Attitudes toward Open Access, Open Peer Review, and Altmetrics among Contributors to Spanish Scholarly Journals

TL;DR

This study surveys Spanish academic journal contributors to understand their attitudes toward open access, open peer review, and altmetrics, revealing generally favorable views on open access but caution on other innovations, influenced by demographic factors.

Contribution

It provides empirical data on Spanish scholars' perceptions of open scholarly publishing practices and how demographic and social media factors influence these attitudes.

Findings

Contributors favor open access but are cautious about open peer review and altmetrics.

Younger and female scholars are more hesitant about open peer review.

ResearchGate users are more aware of altmetrics.

Abstract

This paper aims to gain a better understanding of the perspectives of contributors to Spanish academic journals regarding open access, open peer review, and altmetrics. It also explores how age, gender, professional experience, career history, and perception and use of social media influence authors opinions toward these developments in scholarly publishing. A sample of contributors (n-1254) to Spanish academic journals was invited to participate in a survey about the aforementioned topics. The response rate was 24 per cent (n-295). Contributors to Spanish scholarly journals hold a favourable opinion of open access but were more cautious about open peer review and altmetrics. Younger and female scholars were more reluctant to accept open peer review practices. A positive attitude toward social networks did not necessarily translate into enthusiasm for emerging trends in scholarly publishing. Despite this, ResearchGate users were more aware of altmetrics.