In Canada, We Like OA But We Don’t Like Its Cost

abernard102@gmail.com 2014-04-10

Summary:

"Canadian researchers are in favor of the principle of open access, but they’re not really on board with it in practice. That’s the key takeaway from a recent report commissioned for Canadian Science Publishing, the non-profit publisher of a suite of physical science and engineering journals. The survey, conducted by Phase5 Research in February, gathered response from 540 researchers—mostly from education and government—across Canada. (Academics from the social sciences and humanities were not questioned.) Those surveyed were pretty adamant that they liked the idea of open access: Researchers agree with the fundamental principle guiding the open access movement – that published research should be freely available to everyone. When asked a series of attitudinal questions about publishing in open access format, 83% of researchers either agreed or strongly agreed with this statement. Seventy-three percent also agreed that the scientific community benefits from open access. However, when the reality of open access butts in, most specifically that authors pay to have their work published, the ardor cools ... A majority of of the Canadian study’s respondents have not published in open access, and the 'article processing charge' was the leading—but not the only major—reason for opting out. Some 38 percent cited economic reasons for avoiding open access, followed by not having an OA option in the journals of choice (33 percent) and a preference for the traditional style of academic publishing (30 percent). From that last category, respondents reported that they perceived non-OA journals as more reputable or of a higher quality (53 percent), were more familiar and a comfortable fit (17 percent) or had a better peer review process (9 percent).  A third of these non-OA researchers said they would not pay to be published, period. That meant even if their institution or an agency like the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) or the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council footed the bill. Not that everyone understands that this tri-agency, as the three funders are called, might in fact foot the bill for OA—just under two thirds of those not being funded by tri-agency didn’t know if they might pay, and even a substantial minority of those who are getting tri-agency funding didn’t know.  But ignorance doesn’t mean the researchers don’t have opinions – those getting agency funding on the whole did not feel that Canadian funders supported OA publishing. This was particularly noticeable for those getting NSERC money: 'Only 16% of this group agreed with the statement that Canadian granting agencies support publishing in open access journals, compared to 28% of those with non-agency or no funding." Who does pay to go OA? For public sector researchers 72 percent of the time it’s their employer; for academic researchers half the time it’s a tri-agency and 28 percent it’s their institution. Still, 18 percent of academics who have published open access say they have spent their own money in the process ..."

Link:

http://www.socialsciencespace.com/2014/04/in-canada-we-like-oa-but-we-dont-like-its-cost/

From feeds:

Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » abernard102@gmail.com

Tags:

oa.new oa.comment oa.canada oa.surveys oa.attitudes oa.fees oa.prices oa.gold oa.phase5_research oa.government oa.funders oa.nserc oa.sshrc oa.cihr oa.publishers oa.business_models oa.quality oa.prestige oa.impact oa.journals

Date tagged:

04/10/2014, 07:35

Date published:

04/10/2014, 03:35