The Determinants of Open Access Publishing: Survey Evidence from Germany
30 Pages Posted: 14 Mar 2013 Last revised: 29 Mar 2013
Date Written: March 13, 2013
Abstract
We discuss the results of a survey conducted in fall 2012 and covering 2,151 researchers in Germany. We show that there are significant differences between the scientific disciplines with respect to researcher’s awareness of and experience with both open access (OA) journals and self-archiving. Our results reveal that the relevance of OA within a discipline may explain why researchers from particular disciplines do (not) publish OA. Besides, several aspects like copyright law, age, profession or the inherent reward system of a discipline play a role. As a consequence, the paper emphasizes that a "one-size-fits-all" approach as promoted by most recent policy approaches is little promising for providing an effective framework for shaping the future of scholarly publishing.
Keywords: academic publishing, open access, copyright, law and economics
JEL Classification: C83, K11, O34
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation