Younger researchers are embracing change in scholarly communication

"Those in the 20-29 year old age group were most likely to agree that open access journals have a larger readership than subscription journals (58% either strongly agreed or agreed with this statement) and that open access journals are more heavily cited. Across all other age groups agreement with these statements decreased with age, with just 15% of those who were 70 or over expressing the same level of agreement on citations. Authors in their sixties and seventies offered the opposite opinion to those in their twenties, being the least likely to agree that open access publication increased readership and citations, and most likely to agree with the statement that there is 'no fundamental benefit to open access'.  ...

And what of their future intentions on publishing gold or green open access? Younger authors are consistently the highest proportion of any age group saying they would choose to publish their work open access, whether gold (37%) or green (51%). When it comes to being mandated to publish open access though, those in their twenties were the most unsure, with 61% unclear on whether they would be mandated to publish gold open access in the future...."