Awareness of OA (was: Berlin-3 Open Access Conference, Southampton)

[JOHANNES VELTEROP <velteropvonleyden@btinternet.com>]

The CIBER report, available here:
http://ciber.soi.city.ac.uk/ciber-pa-report.pdf

suggests that about two-thirds of the authors surveyed are aware of open
access. It is true that of those, three quarters say they only know 'a
little' (page 22), but since the next possibility for them to tick was
'quite a lot', clearly, most researchers were perfectly scientific and
sensible about it, realising that 'quite a lot', and certainly 'a lot', is
what one knows about one's speciality (and maybe about a hobby), but about
little else and certainly not about publishing business models. However,
knowing 'a little' is not to be equated with being 'unaware'. I'm
perfectly aware of keyhole surgery, for example. But I would never say I
knew more than 'a little' about it. Even 'very little', in spite of the
fact that I've undergone it.

There is a significant percentage amounting to a third of the authors
surveyed, who were indeed unaware of open access at the time of the CIBER
questionnaire (about a year ago now). It is a significant minority, but a
minority nonetheless and it is very likely to have shrunk further by now.

Jan Velterop  

--- "Sally Morris (ALPSP)" <chief-exec@alpsp.org> wrote: 

> I am aware of no research which shows that a significant percentage of
> the scholarly community are even aware of Open Access.  Does Fred have
> other evidence that I'm not aware of?
> 
> Sally Morris, 
> Chief Executive Association of Learned and Professional
> Society Publishers 
> E-mail:  chief-exec@alpsp.org