What does it all mean? Understanding US public access policy: the authors’ view
January 2014 saw President Obama sign the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2014 into law in the United States. This Act requires federal agencies with research and development budgets exceeding $100 million per year to develop public access policies, allowing for funded research articles to be made freely available online in a machine readable format within 12 months of publication. Agencies are yet to finalise their plans and policies, but researchers in receipt of federal funds will need to be aware and understand what they must do to comply with this legislation. This means that at least ensuring public access to “…final peer-reviewed manuscripts that have been accepted for publication in peer-reviewed journals”.
Whilst this has only been law for a relatively short period of time there has been much discussion on its implications, adding to a vocal movement that has been arguing for better access to publicly funded research for many years. But do researchers really understand how it affects them, and what they need to do to comply? Do levels of awareness and understanding vary by age, experience or discipline?
As part of a wider survey on Open Access carried out in March 2014, Taylor & Francis asked authors a series of questions on this issue. Just under 2,500 US-based authors responded (or 31% of the total respondents globally), and their answers showed that, whilst levels of awareness were relatively low (at just 32%), authors felt generally positive about the Act and its benefits for them.
Despite this becoming law barely three months previously, 31% of authors said they understood the Act and 37% thought it would be easy to comply. Across all disciplines most agreed that publishing under this public access policy would enable their work to be read by more people [62%] and reach those outside the authors’ field more easily [53%]. Almost half of authors agreed that this would lead to more citations of their work [47%] and increase its impact [45%].
With no substantial variation in the levels of awareness or understanding between Humanities & Social Science and Science, Technical & Medical authors, it is interesting to see how this varies by age and experience. Younger researchers (those in their 20s) showed the least levels of awareness and understanding but were more optimistic about the prospect of their work being read more widely. Researchers in their 50s were the most confident that they would be publishing under this Act in the future and demonstrated the highest level of awareness and understanding. However, no age group delivered a majority, possibly reflective of the fact that 68% of all respondents were learning about this public access policy for the first time when reading the survey.
The survey results raise interesting questions on the communication and education needed when governments issue legislation on access to research, and how information reaches individual researchers. Whilst awareness may be relatively low at this point (just months after the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2014) how much will this have increased in a year’s time, as agencies formalise their policies, researchers get to grips with what this means for them, and they start to see the benefits for their research?
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Note to editors
Images and interviews available on request. Please use the contact details below.
For the full survey - http://www.tandfonline.com/page/openaccess/opensurvey/2014
(National Open Access mandates analysis)
The response base was 7,936 (9% response rate), of which 2,493 were US-based authors. US and Canada were the largest group of respondents (38% - an increase of 6% on the previous year’s survey).
As part of a wider survey on Open Access, authors were asked to select the country they were primarily based in. Those authors selected one of thirteen countries (including the US) that have developed significant Open Access policies. They were then directed to a page with a brief summary of their country’s policies and some questions on their awareness, understanding and possible benefits of these mandates.
Follow us on Twitter at @TandFOpen, with tweets on this survey #oasurvey2014.
For more information please contact:
Elaine Devine
Communications Manager (Author Relations), Taylor & Francis
Tel: +44 (0)20 7551 9181 / 07827 993760
About Taylor & Francis Group
Taylor & Francis Group partners with researchers, scholarly societies, universities and libraries worldwide to bring knowledge to life. As one of the world’s leading publishers of scholarly journals, books, ebooks and reference works our content spans all areas of Humanities, Social Sciences, Behavioural Sciences, Science, and Technology and Medicine.
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