Quandary: Scientists Prefer Reading Over Publishing 'Open Access' Papers

"Scientists love open-access papers as readers, but as authors they are still skeptical, according to a new study of available journals and researchers’ attitudes on the topic. The E.U.-sponsored Study of Open Access Publishing (dubbed the SOAP project) surveyed 50,000 researchers for their opinions on open-access journals....The study found overwhelming support for the concept, with 89% of respondents saying that open access is beneficial to their field. But that support didn’t always translate into action: Although 53% of respondents said they had published at least one open-access article....Almost 40% said that a lack of funding for author fees was a deterrent. And 30% cited a lack of high-quality open-access journals in their field....The study also makes it clear that open-access journals are proliferating, especially among small publishers. The study found that one-third of open-access papers were published by the more than 1600 open-access publishers that publish only a single journal....Preliminary results from the study are, of course, freely available online. Mele says the entire data set and the team’s analysis, as well as videos of the symposium, will be available next week via the SOAP project Web site...."