Discipline-specific open access publishing practices and barriers to change: an evidence-based review [version 2; peer review: 2 approved, 1 approved with reservations]

• Published in: F1000 research Vol. 7; p. 1925
• Main Authors: Severin, Anna, Egger, Matthias, Eve, Martin Paul, Hürlimann, Daniel
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Faculty of 1000 Ltd 2020; F1000 Research Limited; F1000 Research Ltd
• Subjects: Bibliometrics; Humanities; Institutional repositories; Internet access; Open access publishing; Scholarly communication; Scholarly publishing; Social networks; Social sciences; Studies; Subscriptions; Web sites; Scientometrics; Meta-Synthesis; Open Access; Publishing; Scholarly Communication; Communication Technologies; Open Science; Science Policy
• ISSN: 2046-1402; 2046-1402
• DOI: 10.12688/f1000research.17328.2

Background: Many of the discussions surrounding Open Access (OA) revolve around how it affects publishing practices across different academic disciplines. It was a long-held view that it would be only a matter of time before all disciplines fully and relatively homogeneously implemented OA. Recent large-scale bibliometric studies show, however, that the uptake of OA differs substantially across disciplines. We aimed to answer two questions: First, how do different disciplines adopt and shape OA publishing practices? Second, what discipline-specific barriers to and potentials for OA can be identified? Methods: In a first step, we identified and synthesized relevant bibliometric studies that assessed OA prevalence and publishing patterns across disciplines. In a second step, and adopting a social shaping of technology perspective, we studied evidence on the socio-technical forces that shape OA publishing practices. We examined a variety of data sources, including, but not limited to, publisher policies and guidelines, OA mandates and policies and author surveys. Results: Over the last three decades, scholarly publishing has experienced a shift from "closed" access to OA as the proportion of scholarly literature that is openly accessible has increased continuously. Estimated OA levels for publication years after 2010 varied between 29.4% and 66%. The shift towards OA is uneven across disciplines in two respects: first, the growth of OA has been uneven across disciplines, which manifests itself in varying OA prevalence levels. Second, disciplines use different OA publishing channels to make research outputs OA. Conclusions: We conclude that historically rooted publishing practices differ in terms of their compatibility with OA, which is the reason why OA can be assumed to be a natural continuation of publishing cultures in some disciplines, whereas in other disciplines, the implementation of OA faces major barriers and would require a change of research culture.