Open Access Policies and Practices of Scientific Society Affiliated Publications and Their Editors, an Overview

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Date

2023-05

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The Ohio State University

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Abstract

Existing research focused solely on scientific journals affiliated with a scientific society in the areas of the biological sciences or taxonomy is generally scarce. This prevents the understanding of a demographic that may be impacted or, potentially, be instrumental to the further implementation of open access in scientific publishing. To rectify this research gap, this study interviewed editors of publications that fit the description mentioned above. Their responses revealed some rather unexpected trends as well as patterns that align with current literature on the subject. Overall, open access implementation is limited by financial burden, agreements with publishers, and lack of understanding or engagement by the respondents. The interviewees expressed that their authors were generally unwilling to pay a fee to publish their articles open access. The interviewees also stated that they seldomly—or never—had to pay to access articles they wished to read. In addition to these general trends, more idiosyncratic patterns emerged as well.

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Open access, Scientific societies, Academic publishing, Scientific journals

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