Authors’ Knowledge of Open Access

I recently read a few articles about authors’ knowledge of, and attitudes and behaviour towards open access (see citations below). It was not surprising to read that authors generally support the idea of open access. Though clearly there is still a great lack of knowledge in this area. In many instances authors are still unclear on what open access really means. They report that they read and publish in open access journals but when asked to identify these they can’t, and often instead name non-OA journals. Most authors are also unaware of repositories and self-archiving. Many do not understand what repositories are or what type of materials they hold, and most were unable to name a single repository.

It seems many authors do not have adequate knowledge of open access and repositories. Why is this the case? How are institutions sharing information about OA and repositories with authors and researchers? How effective are these methods? How much publicity are open access and repositories really getting at institutions? How much are they getting at your institution?

Definitely take a look at these articles if you have a chance.

Creaser, C., Fry, J., Greenwood, H. Oppenheim, C., Probets, S., Spezi, V., & White, S. (2010). Authors’ awareness and attitudes toward open access repositories.  New Review of Academic Librarianship, 16(S1), 145-161.

Kim, J. (2010). Faculty self-archiving: Motivations and barriers. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 61(9), 1902-1922. Another similar paper by J. Kim that is OA can be found here.

Morris, S. & Thorn, S. (2009). Learned society members and open access. Learned Publishing 22(3), 21-239

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