Faculty Perceptions of Open Access Publishing: Incentives for Adoption

Abstract

INTRODUCTION Libraries’collections budgets are becoming less effective in covering subscriptions dueto inflation and stagnation, requiring creative solutions to providing researchmaterials to the campus. This investigation sought to determine an institution’sfaculty tolerances for publishing in and using open access (OA) materials, aswell as to identify the mechanisms that would shift perceptions of OApublishing to a more favorable light, thereby fostering adoption in facultyresearch and teaching. METHODS Anonymous electronic survey of 468 facultymembers with a response rate of 34%. RESULTS Respondents indicated a mixed setof adoption, with equal distribution in willingness to use open access. Qualityof OA publications, combined with concerns for tenure and promotion, holdsfaculty back in utilizing OA journals and publications for their own researchand in the classroom. CONCLUSION Library employees and faculty alike wouldbenefit from understanding one another's work. Faculty would benefit from bothan understanding of various OA models and how to distinguish among them, aswell as how to evaluate the quality of publications. An institution-wideunderstanding of Open Access should be created and adopted with significantinput from faculty and librarians. Finally, faculty should be provided a coursebuyout or similar incentive to become an editor for an OA journal to buildtrust in the quality of open access publishing. The perceptions should betracked regularly through further deployment of surveys to ensure progress.