A Survey of Open Access Barriers to Scientific Information: Providing an Appropriate Pattern for Scientific

Communication in Iran

Mohammad Reza GhanePh.D. Student in LIS

University of Tehran, Iranmghane@ut.ac.ir

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM1. ARL Statistics show that the average annual increase of the serial unit cost was

9% between 1986 and 2003 and the consumer price index for the same period increased 64%.Serial unit costs have been increasing much faster than inflation and library budgets for the past 16 years.

2. Spiral pricing levels of scientific journal and library budget cutback exert restrictions on institutions in providing the needed information.

3. Serial pricing crisis and permission crisis put restrictions on scholars in their scholarly findings.

4. Consequently, a large number of scientists in the world, specially in developing countries, are unable to access the research findings they need. According to ARL statistics this gap has widened since 1986.

5. Scholars are losing their control on a system that they created. 6. New opportunity for scholarly communication brought about by Internet and

www.7. This study intends to survey academics of Iranian universities on their attitudes

toward open access publishing and providing an appropriate pattern for scholarly communication.

PREVIOUS STUDIES - Gadd , E., Oppenheim, Ch. , Probets, S. (2003), RoMEO studies 3: How academics expect to use open-access research papers.-in: Journal of Librarianship and Information science, 35(3) Sep 2003,pp. 171-187. – ISSN 0961-0006.Home Page http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/1s/disresearch/romeo/RoMEO%20studies%203. pdf.- Gadd, E., Oppenheim, Ch., Probets, S. (2003), RoMEO studies 2: How academics want to protect their open-access research papers .- in: Journal of Information science,29(5) Sep 2003,pp.333-356.- ISSN 0165-5515.Home Page http:// www. lboro. ac. uk/ departments/ 1s/ disresearch/ romeo/.- Gadd, E., Oppenhim, Ch., Probets, S. (2003), studies 1: The Impact of copyright ownership on academic author self-archiving.- In: Journal of Documentation, 59 (3) pp. 243-277.-ISSN:0022-0418. Home Page http:// www. lboro. ac. uk/ departments/1s/disresearch/ romeo/ RoMEO %20studies %201. pdf. RoMEO - Rowlands, I., Nicholas,D., Huntingdon, P. (2004), Scholarly communication in the digital environment: what do authors want? Findings of an international survey and author opinion: project report. ciber, city university, London ,UK. Home Page http :// ciber. Soi. City. Ac. Uk/ ciber-pa-report. pdf . - Swan, A. P., Brown, Sh. N.(2004), JISC/OSI journal authors survey report. Key Perspectives Ltd. Truro, uk. Home Page http://www.jics.ac.uk / uploaded

_documents/JISC OA report 1. pdf.

OBJECTIVES

This study seeks to determine the following regarding open access movement:

Academics’ attitudes toward open access Academics’ awareness of open access Academics’ attitudes toward self- archiving Academics’ attitudes toward institutional repository Academics’ attitudes toward subject-based repository Academics’ attitudes toward open access journal Academics’ attitudes toward pricing crisis Academics’ attitudes toward permission crisis Academics’ reasons for not publishing via open access channels Academics’ views on the usage of open access materials as-users and authors

METHODOLOGY

1. This case study is a part of a survey at national level.2. The survey population consist of Shiraz University academics. 3. According to Faculty Members in Iranian Higher Education Institutes, years 2003, 377 doctorial faculties were employed in Shiraz University.4. Subject discipline: Humanities, Science, Engineering, Agriculture & Veterinary. 5. Sample size is 50 by using 95% confidence levels and 12.9% confidence interval. Sample size is calculated from a preliminary sample population variance which is estimated 0.05 (s2 = 0.05) according to the formula

129.0nS/ Z2 2/

DATA COLLECTIONS AND ANALYSIS

1. The survey instrument was a questionnaire which was sent to the respondents’ address and 41 returned. 2. Descriptive (demographic data) and inferential (chi – square test) statistics were conducted using SPSS Software. 3. The analysis of the data collected from the returned questionnaires has been presented in tables and graphs.

RESULTS

Demography of respondents

RESULTS CONT.

RESULTS CONT.

RESULTS CONT.

RESULTS CONT.

RESULTS CONT.

RESULTS CONT.

DISCUSSION

DISCUSSION CONT.

What do academics think about copyright? Open access materials usage comparison Serial pricing crisis and permission crisis Academics’ reasons for not publishing in open access models

CONCLUSION

The results of this study proved previous findings concerning open access movement. Academics of Shiraz University (Iran) in spite of their low awareness of open access movement significantly agreed to use open access vehicles for their publications. Their first choice in new pattern of publishing is OPEN ACCESS JOURNAL and the second one is SELF-ARCHIVING. Subject-based repository and institutional repository are at the third and fourth place, respectively. It seems that universities should think more about the two last choices. The lack of awareness of copyright law is an important issue that should be considered in the near future by academics and their institutions. What is clear is that academics current view on open access is strongly rooted in the world of print, and we still have quite a long road ahead.