South African responses to Open Access publishing: a survey of the research community

Fullard, Allison South African responses to Open Access publishing: a survey of the research community. South African Journal of Library and Information Science, 2007, vol. 73, n. 1, pp. 40-50. [Journal article (Paginated)]

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English abstract

Open access publishing offers wide benefits to the scholarly community and may also afford relief to financially embattled academic libraries. The progress of the open access model rests upon the acceptance and validation of open access journals and open archives or institutional repositories by the academic mainstream, particularly by publishing researchers. To what extent are the key actors in the South African research system aware of the advantages of open access? This article reports on the findings of a recent survey undertaken to assess the current awareness, concerns and depth of support for open access amongst local researchers, research managers and policy makers in South Africa. The study focuses on issues of quality, article or author charges and the established academic reward system. It concludes that within the prevailing framework, there is little prospect that academics would choose to publish within open access journals. Recommendations for advocacy by the library community are proposed.

Item type: Journal article (Paginated)
Keywords: open access, scholarly publishing, journals, South Africa, survey
Subjects: B. Information use and sociology of information > BG. Information dissemination and diffusion.
Depositing user: Allison Moller
Date deposited: 07 Jul 2007
Last modified: 02 Oct 2014 12:08
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10760/9990

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