the students’ spaces needs, and relevant management practice merge in academic libraries for students’ learning and research purposes. These have implications for universities to improve their libraries’ space services oriented to the diverse users’ digital scholarship needs in the current digital learning environment.