Are You Giving Me Attitude?

Abstract

Our goal with this study is to gauge the attitudes towards Open-Access publication amongst researchers in Sweden. Open-Access is a relatively new concept, which emerged in formalised form for the first time in the 2001 Budapest summit. The initiative was spearheaded by OSI (Open Society Institute) that felt that researchers were being exploited by publishers that not only published their work without monetary compensation, but then charged their institutions for the right to access the material once printed. Open-Access is aiming to make academic information and research freely accessible to all users in electronic form. OSI/JISC has conducted a large study concerning this matter, and the subject is widely discussed in today’s research communities. We have focused on gaining a deeper understanding through a qualitative study of the motivation behind the researcher’s publication process. Our informants show a positive attitude towards Open-Access but various requirements imposed on them by the nature of academics and the criteria for advancement forces them to publish in established commercial journals. The importance of the study lies in the researchers spreading of information, and the Open-Access initiative being able to reach everyone, especially researchers free of cost. The initiative builds on the researchers willingness to publish themselves in an Open-Access setting, and therefore their attitudes and concerns are vital to the Open-Access initiative.