Study title

The study surveyed researchers in the Faculty of Arts, Psychology and Theology at Åbo Akademi University on their views on and experiences of open access publishing. Main topics of the survey included the respondents' awareness and knowledge of open access publishing, their own publication activities, institutional support for open access publishing, and the future of open access publishing. The respondents' awareness and knowledge of open access publishing were charted with a series of statements (e.g. I feel confident that I could explain open access to a colleague if asked, I am aware of the ÅAU open science policy, Publicly funded research should be made available to the public without barriers, There are no benefits to open access publishing). Additionally, the respondents' publication activities were examined by asking them whether they had published in a gold open access publication, a hybrid journal, or a research repository in the past two years. The perceived importance of different publication types for publishing research was also investigated, along with factors (e.g. speed of publication, impact factor, the publication is open access) that were relevant to the respondents when selecting which publication to publish in. On the topic of institutional support for open access publishing, the respondents were asked whether they had participated in courses or other education in open access issues offered by Åbo Akademi University library during the past year. The respondents also rated their agreement with statements regarding the institutional support provided by Åbo Akademi University (e.g. My research environment and colleagues at ÅAU are positive about open access, The ÅAU open science policy is right to demand that the research at ÅAU should be made available open access). Next, respondents were asked about their views on the changes they expected to see in scholarly publishing over the next ten years (e.g. Most research will be published open...