Category Archives: oa.attitudes

Frankl | Towards an Author-Centered Open Access Monograph Program: Understanding Open Access Cultures in Scholarly Publishing | The Journal of Electronic Publishing

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Abstract:  Author attitudes towards Open Access (OA) remains an important area of investigation in academic publishing. The successful implementation of new OA infrastructure and business models depend on their reception within scholarly communities. This paper proposes “Open Access Culture” — the set of beliefs, practices, and attitudes towards OA publishing shared by members of an academic field — as a framework to understand how OA innovations are and will be received by different scholarly communities. The investigation of OA culture helps identify the needs of individual academic fields (e.g., the importance of print publishing for a particular field), thus foregrounding author preferences in the publishing process. The University of Michigan Press (UMP) is drawing upon the OA Culture framework to aid the implementation of its OA monograph initiative. UMP has undertaken research (author survey as well as editor, author, and librarian interviews) to understand how the monograph initiative will integrate different fields. This paper presents results of this research demonstrating the application of the OA Culture framework to several fields, as well the Humanities, Arts, and Humanistic Social Sciences (HSS) more broadly. This is one way that University Presses may take an author-centered approach to OA publishing programs, one that foregrounds the needs of individual authors and considers their unique disciplinary context. Moreover, the paper offers a recent view of sentiments towards OA in the HSS and thus helps to contextualize the current OA landscape. 

 

Predicting psychologists’ approach to academic reciprocity and data sharing with a theory of collective action | Emerald Insight

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“This study found that data sharing among psychologists is driven primarily by their perceptions of community benefits, academic reciprocity and the norms of data sharing. This study also found that academic reciprocity is significantly influenced by psychologists’ perceptions of community benefits, academic reputation and the norms of data sharing. Both academic reputation and academic reciprocity are affected by psychologists’ prior experiences with data reuse. Additionally, psychologists’ perceptions of community benefits and the norms of data sharing are significantly affected by the perception of their academic reputation.”

To Preprint or Not to Preprint: Experience and Attitudes of Researchers Worldwide

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Abstract:  The pandemic has underlined the significance of open science and spurred further growth of preprinting. Nevertheless, preprinting has been adopted at varying rates across different countries/regions. To investigate researchers’ experience with and attitudes toward preprinting, we conducted a survey of authors of research papers published in 2021 or 2022. We find that respondents in the US and Europe had a higher level of familiarity with and adoption of preprinting than those in China and the rest of the world. Respondents in China were most worried about the lack of recognition for preprinting and the risk of getting scooped. US respondents were very concerned about premature media coverage of preprints, the reliability and credibility of preprints, and public sharing of information before peer review. Respondents identified integration of preprinting in journal submission processes as the most important way to promote preprinting.

 

Report from Equity in Open Access workshop #2: Why do professors pick paywalls? – OASPA

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“Following workshop #1, OASPA’s second ‘Equity in OA’ workshop was held on 28 March 2023. The report from workshop #2 was published last week by Alicia Wise and Lorraine Estelle of Information Power. 

Researchers’ preferences for publishing behind paywalls was a recurring topic in workshop conversations, and our reflections on ‘Equity in OA’ workshop #2 are linked to the assertion that professors do pick paywalls – at least sometimes. But do they really want to? Drawing on discussions in workshop #2 and other sources, here are some thoughts on why this might be and what can be done about it….”

OASPA Equity in OA Workshop 2 Report | Zenodo

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“The second OASPA workshop in the Equity in Open Access series took place on 28 March 2023, with publishers, librarians, funders, and other stakeholders. Participants came from a wide range of countries: Austria, Bangladesh, Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, Kenya, Mozambique, Netherlands, Panamá, Portugal, South Africa, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom, and the United States.

Participants built on the first workshop in which participants discussed why equity is important, current challenges to global equity, examples of good practice, and priorities for increasing equity in OA.

In the second workshop we explored ways to increase equity in two categories of OA models: those where transactions are per-article or where prices are based on article volume, and those where there are no author fees and prices are de-coupled from article numbers. We also explored ways to reassure researchers around the world that OA publishing is as credible as other forms of publishing.”

