Over 14,700 authors respond to Taylor & Francis open access survey

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In response to the seismic shift in the publishing landscape brought on by open access (OA), Taylor & Francis has asked its author community for its views and behaviour related to the subject. The company received 14,769 responses, with the feedback helping publishers to understand authors’ needs and inform the development of its policies, both in terms of OA, and more widely.

'The results of this survey are important, as they represent the views of a wide sample of authors across the disciplines in relation to open access following announcement of the RCUK and Wellcome mandates after the publication of the Finch report in the UK,' said Dr David Green, global publishing director at Taylor & Francis.

The survey offers a fascinating insight into current thinking of authors globally across the whole range of subject areas from science to the arts. Taylor & Francis would like to thank every author who took the time to respond to this comprehensive survey.

The findings included:

  • 79 per cent of authors still want traditional rigorous peer review of their work, all or most of the time when publishing OA;
  • 68 per cent of authors are happy for their work to be reused for non-commercial gain; and
  • It is important to 70 per cent of authors that the general public can access and read their work.

The basic results of the survey and a copy of the questionnaire can be found here and is available under a creative commons attribution licence: www.tandf.co.uk/journals/pdf/open-access-survey-march2013.pdf.