The effect of scholarly communication practices on engagement with open access: An Australian study of three disciplines

A doctoral dissertation by Danny Abigail Kingsley (December 2008). From the abstract: "This thesis research takes a holistic view of the researcher as a communicator to uncover the reasons why researchers are making the publishing decisions they are. In-depth interviews were conducted with 43 researchers in three disciplines at two institutions, the Australian National University and the University of New South Wales. The disciplines, Chemistry, Sociology and Computer Science, were known to have different publication practices....The findings show that traditional arguments for open access are ineffective. The Reward function of scholarly publishing is central to managing academic careers and supports traditional publishing systems. While having work openly accessible increases an academic’s exposure and possibly therefore their citation counts, unless alternative internet‐based forms of metrics are adopted, the open access option will not directly appeal to researchers....The disciplines showed marked differences in almost all the areas explored, and the behavioural norms expressed in each discipline have direct bearing on the likelihood of members of that discipline embracing open access...."