8,000 authors favour Open Access and see impact

[Jennie Johnson <jennie.johnson@tbicommunications.com>]

Dear all,

I thought you might be interested to learn that InTech, an Open 
Access publisher, last week published a White Paper entitled 
'Author Attitudes towards Open Access Publishing' - making 
available results from a recent survey of over 8,000 authors to 
determine their attitudes towards Open Access.

The benefits of the Open Access (OA) model continue to be debated 
by publishers and librarians, but relatively little research has 
been undertaken to understand the attitudes of researchers. It 
was with this in mind that InTech commissioned TBI to survey its 
25,000-strong author-base to help better understand researcher 
awareness of and attitudes towards this evolving model. By 
sharing the results of this survey, InTech hopes to dispel some 
of the myths about what researchers truly value relating to OA 
and peer review.

I've copied yesterday's press release below for your information, 
or to read the White Paper and see for yourself the full results 
of the survey, go to:
http://www.intechweb.org/public_files/Intech_OA_Apr11.pdf

I do hope this is of interest; please let me know if you would 
like any more information.

All best wishes,

Jennie Johnson, TBI Communications

Tel: +44 1865 875896

//Press release//

/8,000 authors favour Open Access and see direct evidence of the 
positive impact/

Today InTech, an Open Access publisher, has made available 
results from a recent survey of over 8,000 authors to determine 
their attitudes towards Open Access.

The benefits of the Open Access (OA) model continue to be debated 
by publishers and librarians, but relatively little research has 
been undertaken to understand the attitudes of researchers. It 
was with this in mind that InTech, a commercial Open Access 
publisher with a focus on book publishing, commissioned TBI to 
survey its 25,000 author-base to help better understand 
researcher awareness of and attitudes towards this evolving 
model.

The survey attracted a very high response rate ? 32% (over 8,000) 
of InTech authors responded, showing a high level of interest and 
engagement. Responders were drawn from all over the world, and 
most defined their role as ?researcher? (78%) covering a broad 
range of specialties.

"We are excited but not particularly surprised by these results" 
said Goran Candrlic, CEO, "At InTech we work very hard to 
continually improve all of our processes and provide the best 
service possible for authors and it is good to see that our 
authors recognise our achievements."

Key findings of the survey include:

- There is overwhelming approval amongst researchers for free 
access to their work (75% rate as "important" or "very 
important"), whatever their country of origin
- Authors are generally accepting of the need to cover Article 
Processing Charges (APC), but are concerned that the charges 
remain affordable both for them or their institutions

- Authors want to see direct evidence of the positive impact that 
OA has for them and their work if they are to be persuaded to pay 
publication charges

- Peers and colleagues are the most important source of 
recommendations for authors when choosing a publisher, but 
librarians are also extremely influential

- Researchers are concerned with the quality of OA publications 
as publishers have little incentive to reject work as they are 
paid based on volume of output rather than quality

- Peer review remains a highly valued service, and one that 
authors still expect publishers to provide

- There remains widespread misunderstanding and some mistrust of 
the OA model and OA publishers

The full results of the survey can be downloaded at: 
http://www.intechweb.org/public_files/Intech_OA_Apr11.pdf

By sharing the results of this survey, InTech hopes to dispel 
some of the myths about what researchers truly value relating to 
OA and peer review, so that the scholarly communications 
community can continue to innovate and evolve its business models 
to suit the needs of the authors that they serve.

For more information, please contact:
Ms Ana Nodilo