OAPEN-UK Year One Benchmarking Survey of Participants

Survey respondents

Group Total number of respondents

Number in control group

Number in experiment group

All authors 28 10 18

Tracking authors 22 7 15

Total number of respondents

Publishers University staff Authors Funders

Advisory group 10 5 2 2 1

‘All authors’ refers to all authors who completed the survey in 2013.‘Tracking authors’ refers to those authors who completed both the 2011 and 2013 surveys

All advisory group participants who completed the 2013 survey had also completed the 2011 survey.

Most UK-based authors know about the RCUK OA mandate

Yes No0

2

4

6

8

10

12

10

3

Are you aware that from 1 April 2013 any journal articles based on research funded by a UK Research Council must be published in Open Access?

Base: all authors based in UK

Green OA is more common than Gold, but many authors don’t know which option they’ve used

Of the content you have published via open access, was most of it published using Gold open access (payment to the publisher) or Green open access (post-publication archiving in a repository)?

Base: all authors with OA publications

Don't know Gold Green Same0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

109

2

6

4

Researchers read books in different ways

How do you usually consume the monographs you read in order to undertake your research?

Base: all authors

I read one or two chapters I read several chapters I read the whole book0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

8

13

8

Researchers still prefer print books to electronic

All other things being equal - if print and electronic books were equally easy to find and access - what is your preferred reading format?

Base: all authors

Print Electronic No preference0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

14

3

8

Changes made to the survey were valuableIn our baseline survey the following pairs of author motivations for publishing were grouped together. Following feedback from the steering group we separated them out for the year one survey. Did authors assign the two motivations in each pair the same importance?

Base: all authors

Same i

mportance

Claiming fi

ndings more

importa

nt

Claiming n

ew id

eas m

ore im

portant

02468

101214161820

18

1

9

Same i

mportance

Informati

on for s

ocial p

rogre

ss more

importa

nt

Informati

on for k

nowledge

in so

ciety

more im

portant

02468

101214161820

17

9

2

Comparative dataWe compared data from authors and advisory group members who responded to both baseline and year one surveys. This is a small sample so it is dangerous to draw sweeping conclusions, but there are some key messages about the progress of the authors in the study.

• Author behaviour is changing: they are more likely to publish content electronically, and also read books in different ways;

• Participants’ views on the likely outcome of OAPEN-UK have changed for sales and citations, but not for usage.

Electronic publishing has become more commonThis chart shows the number of authors who said they had not published electronically at baseline, but had published electronically in year one.

Base: authors responding baseline and year one

Articles Book chapters Books0123456789

7

2

8

Views on OA impact on sales have changedWhat do you think the effect of OAPEN-UK will be on sales of OA titles?

Broadly speaking, authors are more pessimistic in year one than at baseline, while publishers have become more uncertain. Others have become more optimistic.

But note the small ‘n’ for publishers and others and treat with some caution.

Base: all participants responding baseline and year one

Authors (n = 20)

Publishers (n = 5)

Others (n = 5)

0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%

I no longer know what I thinkIncreased pessimismIncreased optimismSame

Views on OA impact on citations have changedWhat do you think the effect of OAPEN-UK will be on citations of OA titles?

Again, authors are generally more pessimistic in year one than at baseline, while publishers have become more uncertain. Others have become more optimistic.

But note the small ‘n’ for publishers and others and treat with some caution.

Base: all participants responding baseline and year one

Authors (n = 20)

Publishers (n = 5)

Others (n = 5)0%

10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%

I no longer know what I thinkIncreased pessimismIncreased optimismSame

Views on OA impact on usage haven’t changedWhat do you think the effect of OAPEN-UK will be on usage of OA titles?

Here, most participants did not change their views. Authors and publishers who did change moved to uncertainty. The one ‘other’ person who changed their views became more optimistic.

Again note the small ‘n’ for publishers and others and treat with some caution.

Base: all participants responding baseline and year one

Authors (n = 20+

Publishers (n = 5)

Others (n = 5)0%

10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%

I no longer know what I thinkIncreased pessimismIncreased optimismSame

OAPEN-UK participation increases understandingWe asked whether participation in OAPEN-UK had increased the advisory group members’ understanding of other groups involved in the scholarly communications process.

This chart shows whether participants felt their understanding of the named groups had improved.

Note that some respondents felt their understanding of their own group had improved through participation in the project, particularly publishers.

Base: all AG respondents

Researchers Librarians Publishers Funders0123456789

Not at allA littleA lot