Open Access Journal Publishing: the Views of Some of the World’s Senior Authors
"Open Access Journal Publishing: The Views of Some of the World’s Senior Authors," published in a recent issue of the Journal of Documentation, details a major survey of the views and experiences of nearly 4,000 senior authors from 97 different countries in regard to Open Access publishing. The results show that views were divided sharply along subject and geographical lines. Authors in biomedicine comprised 28% of respondents.
Some of the results:
Researchers based in Australia (61%) and North America (60%) were more likely to agress that OA will result in less papers being rejected while those based in Africa (39%) and South America (47%) were least likely to agree.
Authors in Africa (91%) and Asia (83%) believe OA will make it easier to access papers, while only 76% of Western Europeans and and 79% of North Americans thought the same.
Respondents from immunology, material science and medicine (42, 41 and 43% respectively) thought that authors would publish more with OA, compared to 27% of computer science respondents and 27% working in environmental sciences.
Those publishing in mathematics (61%), agriculture (59%) and pharmacology (56%) felt that OA will improve services to authors while those in arts and humanities (35%), social sciences (28%) and immunology (34%) were less likely to agree.
34% of respondents knew nothing about OA, 11% have published in an OA journal, 46% knew about OA but have not published in one, 8% do not know about OA. Researchers based in the US (40%), Australia (38%) and Western Europe (31%) were more likely to report knowing "nothing at all" about OA. The article’s authors conclude that there is general ignorance of OA publishing on the part of senior authors. They recommend an educational campaign to bridge the knowledge gap between publishers and authors. Currently, authors are not knowledgeable enough to influence the OA debate.
Those publishing in biochemistry (30%), neuroscience (22%), mathematics (22%) and material science (22%) were more likely to report knowing a lot or quite a lot about OA. In contrast, authors in arts and humanities (59%), social sciences (52%) and economics and business (48%) were most likely to report knowing nothing at all.
Those authors with previous experience with publishing on the web were more likely to have published in OA journals.
Researchers Australia, North America and Western Europe (places with the lowest amount of OA publishing) associated OA with ephemeral publishing, poor archiving and no career advantage. In contrast, locations with a relatively high proportion of authors publishing in OA were more positive and associated OA with high quality and good indexing.
The belief that authors pays for OA publication was again more likely to be held in countries where authors were least likely to publish in OA, especially Australia and North America.
To read the whole article, go to (for U of Iowa affiliates and subscribers only): http://proxy.lib.uiowa.edu/login?url=http://www.emeraldinsight.com/10.1108/00220410510607499
