Awareness and Perceptions of Korean Researchers on Open Access

Abstract

This study aims to determine the awareness and perceptions of Korean researchers regarding mandatory open access (OA) and OA publishing of publicly-funded research papers. In July 2019, Korean researchers who had published in Science Citation Index Expanded journals as first authors and corresponding authors participated in an online survey distributed via e-mail. A total of 1,172 valid responses were collected and analyzed using SPSS 18. The results indicated that the level of awareness of OA differed significantly based on occupation and research experience (p<0.001). Although 52.56% of the respondents had experienced OA publishing, only 22.35% had self-archiving experience. Regardless of the amount of publishing cost support, researchers showed a high level of willingness to publish OA articles. Yet, since the importance of impact factor was evaluated to be very high, at present OA publication might have a limited role as a publication platform.