Attitudes Toward Providing Open Access for Use of Biospecimens and Health Records: A Cross-Sectional Study from Jordan

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Abstract:  Purpose: Biospecimen repositories and big data generated from clinical research are critically important in advancing patient-centered healthcare. However, ethical considerations arising from reusing clinical samples and health records for subsequent research pose a hurdle for big-data health research. This study aims to assess the public’s opinions in Jordan toward providing blanket consent for using biospecimens and health records in research.

Participants and Methods: A cross-sectional study utilizing a self-reported questionnaire was carried out in different cities in Jordan, targeting adult participants. Outcome variables included awareness of clinical research, participation in clinical research, and opinions toward providing open access to clinical samples and records for research purposes. Descriptive analysis was utilized for reporting the outcome as frequency (percentages) out of the total responses. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression were used to investigate the association between independent variables and the outcome of interest.

Results: A total of 1033 eligible participants completed the questionnaire. Although the majority (90%) were aware of clinical research, only 24% have ever participated in this type of research. About half (51%) agreed on providing blanket consent for the use of clinical samples, while a lower percentage (43%) agreed on providing open access to their health records. Privacy concerns and lack of trust in the researcher were cited as major barriers to providing blanket consent. Participation in clinical research and having health insurance were predictors for providing open access to clinical samples and records.

Conclusion: The lack of public trust in Jordan toward data privacy is evident from this study. Therefore, a governance framework is needed to raise and maintain the public’s trust in big-data research that warrants the future reuse of clinical samples and records. As such, the current study provides valuable insights that will inform the design of effective consent protocols required in data-intensive health research.

Registered report: Survey on attitudes and experiences regarding preregistration in psychological research | PLOS ONE

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Abstract:  Background

Preregistration, the open science practice of specifying and registering details of a planned study prior to knowing the data, increases the transparency and reproducibility of research. Large-scale replication attempts for psychological results yielded shockingly low success rates and contributed to an increasing demand for open science practices among psychologists. However, preregistering one’s studies is still not the norm in the field. Here, we conducted a study to explore possible reasons for this discrepancy.

Methods

In a mixed-methods approach, we conducted an online survey assessing attitudes, motivations, and perceived obstacles with respect to preregistration. Respondents (N = 289) were psychological researchers that were recruited through their publications on Web of Science, PubMed, PSYNDEX, and PsycInfo, and preregistrations on OSF Registries. Based on the theory of planned behavior, we predicted that positive attitudes (moderated by the perceived importance of preregistration) as well as a favorable subjective norm and higher perceived behavioral control positively influence researchers’ intention to preregister (directional hypothesis 1). Furthermore, we expected an influence of research experience on attitudes and perceived motivations and obstacles regarding preregistration (non-directional hypothesis 2). We analyzed these hypotheses with multiple regression models and included preregistration experience as a control variable.

Results

Researchers’ attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, and the perceived importance of preregistration significantly predicted researchers’ intention to use preregistration in the future (see hypothesis 1). Research experience influenced both researchers’ attitudes and their perception of motivations to preregister, but not the perception of obstacles (see hypothesis 2). Descriptive reports on researchers’ attitudes, motivations and obstacles regarding preregistration are provided.

Discussion

Many researchers had already preregistered and had a rather positive attitude toward preregistration. Nevertheless, several obstacles were identified that may be addressed to improve and foster preregistration.

Guest Post – Open Access for Monographs is Here. But Are we Ready for It? – The Scholarly Kitchen

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“At the University of North Carolina Press, we recently completed a four-year initiative to support the publication of open access (OA) monographs by university presses in the discipline of history. Through the Sustainable History Monograph Pilot (SHMP)—generously funded by the Mellon Foundation — we published fifty-nine titles with nineteen different presses. SHMP was unique among OA initiatives in that it did more than simply provide offset funding. It required an intervention in publication workflows where university presses and their authors had to submit to a standardized process with templated outputs that aligned with the requirements of digital platforms. The pilot recorded successes and challenges indicative of ongoing and future needs, some of them general to all OA publishing and some specific to OA monograph publishing.

