Research show growing awareness and uptake of Open Access publishing by authors

“InTech, an Open Access publisher, has published the results of a survey appraising attitudes and awareness of the research community towards the Open Access (OA) business model in scholarly publishing. The InTech white paper: ‘Open Access: Awareness and Attitudes amongst the Author Community’, is based on a review of current research and a survey sent to 20,000 STM researchers worldwide. The survey attracted an overall response rate of 1.3%, with 275 participants taking part and 253 (92%) completing it. The majority of respondents were researchers (75%) based at a university (70%). The data was sourced from an independent provider of contact data for the research community (Mardev). Key findings: [1] High levels of awareness of Open Access [2] OA publishing experience is lower but still strong [4] Awareness and experience of OA publishing varies by subject [5] Over 25% of researchers are aware of Open Access publishers such as PLoS, InTech, BioMedCentral and Hindawi [6] For Open Access journal publications, it is the image and reputation of the journal itself that is the most important factor for authors when considering where to submit their work; but for Books it is the it is the image and reputation of the publisher [7] The survey highlighted that authors want more support from publishers in getting their work noticed...”