Ready for the future? A survey on open access with scientists from the French National Research Center (CNRS)

Abstract

International audiencePurposeThis paper aims to present empirical evidence on the opinion and behaviour of French scientists (senior management level) regarding open access (OA) to scientific and technical information.Design/methodology/approachThe results are part of a nationwide survey on scientific information and documentation with 432 directors of French public research laboratories conducted by the French National Research Center (CNRS) in 2014.FindingsThe CNRS senior research managers (laboratory directors) globally share the positive opinion towards OA revealed by other studies with researchers from the UK, Germany, the USA and other countries. However, they are more supportive of open repositories (green road) than of OA journal publishing (gold). The response patterns reveal a gap between generally positive opinions about OA and less supportive behaviours, principally publishing articles with article processing charges (APCs). A small group of senior research managers does not seem to be interested in green or gold OA and reluctant to self-archiving and OA publishing. Similar to other studies, the French survey confirms disciplinary differences, i.e. a stronger support for self-archiving of records and documents in HAL by scientists from Mathematics, Physics and Informatics than from Biology, Earth Sciences and Chemistry; and more experience and positive feelings with OA publishing and payment of APCs in Biology than in Mathematics or in Social Sciences and Humanities. Disciplinary differences and specific French factors are discussed, in particular in the context of the new European policy in favour of Open Science.Originality/valueFor the first time, a nationwide survey was conducted with the senior research management level from all scientific disciplines. The response rate was high (>30 per cent), and the results provide good insight into the real awareness, support and uptake of OA by senior research managers who provide both models (examples for good practice) and opinion leadership

French publishing attitudes in the open access era: The case of mathematics, biology, and computer science

“…We found that 73% of respondents incorporated green OA into their strategies. This result reinforces the CNRS study (Schöpfel, Ferrant, André, & Fabre, ) showing disciplinary differences: mathematics and computer science are supportive of green OA, while biology is more familiar with gold OA. This also confirms the positive bias of the sample of the study as mathematicians and computer scientists, coincidentally, also accounted for 73% of the responses.…”

“…Of the 8,550 researchers, 422 answered the questionnaire. The 5% response rate is similar to those of the Parisian survey (Michel & Chekib, ) and the CNRS (Schöpfel, Ferrant, André, & Fabre, ). This rate may indicate the fact that OA is not yet a hot topic among researchers’ communities as it is in other European countries or in North America.…”

“…Our results do not provide enough elements to confirm the CNRS survey, demonstrating that the cost of APCs is preventing researchers from meeting the challenge (Schöpfel, Ferrant, André, & Fabre, ). Our study indicates that barriers seem to include the lack of policy support and lack of understanding of gold OA possibilities.…”

“…Apart from a survey from Paris‐Sud University's planning strategy limited to one university (Michel & Chekib, ) and from the survey for CNRS managers (Schöpfel, Ferrant, André, & Fabre, ), studies on a national scale on the evolution of researchers’ publishing attitudes, understanding, willingness, and incentives to pay for APCs have not yet been conducted. Yet it is important to identify what researchers know and do about these new models as France does not have clear national policies on this matter.…”

Chinese researchers' perceptions and use of open access journals: Results of an online questionnaire survey

“…This topic is interesting to social scientists and also very important for all stakeholders in the scholarly communication system. Many studies looked at researchers' publication strategies and found that researchers did not rate OA as a criterion but rather impact, prestige, and symbolic recognition (Boukacem‐Zeghmouri, Dillaerts, Lafouge, Bador, & Sauer‐Avargues, ; Kieńć, , ; Schöpfel, Ferrant, André, & Fabre, ), although many confirmed that OA makes it easier to promote an academic work (Abrizah, Nicholas, Noorhidawati, Aspura, & Badawi, ; Tenopir et al ., ). In 2015, Professor Carol Tenopir and her team conducted a large‐scale questionnaire survey to investigate researchers' attitudes and behaviours towards gold OA in the USA.…”