Authors' Rights to Share Scholarship: A Survey of IUPUI Faculty Attitudes

Abstract

Faculty who take an active role in the dissemination of their research are more likely to make an impact on a field of scholarship. Online, full text archiving is a key component of being a self-advocate and for building a scholarly reputation. In fact, posting a version of a published article in an open access repository, such as IUPUI ScholarWorks, increases an author’s citation rate. Most journal publishers (72%) permit authors to upload a version of their article to IUPUI ScholarWorks; however, faculty may be unsure of how to exercise this right. Do IUPUI faculty self-archive their articles? Do they examine or negotiate the terms of their copyright transfer agreements? Would IUPUI faculty consider implementing a campus policy to maximize their rights as authors? To explore attitudes related to these questions, we conducted a campus-wide survey of IUPUI faculty in the Fall semester of 2013. The survey adapted an instrument used in similar campus-wide research conducted in 2006 at the University of California and in 2010 at the University of Toronto. This broad survey addressed attitudes regarding many factors relevant to publishing, peer review and scholarly communications. Here we report preliminary results pertaining to author’s rights, self-archiving practices and open access policies. Results: Complete responses (n=248); Partial responses (n=90). Author’s Rights: Most faculty (54%) consider the right to self-archive as a factor in selecting a journal for publication. A few have refused to sign a copyright transfer agreement (n=16) and a few have modified contracts (n=10). Most (68%) support a campus discussion of copyright management. Likewise, faculty would appreciate instructions and models for copyright negotiations (65%) as well as more formal institutional support for retaining rights (61%). Self-Archiving: Although nearly half had heard of IUPUI ScholarWorks (45%), only 25% of the respondents reported submitting a work to an institutional repository. Faculty were most influenced to self-archive by the motivation to support the dissemination of academic research in general (n=151), by increased exposure (n=149), and by the norms of their academic unit (n=102). Open Access Policies: The majority of faculty (72%) were unfamiliar with institutional open access policies such as those at Harvard, MIT, Duke and Kansas. When asked, however, if IUPUI should consider implementing a similar policy, 52% were unsure, 39% were supportive and only 9% disagreed.