Cogprints

Open access self-archiving: An author study

Swan, Alma and Brown, Sheridan (2005) Open access self-archiving: An author study. [Departmental Technical Report]

Full text available as:

[img]
Preview
PDF
626Kb

Abstract

This, our second author international, cross-disciplinary study on open access had 1296 respondents. Its focus was on self-archiving. Almost half (49%) of the respondent population have self-archived at least one article during the last three years. Use of institutional repositories for this purpose has doubled and usage has increased by almost 60% for subject-based repositories. Self-archiving activity is greatest amongst those who publish the largest number of papers. There is still a substantial proportion of authors unaware of the possibility of providing open access to their work by self-archiving. Of the authors who have not yet self-archived any articles, 71% remain unaware of the option. With 49% of the author population having self-archived in some way, this means that 36% of the total author population (71% of the remaining 51%), has not yet been appraised of this way of providing open access. Authors have frequently expressed reluctance to self-archive because of the perceived time required and possible technical difficulties in carrying out this activity, yet findings here show that only 20% of authors found some degree of difficulty with the first act of depositing an article in a repository, and that this dropped to 9% for subsequent deposits. Another author worry is about infringing agreed copyright agreements with publishers, yet only 10% of authors currently know of the SHERPA/RoMEO list of publisher permissions policies with respect to self-archiving, where clear guidance as to what a publisher permits is provided. Where it is not known if permission is required, however, authors are not seeking it and are self-archiving without it. Communicating their results to peers remains the primary reason for scholars publishing their work; in other words, researchers publish to have an impact on their field. The vast majority of authors (81%) would willingly comply with a mandate from their employer or research funder to deposit copies of their articles in an institutional or subject-based repository. A further 13% would comply reluctantly; 5% would not comply with such a mandate.

Item Type:Departmental Technical Report
Keywords:open access, self-archiving, research impact, institutional repositories, citation, publication, journals
Subjects:Electronic Publishing > Archives
ID Code:4385
Deposited By: Harnad, Stevan
Deposited On:06 Jun 2005
Last Modified:11 Mar 2011 08:56

References in Article

Select the SEEK icon to attempt to find the referenced article. If it does not appear to be in cogprints you will be forwarded to the paracite service. Poorly formated references will probably not work.

Swan, Alma and Brown, Sheridan (2004) Report of the JISC/OSI open accessournal authors survey. pp 1-76. http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/JISCOAreport1.pdf

Swan, Alma and Brown, Sheridan (2004) Authors and open access publishing. Learned Publishing, 17 (3), 219-224

http://lysander.ingentaselect.comvl=15729124/cl=20/nw=1/rpsv/cgibin/linker?ini=alpsp&reqidx=/cw/alpsp/09531513/v17n3/s7/p219

http://www.citeseer.ist.psu.edu

http://www.arxiv.org

Harnad, Stevan (1995) A Subversive Proposal. In: Ann Okerson & James O'Donnell (Eds.) Scholarly Journals at the Crossroads; A Subversive Proposal for Electronic Publishing. Washington, DC., Association of Research Libraries, June 1995. http://www.arl.org/scomm/subversive/toc.html

Harnad, S (1999) Free at last: the future of peer-reviewed journals. D-Lib Magazine, 5, 12. http://www.dlib.org/dlib/december99/12harnad.html

Self archiving FAQ. http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/

American Scientist Open Access Forum.

http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/index.html

SHERPA: Publisher copyright policies and self-archiving.

http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo.php

Eprints.org: Journal self-archiving policies. http://romeo.eprints.org/stats.php

Swan A, Needham P, Probets P, Muir A, O’Brien A, Oppenheim C, Hardy R and Rowland F (2004). Delivery, management and access model for E-prints and open access journals within further and higher education (Report of a JISC study). pp 1-121.

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/ACF1E88.pdf

Alma Swan, Paul Needham, Steve Probets, Adrienne Muir, Anne O’Brien, Charles Oppenheim, Rachel Hardy, Fytton Rowland and Sheridan Brown (2005). Developing a model for e-prints and open access journal content for UK higher and further education. Learned Publishing, 18 (1), 25-40.

http://www.keyperspectives.co.uk/OpenAccessArchive/Eprints_LP_paper.pdf

Lawrence, S (2001) Online or invisible? Nature 411, 6837, p521

http://www.neci.nec.com/~lawrence/papers/online-nature01/ or

http://www.nature.com/nature/debates/e-access/Articles/lawrence.html

Kurtz, M (2004) Restrictive access policies cut readership of electronic research journal articles by a factor of two.

http://opcit.eprints.org/feb19oa/kurtz.pdf

Harnad, S and Brody, T (2004) Comparing the impact of open access (OA) vs. non-OA articles in the same journals. D-Lib Magazine, 10 (6),

http://www.dlib.org/dlib/june04/harnad/06harnad.html

Antelman, K (2005) Do open-access articles have a greater research impact? College & Research Libraries, 65 (1), 372-282.

Swan, A and Brown, S (2002) Authors and Electronic Publishing: The ALPSP research study on authors' and readers' views of electronic research communication. pp 1-76. ALPSP, Worthing.

Swan, A and Brown, S (2003) Authors and electronic publishing: what authors want from the new technology. Learned Publishing, 16 (1), 28-33.

http://lysander.ingentaselect.com/vl=15729124/cl=20/nw=1/fm=docpdf/rpsv

/cw/alpsp/09531513/v16n1/s6/p28

http://www.cogprints.soton.ac.uk

http:// www.repec.org

Wellcome Trust and National Library of Medicine in talks for worldwide open access archive (press release).

http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/doc_WTX022826.html

Rowlands, Ian, Nicholas, Dave and Huntingdon, Paul (2004). Scholarly communication in the digital environment: What do authors want? Findings of an international survey of author opinion: project report. Centre for Information Behaviour and the Evaluation of Research, City University, London, UK.

Publisher copyright policies and self-archiving.

http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo.php

UK House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee: Tenth Report. Scientific publications: Free for all?

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech399/39902.htm

US Government House Appropriations Bill HR 5006 recommendations:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgibin/cpquery&db_id=cp108&r_n=hr636.108&sel=TOC_338641&

Carr, L and Harnad, S (2005) Keystroke Economy: A Study of the Time and Effort Involved in Self-Archiving. http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/10688/

Pinfield, S (2005). A mandate to self archive? The role of open access institutional repositories. Serials, 18 (1), 30-34.

Pinfield, S (2004) Self-archiving publications. In: Gorman, G E and Rowland, F (eds). International yearbook of Library and Information Management 2004-2005: Scholarly publishing in an electronic era. London: Facet. Pp118-145.

http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/archive/00000142/

Registry of Institutional Self Archiving Policies.

http://www.eprints.org/signup/fulllist.php

Perneger, T V (2004) Relation between online ‘hit counts’ and subsequent citations: prospective study of research papers in the BMJ. BMJ 329, 546-7.

Brody, T and Harnad S (2005) Early web usage statistics as predictors of later citation impact. In press (Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology)

http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/10712/

Metadata

Repository Staff Only: item control page