Abstract
Purpose This paper aims to present empirical evidence on the opinion and behaviour of French scientists (senior management level) regarding open access (OA) to scientific and technical information. Design/methodology/approach The results are part of a nationwide survey on scientific information and documentation with 432 directors of French public research laboratories conducted by the French National Research Center (CNRS) in 2014. Findings The CNRS senior research managers (laboratory directors) globally share the positive opinion towards OA revealed by other studies with researchers from the UK, Germany, the USA and other countries. However, they are more supportive of open repositories (green road) than of OA journal publishing (gold). The response patterns reveal a gap between generally positive opinions about OA and less supportive behaviours, principally publishing articles with article processing charges (APCs). A small group of senior research managers does not seem to be interested in green or gold OA and reluctant to self-archiving and OA publishing. Similar to other studies, the French survey confirms disciplinary differences, i.e. a stronger support for self-archiving of records and documents in HAL by scientists from Mathematics, Physics and Informatics than from Biology, Earth Sciences and Chemistry; and more experience and positive feelings with OA publishing and payment of APCs in Biology than in Mathematics or in Social Sciences and Humanities. Disciplinary differences and specific French factors are discussed, in particular in the context of the new European policy in favour of Open Science. Originality/value For the first time, a nationwide survey was conducted with the senior research management level from all scientific disciplines. The response rate was high (>30 per cent), and the results provide good insight into the real awareness, support and uptake of OA by senior research managers who provide both models (examples for good practice) and opinion leadership.
Highlights
“Winds of change are blowing throughout scholarly communications – it has culminated in a so-called ‘perfect storm’ arises from the confluence of several largely unrelated trends” (Brown 2016, p.22)
The EU Competitiveness Council has confirmed the strategy of the Amsterdam Call for Action at its meeting on May 27th 2016, and adopted conclusions on the transition towards an Open Science system13
The outcome document of the Council Meeting highlights that the “Member states agreed to common goals on Open Science and to pursue concerted actions together with the Commission and stakeholders” and that they “committed to open access to scientific publications as the option by default by 2020 and to the best possible re-use of research data as a way to accelerate the transition towards an Open Science system”
Summary
“Winds of change are blowing throughout scholarly communications – it has culminated in a so-called ‘perfect storm’ (which) arises from the confluence of several largely unrelated trends” (Brown 2016, p.22). More than ten years ago, in an international study with 1,296 authors, 49% of the respondent population had self-archived at least one article during the last three years but a substantial proportion of authors was still unaware of the possibility of providing open access to their work by self-archiving (Swan & Brown 2005) These results were corroborated by a 2008 survey with UK researchers that revealed some “suspicion of open access publications” and ignorance about open access and the role of institutional repositories, and suggested that a degree of culture change may be needed (Creaser 2010). On the other side, based on a sample of over 3,000 European scholars, Fry et al (2010) reported a good understanding and appreciation of the ethos of open access in general and clear differences between disciplines This was confirmed by Eger et al (2013) in a study with 2,151 researchers in Germany that revealed significant differences between the scientific disciplines with respect to researchers’ awareness of and experience with OA journals and self-archiving. Concerns over copyright infringement were identified as the most frequent barrier regarding self-archiving, and the researchers’ awareness of the journal publishers’ policies on open access was generally considered as low
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