Understanding and Improving Incentives for Open Access – Scholarly Communications Lab | ScholCommLab

"It is perhaps unsurprising that faculty seem to be driven by readership and peer exposure to their work when deciding where to publish. But what is perhaps more surprising is the extent to which what our perceptions about what others value can shape those publications decisions, especially in terms of what we perceive is valued in the RPT [review, promotion, and tenure] process. That is, it seems that any shift away from the journal impact factor and the “slavish adherence to marquee journals” (as one paper put it) may be challenged not by faculty’s own values, but by the perception of their peer’s values, which are markedly different from their own.

Put plainly, our work on RPT suggests that faculty are guided by a perception that their peers are more driven by journal prestige, journal metrics (such as the JIF and journal citations), and money than they are, while they themselves value readership and open access of a journal more.

One place where faculty are getting these perceptions seems to be in the RPT documents, where we found that citation metrics, including the journal impact factor, are mentioned a significant number of times, especially at R-Type institutions. But this is not the only source, nor is it necessarily the most important one...."