There were several areas of encouraging news. The titles we published are being accessed and used exponentially more than digital editions that are behind paywalls. And standardization significantly reduced the costs required to create a high-quality university press monograph. But there were also discouraging results. Authors and presses remain deeply cautious about OA as a legitimate, sustainable mode of publishing. They are even more skeptical about the trade-offs associated with standardization. And we learned that there are serious gaps in the infrastructure needed to disseminate open scholarship efficiently and measure its impact….”

Researchers support preprints and open access publishing, but with reservations: A questionnaire survey of MBSJ members – Ide – Genes to Cells – Wiley Online Library

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Abstract:  Since the 1990s, journals have become increasingly online and open access. In fact, about 50% of articles published in 2021 were open access. The use of preprints (i.e., non-peer-reviewed articles) has also increased. However, there is limited awareness of these concepts among academics. Therefore, we conducted a questionnaire-based survey among members of the Molecular Biology Society of Japan. The survey was conducted between September 2022 and October 2022, with 633 respondents, 500 of whom (79.0%) were faculty members. In total, 478 (76.6%) respondents had published articles as open access, and 571 (91.5%) wanted to publish their articles in open access. Although 540 (86.5%) respondents knew about preprints, only 183 (33.9%) had posted preprints before. In the open-ended section of the questionnaire survey, several comments were made about the cost burdens associated with open access and the difficulty of how academic preprints are handled. Although open access is widespread, and recognition of preprints is increasing, some issues remain that need to be addressed. Academic and institutional support, and transformative agreement may help reduce the cost burden. Guidelines for handling preprints in academia are also important for responding to changes in the research environment.

 

SocArXiv Papers | Librarians and Academic Libraries’ Role in Promoting Open Access: What Needs to Change?

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Abstract:  Profound changes due to Open-Access (OA) publications lead to organizational changes in universities and libraries. This study examined Israeli librarians’ perceptions regarding their role and the academic library’s role in promoting OA-publication, including the barriers, challenges, needs and requirements necessary to promote OA publishing. Lack of a budget for OA-agreements and cooperation with university management, and researchers’ unawareness of OA were among the most prominent barriers. Librarians see great importance in their role of advising researchers regarding OA. However, they insisted on a regulated OA-policy at the national and institutional levels, which would strengthen their status as change-leaders of the OA-movement.

Outside the library: Early career researchers and use of alternative information sources in pandemic times – Herman – Learned Publishing – Wiley Online Library

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Abstract:  Presents findings from a study into the attitudes and practices of pandemic-era early career researchers (ECRs) in regard to obtaining access to the formally published scholarly literature, which focused on alternative providers, notably ResearchGate and Sci-Hub. The study is a part of the Harbingers project that has been exploring the work lives and scholarly communication practices of ECRs in pre-pandemic times and during the pandemic, and utilizes data from two rounds of interviews with around 170 ECRs from the sciences and social sciences in eight countries. Findings show that alternative providers, as represented by ResearchGate and Sci-Hub, have become established and appear to be gaining ground. However, there are considerable country- and discipline-associated differences. ECRs’ country-specific level of usage of the alternative providers is partly traceable to the adequacy of library provisions, although there are other factors at play in shaping ECRs’ attitudes and practices, most notably convenience and time saving, as well as the fact that these platforms have become embedded in the scholarly dashboard. There is a dearth of evidence of the impact of the pandemic on ECRs’ ways of obtaining scholarly papers.

 

Perceptions regarding open science appraised by editors of scholarly publications published in Spain – Melero – Learned Publishing – Wiley Online Library

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Abstract:  Pillars of open science are often included within the editorial policies of scholarly journals, including policies on open access publication, availability of underlying research data, preprints and open peer review. The aim of this paper is to examine and analyse perceptions and editorial practices related to open access, preprints, open research data and open peer review, from the perspective of editors of scientific journals published in Spain, to gain an insight into editorial policies related to open science. Results and data were obtained by a combined method of online interviews and an online questionnaire. The online survey was sent to editors from journals indexed in the Dulcinea directory, which at the time of the study included 1875 academic journals. A total of 420 responses (22.4%) were obtained. The results indicated that 92% of the journals were open access journals, 2% of the journals conducted open peer review, 15% of the journals had instructions to allow archiving preprints, and out of 375 responses, only 59 journals (16%) reported having a policy on underlying research data. Based on these results, there is a trend in favour of open access, but the perceived barriers to open peer review outweighed the advantages. There is also some reluctance to allow preprints to be made available. This concern might be because editors want authors and readers to read and cite the contents published in their journals, rather than their preprint versions.

