How is open access publishing going down with early career researchers? An international, multi-disciplinary study

Abstract

This study explores early career researchers’ (ECRs) appreciation and utilisation of open access (OA) publishing. The evidence reported here results from a questionnaire-based international survey with 1600 participants, which forms the second leg and final year of a four year long, mixed methods, longitudinal study that sought to discover whether ECRs will be the harbingers of change when it comes to scholarly communications. Proceeding from the notion that today’s neophyte researchers, believed to hold millennial values of openness to change, transparency and sharing, may be best placed to power the take-up of OA publishing, the study sought to discover: the extent to which ECRs publish OA papers; the main reasons for their doing or not doing so; and what were thought to be the broader advantages and disadvantages of OA publishing. The survey data is presented against a backdrop of the literature-based evidence on the subject, with the interview stage data providing contextualisation and qualitative depth. The findings show that the majority of ECRs published in OA journals and this varied by discipline and country. Most importantly, there were more advantages and fewer disadvantages to OA publishing, which may be indicative of problems to do with cost and availability, rather than reputational factors. Among the many reasons cited for publishing OA the most important one is societal, although OA is seen as especially benefiting ECRs in career progression. Cost is plainly considered the main downside.

Changing the Academic Gender Narrative through Open Access

“…However, awareness and understanding of the process and the benefits of open publishing are not widespread within all academic communities [29][30][31][32]. For example, an international study found that 56% of early career researchers interviewed indicated they published OA, but of the publications listed in the interviewees' Curriculum Vitae, only 8.7% were open [33] (p. 9).…”

Faculty Use of Open-Access Journals: A Case Study of Faculty Publications and Cited References at a California University

“…Additionally, higher-ranking faculty members (e.g., full professor over assistant or associate) were more likely to be anti-OA. A newer study by Nicholas et al in 2020 [22] showed that willingness to publish in OA journals may be increasing among early-career researchers, with over two-thirds reporting publishing in OA. However, the finding was strongly tempered by Nicholas' previous research showing incongruity between survey answers and researchers' actual CVs.…”

“…However, they may share funding sources and research areas with colleagues in STEM, medicine, public health, social work, education, and others. In addition to Dalton et al [2], there are several studies that assess researchers' views and habits on OA in large disciplinary groups, which also found STEM to be more accepting of OA, and arts, humanities, and social sciences exhibiting more concerns [3,4,22]. However, no studies were found that specifically look at psychology researchers or break down disciplines more granularly than as "social sciences".…”

investigadores junior españoles y su implicación en la ciencia abierta

“…contenidos en abierto son las revistas híbridas. Los datos de la encuesta dirigida a los ECRs en 2019 confirman que son los jóvenes científicos de ciencias de la salud los que más difunden sus resultados en acceso abierto (Nicholas et al, 2020c). El estudio reciente de Xu et al (2020) basado en una encuesta a investigadores chinos señala también diferencias entre disciplinas.…”

“…Antes de desgranar los resultados específicos del cuestionario distribuido en español conviene hacer referencia al estudio que analiza los datos totales obtenidos de este cuestionario distribuido a nivel global a los jóvenes investigadores y que pueden seguirse en el trabajo de (Nicholas et al, 2020c). Los resultados muestran que la mayoría de los ECRs han publicado en revistas OA pero que la utilización de estas varía en función de la disciplina y del país.…”