Openness of Spanish scholarly journals as measured by access and rights |
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| Authors: | Remedios Melero Mikael Laakso Miguel Navas‐Fernández |
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| Institution: | 1. Instituto de Agroquímica y Tecnología de Alimentos‐CSIC, Agustín Escardino 7, 46980 Paterna, Valencia, Spain;2. Information Systems Science, Department of Management and Organization, Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki 00101, Finland;3. Library and Information Science Faculty, University of Barcelona, Melcior de Palau, 140, Barcelona 08014, Spain |
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| Abstract: | Metrics on open access (OA) availability of content published in scholarly journals (i.e. content licences, copyright ownership, and publisher‐stipulated self‐archiving permissions) are still scarce. This study implements the four core variables of the recently published Open Access Spectrum (OAS) (reader rights, reuse rights, copyright, and author posting rights) to measure the level of openness in all 1,728 Spanish scholarly journals listed in the Spanish national DULCINEA database at the end of 2015. Data exported from the database and used as variables for the analysis were: journal research area, type of publisher, type of access, self‐archiving and reuse policy, and type of Creative Commons (CC) licence used. Out of the total number of journals (1,728), 1,285 (74.5%) published their articles OA immediately after initial publication and thus received the maximum OAS score for reader rights; 37.5% of all journals used CC licences, and 79.5% allowed self‐archiving in some form. In 72% of journals, authors retained or publishers granted broad rights, which included author reuse and authorization rights (for others to reuse), whilst 13.5% did not specify any terms for copyright transfer. Similar studies could be carried out on other countries as this would enable comparisons of the general adoption and form of openness in different parts of the world. |
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