489
views
1
recommends
+1 Recommend
0
shares
    • Review: found
    Is Open Access

    Review of 'Green open access in computer science - an exploratory study on author-based self-archiving awareness, practice, and inhibitors'

    Bookmark
    2
    Green open access in computer science - an exploratory study on author-based self-archiving awareness, practice, and inhibitorsCrossref
    A long paper about a study on free OA usage that is very limited in scope
    Average rating:
        Rated 2.5 of 5.
    Level of importance:
        Rated 2 of 5.
    Level of validity:
        Rated 2 of 5.
    Level of completeness:
        Rated 3 of 5.
    Level of comprehensibility:
        Rated 2 of 5.
    Competing interests:
    None

    Reviewed article

    • Record: found
    • Abstract: found
    • Article: found
    Is Open Access

    Green open access in computer science - an exploratory study on author-based self-archiving awareness, practice, and inhibitors

    Access to the work of others is something that is too often taken for granted, yet problematic and difficult to be obtained unless someone pays for it. Green and gold open access are claimed to be a solution to this problem. While open access is gaining momentum in some fields, there is a limited and seasoned knowledge about self-archiving in computer science. In particular, there is an inadequate understanding of author-based self-archiving awareness, practice, and inhibitors. This article reports an exploratory study of the awareness of self-archiving, the practice of self-archiving, and the inhibitors of self-archiving among authors in an Italian computer science faculty. Forty-nine individuals among interns, PhD students, researchers, and professors were recruited in a questionnaire (response rate of 72.8%). The quantitative and qualitative responses suggested that there is still work needed in terms of advocating green open access to computer science authors who seldom self-archive and when they do, they often infringe the copyright transfer agreements of the publishers. In addition, tools from the open-source community are needed to facilitate author-based self-archiving, which should comprise of an automatic check of the copyright transfer agreements. The study identified nine factors inhibiting the act of self-archiving among computer scientists. As a first step, this study proposes several propositions regarding author-based self-archiving in computer science that can be further investigated. Recommendations to foster self-archiving in computer science, based on the results, are provided.
      Bookmark

      Review information


      Review text

      This paper reports the results of a small survey of the author’s home department of the awareness and use of self-archiving facilities by his colleagues in Computer Science. It is found, unsurprisingly in my view, that a large proportion of the staff (about a third) are unaware of the practice of self-archiving to facilitate open access and about half of them have not made significant efforts to deposit preprints or postprints. The central conclusions are that there should be more advocacy for green open access and that the tools for archiving should be made as user friendly as possible.

      Overall the paper is much too long, both in the introduction and in the extremely detailed analysis of what is a very limited dataset. It suffers from a lack of clarity in the writing in many places and would benefit from a firm editorial hand. The very local nature of the analysis will I imagine make it of limited interest.

      Comments

      Comment on this review