---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2005 17:02:19 +0100
From: "Nike HOLMES [7427]" <n.holmes@JISC.AC.UK>
To: JISC-DEVELOPMENT@JISCMAIL.AC.UK

             * Apologies for cross posting*

JISC's Scholarly Communications Group commissioned Key Perspectives Ltd
to undertake an author study on open access to determine the current
state of play with respect to author self-archiving behaviour.

Open Access Self-archiving: an author study has produced its final
report and this can now be found on the JISC website via the Scholarly
Communications Group home page at:
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=jcie_scg

or click here for a direct link to the report:
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/Open%20Access%20Self%20Archiving-an%20author%20study.pdf

------------------------------------------------------

Note added by SH:

This important and long-awaited JISC Report, destined to be very
influential, is also available at:

        Swan, Alma and Brown, Sheridan (2005)
        Open access self-archiving: An author study.
        Technical Report, Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC),
        UK FE and HE funding councils.
        http://cogprints.org/4385/
and at
http://www.keyperspectives.co.uk/OpenAccessArchive/2005_Open_Access_Report.pdf

    Excerpts from Executive Summary"

    "This, our second author international, cross-disciplinary
    study on open access had 1296 respondents. Its focus was on
    self-archiving.

    "Almost half (49%) of the respondent population have self-archived at
    least one article during the last three years. Use of institutional
    repositories for this purpose has doubled and usage has increased by
    almost 60% for subject-based repositories. Self-archiving activity
    is greatest amongst those who publish the largest number of papers.

    "There is still a substantial proportion of authors unaware
    of the possibility of providing open access to their work by
    self-archiving. Of the authors who have not yet self-archived any
    articles, 71% remain unaware of the option. With 49% of the author
    population having self-archived in some way, this means that 36%
    of the total author population (71% of the remaining 51%), has not
    yet been appraised of this way of providing open access.

    "Authors have frequently expressed reluctance to self-archive because
    of the perceived time required and possible technical difficulties
    in carrying out this activity, yet findings here show that only 20%
    of authors found some degree of difficulty with the first act of
    depositing an article in a repository, and that this dropped to 9%
    for subsequent deposits.

    "Another author worry is about infringing agreed copyright agreements
    with publishers, yet only 10% of authors currently know of the
    SHERPA/RoMEO list of publisher permissions policies with respect to
    self-archiving, where clear guidance as to what a publisher permits
    is provided. Where it is not known if permission is required, however,
    authors are not seeking it and are self-archiving without it.

    "Communicating their results to peers remains the primary reason for
    scholars publishing their work; in other words, researchers publish
    to have an impact on their field.

    "The vast majority of authors (81%) would willingly comply with a
    mandate from their employer or research funder to deposit copies of
    their articles in an institutional or subject-based repository. A
    further 13% would comply reluctantly; 5% would not comply with such
    a mandate."