Over 14,700 authors respond to Taylor & Francis Open Access Survey!

In response to the seismic shift in the publishing landscape brought on by Open Access (OA), Taylor & Francis asked our author community for their views and their behaviour related to Open Access. We received 14,769 responses. This feedback will help publishers understand authors’ needs and inform the development of our policies, both in terms of OA, and more widely.

“The results of this survey are important, as they represent the views of a wide sample of authors across the disciplines in relation to Open Access following announcement of the RCUK and Wellcome mandates after the publication of the Finch report in the UK” said Dr David Green, Global Publishing Director at Taylor & Francis.

The survey offers a fascinating insight into current thinking of authors globally across the whole range of subject areas from science to the arts. Taylor & Francis would like to thank every author who took the time to respond to this comprehensive survey.

What are the initial findings?

Authors were asked about licensing, reuse, peer review and metrics:
• 79% of our authors still want traditional rigorous peer review of their work, all or most of the time when publishing OA.
• 68% of authors are happy for their work to be reused for non-commercial gain
• It is important to 70% of authors that the general public can access and read their work.

Given the volume of data, and the variety of responses, this will be just the first of a series of press releases which will explore the findings of the Taylor & Francis Open Access Survey in more depth.

For those who want to take a look at the survey for themselves right now, the basic results and a copy of the questionnaire can be found here and is available under a Creative Commons Attribution licence:
www.tandf.co.uk/journals/pdf/open-access-survey-march2013.pdf