 

Perceptions regarding open science appraised by editors of scholarly publications published in Spain – Melero – Learned Publishing – Wiley Online Library

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Abstract:  Pillars of open science are often included within the editorial policies of scholarly journals, including policies on open access publication, availability of underlying research data, preprints and open peer review. The aim of this paper is to examine and analyse perceptions and editorial practices related to open access, preprints, open research data and open peer review, from the perspective of editors of scientific journals published in Spain, to gain an insight into editorial policies related to open science. Results and data were obtained by a combined method of online interviews and an online questionnaire. The online survey was sent to editors from journals indexed in the Dulcinea directory, which at the time of the study included 1875 academic journals. A total of 420 responses (22.4%) were obtained. The results indicated that 92% of the journals were open access journals, 2% of the journals conducted open peer review, 15% of the journals had instructions to allow archiving preprints, and out of 375 responses, only 59 journals (16%) reported having a policy on underlying research data. Based on these results, there is a trend in favour of open access, but the perceived barriers to open peer review outweighed the advantages. There is also some reluctance to allow preprints to be made available. This concern might be because editors want authors and readers to read and cite the contents published in their journals, rather than their preprint versions.

 

Turner | Faculty Awareness and Use of an Institutional Repository at a Master’s Granting University | Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication

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Abstract:  Introduction: Assessment plays a significant role in managing a successful institutional repository (IR). This study combined the results of a faculty survey that measured faculty awareness of and participation in the IR of a single, state masters-granting institution with information regarding content type and downloads to draw conclusions regarding the composition and usage of the IR at this institution. Method: A survey was sent to 856 faculty members at Fort Hays State University (FHSU) that asked questions regarding awareness of the IR and participation in the IR demonstrated through deposit and access of materials. Statistics regarding content type and full-text downloads were collected from the repository platform. Collected data were compared with previous studies at other similar institutions to determine similitude or difference between this IR and other IRs at masters and baccalaureate institutions. Results & Discussion: Faculty awareness of and participation in the IR at FHSU is higher than that of other institutions, as shown in previous surveys, even though overall faculty participation remains low. The content of the IR is largely consistent with other similar institutions. Conclusion: The faculty survey combined with information regarding repository usage demonstrates that the FHSU Scholars Repository serves a different purpose for both faculty and users than designers envisioned. Efforts to force the IR to resemble that of a research institution may be misplaced. Further research on the content makeup of IRs at masters and baccalaureate institutions is needed to establish commonalities among smaller institutions.

 

Guest Post – Are We Providing What Researchers Need in the Transition to Open Science? – The Scholarly Kitchen

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“Why — despite live examples of seeing the impact of open research practices and the indication from researchers and the academic community that they want open research practices to be the norm — is there such a disparity between awareness, behavior, and action? How can we close this gap so that behaviors align with aspirations around open science?

Putting all these studies together, the reasons presented for the gap are mixed but include concerns around data misuse; lack of credit for sharing data; and the need for better support in how to make data and research sustainably open. Mandates, particularly funder mandates for this particular sample group, seem to have a limited role in driving authors to practice open research (although that may well change with new mandates for data sharing coming into effect from very large funding bodies such as federal agencies in the US). Comparatively, institutional encouragement had relatively good success. Where applicable, journal requirements to share materials, code, or data, or journal encouragement to facilitate preprint deposition, drove the same or greater degree of success as institutional encouragement….

One conclusion that becomes apparent is that more can be done by publishers and their partners to directly help and facilitate the adoption of open research practices. Encouraging or mandating sharing of objects as part of the manuscript publication process is an effective and efficient way of ensuring that open science practices are followed. Journals have been successful in the past in enforcing data-sharing mandates around the release of protein and nucleic acid sequences, for example, so we know that the right policies and initiatives can bring positive change….”