InTech, an Open Access publisher, has finally made available results from a recent survey of over 8,000 of our authors to determine their attitudes towards Open Access.
The benefits of the Open Access (OA) model continue to be debated by publishers and librarians, but relatively little research has been undertaken to understand the attitudes of researchers. It was with this in mind that InTech, an OA publisher with focus on book publishing, commissioned TBI communications to survey its 25,000 author-base to help better understand researcher awareness of and attitudes towards this evolving model.
The survey attracted a very high response rate – 32% (over 8,000) of InTech authors responded, showing a high level of interest and engagement. Responders were drawn from all over the world, and most defined their role as ‘researcher’ (78%) covering a broad range of specialties.
Key findings of the survey include:
- There is overwhelming approval amongst researchers for free access to their work (75% rate it as ‘important’ or ‘very important’), whatever their country of origin
- Authors are generally accepting of the need to cover Article Processing Charges (APC), but are concerned that the charges remain affordable both for them or their institutions
- Authors want to see direct evidence of the positive impact that OA has for them and their work if they are to be persuaded to pay publication charges
- Peers and colleagues are the most important source of recommendations for authors when choosing a publisher, but librarians are also extremely influential
- Researchers are concerned with the quality of OA publications as publishers have little incentive to reject work as they are paid based on volume of output rather than quality
- Peer review remains a highly valued service, and one that authors still expect publishers to provide
- There remains widespread misunderstanding and some mistrust of the OA model and OA publishers
The full results of the survey can be downloaded at:
http://www.intechweb.org/public_files/Intech_OA_Apr11.pdf
By sharing the results of this survey, InTech hopes to dispel some of the myths about what researchers truly value relating to OA and peer review, so that the scholarly communications community can continue to innovate and evolve its business models to suit the needs of the authors that they serve.
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