Exploring the Factors of Open Access Adoption among Researchers and Their Changeover

Abstract

To reveal the factors that lead researchers to make their articles Open Access (OA) for the first time and the longitudinal changes in their perceptions towards OA, the authors conducted a secondary analysis of the responses from biennial questionnaire surveys by NISTEP carried out from 2016 to 2022. The results indicated that the main drivers for researchers to first adopt OA were external factors such as scholarly journal policies or affiliated institutional policies. Among the barriers to OA, it was suggested that addressing funding shortages and developing OA policies in scholarly journals and affiliated institutions could promote OA. Additionally, after researchers made their articles OA through external factors, they tended to develop internal drivers, such as the desire to contribute to OA movement.