Apologies for cross posting
Oxford, April, 2013
The Open Access Dichotomy among authors in Taylor & Francis survey
Authors agree that publication should not be limited by the ability to
pay, but all research outputs should be free to read online. In the
fifth in a series of Press Releases on the themes and findings of the
Open Access Survey, Taylor & Francis investigates authors' attitudes and
values relating to the communication of research when publishing in Open
Access Journals.
Respondents were asked about their level of agreement with statements
concerning the communication of their research. Findings from the survey
confirmed agreement that, 'the publication of research should not be
limited by the ability to pay', as affirmed by 86% of authors surveyed.
However, 66% of respondents agree that 'all research outputs should be
free for everyone to read online'. This is evidence of the 'Open Access
Dichotomy' - a tension between aspirations and reality - publication of
research does incur costs (even in OA journals which don't charge
authors to publish within them); so how can this tension be addressed?
77% of respondents agree that publishers are an essential part of the
research communication process and significantly contribute to the
dissemination of research. One respondent notes by contrast that it is
the researcher's output which is the lifeblood of a publisher:
'Publishers are fantastic at disseminating research, but without
researchers, their value is substantially reduced'.
Associate Professor in Business and Economics
Another respondent voices a concern around the curation of knowledge in
a post-subscription world:
'I worry about who will maintain the journals if there is not a
subscription base of income to support the work. PDF will not be the
archival medium for all time so who will pay to convert the existing
knowledge base to any new format? I think we have yet to work out a lot
of the details of an effective archival system for systematic knowledge
storage and recovery.'
Professor in Environmental Science
Taylor & Francis charge article publishing charges (APCs) for those
authors wishing to take the gold OA route to publication, which cover
the costs of OA publication. We do, however, offer waivers for authors
in developing countries and are also an active participant in a number
of development initiatives offering free or reduced price access to
research for those in the developing world. 94.5% of our journals now
comply with the author mandates for those funded by Research Councils UK
and the Wellcome Trust.
Regional and Subject Differences
Biological Sciences, Public Health and Social Care appear consistently
in the top three subjects most committed to the ideals surrounding the
freedom of data, namely that 'all research outputs should be free for
everyone to read online', 'the dissemination of research is a common
good that should not be monetised in any way' and 'there should be no
restrictions on research outputs'. Additional, Biological Science
authors also show the highest level of agreement that 'publication of
research should not be limited by ability pay'.
At a regional level, agreement with the above statements was
consistently highest in either Latin America or Africa.
Business and Economics stands out as the subject with the highest level
of agreement for the statements 'researchers have access to most of the
articles they need' and 'free access to data matters more to me than
free access to research articles'. In the case of free access to data -
the level of agreement in Business and Economics (39%) is 50% higher
than the next most supportive subjects, Politics, International
Relations and Geography (26%).
Worldwide, as many authors agree (37%) as disagree (38%) that they have
access to the articles they need. One could be forgiven for thinking
those at either end of the spectrum were likely to be from very
different regions of the globe. However, examining the level of
agreement for each region reveals a surprising degree of homogeneity.
The subject and regional breakdowns relating to the distribution of
licence preferences can be found here:
www.tandf.co.uk/journals/explore/open-access-survey-supp4.pdf
<http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/explore/open-access-survey-supp4.pdf>
The basic results from the full survey and a copy of the questionnaire
can be found here and is available under a Creative Commons Attribution
licence: www.tandf.co.uk/journals/pdf/open-access-survey-march2013.pdf
<http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/pdf/open-access-survey-march2013.pdf>
Follow us on Twitter for the latest news on the survey @TandFOpen
(#oasurvey).
Visit our newsroom at: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/press-releases
For more information, please contact:
Victoria Wright, Communications Manager, Taylor & Francis Group Journals
email: [log in to unmask]
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About Taylor & Francis Group
Taylor & Francis Group partners with researchers, scholarly societies,
universities and libraries worldwide to bring knowledge to life. As one
of the world's leading publishers of scholarly journals, books, ebooks
and reference works our content spans all areas of Humanities, Social
Sciences, Behavioural Sciences, Science, and Technology and Medicine.
From our network of offices in Oxford, New York, Philadelphia, Boca
Raton, Boston, Melbourne, Singapore, Beijing, Tokyo, Stockholm, New
Delhi and Johannesburg, Taylor & Francis staff provide local expertise
and support to our editors, societies and authors and tailored,
efficient customer service to our library colleagues.
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