Motivations for Web-Based Scholarly Publishing: Do Scientists Recognize Open Availability as an Advantage?

The open availability of journal articles is expected to encourage scholars to publish in Web-based publishing venues, as it may provide more visible and wider dissemination of their research. Some studies, however, report no evidence of such relative advantages, although an advantage may be conferred by other factors. Despite emerging disputes about the effects of open availability, scholars’ perceptions of the phenomenon are not well understood. Do they recognize the advantages of open availability? Or do they consider other factors more important? This study sought to answer these questions by examining reasons why scholars publish in open-access venues and the extent of their motivations. To accomplish this goal, results were tallied from a Web-based survey of 1104 scientists around the world. The data analysis identified eleven relevant motivational factors: six attitudinal factors, two perceived control factors, and one demographic factor. Together, these factors significantly influenced the intention to adopt open-access publishing. Factors related to social influence and perceived topical compatibility appeared to be insignificant. The influence of attitudinal and perceived control factors, however, varied based on tenure status. The biggest difference between tenured and untenured groups was the rank of perceived visible advantages, implying that open availability has different levels of significance depending on tenure status.