Computer mediated communication and publication productivity among faculty

Investigates whether faculty who use computer mediated communication (CMC) achieve 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. Also investigates whether faculty who use CMC at less research‐oriented institutions realize disproportional benefit from their use of CMC. Data were collected in Fall 1994. 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, faculty judged CMC to be of some utility to their productivity. Nevertheless, there did not appear to be a “democratizing effect” which would yield disproportionate benefit to those from less research‐oriented institutions.