Open Access Theses in Institutional Repositories: An Exploratory Study of the Perceptions of Doctoral Students
Year: 2011
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Introduction. We examine doctoral students' awareness of and attitudes to open access forms of publication. Levels of awareness of open access and the concept of institutional repositories, publishing behaviour and perceptions of benefits and risks of open access publishing were explored. Method. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected through interviews with eight doctoral students enrolled in a range of disciplines in a New Zealand university and a self-completion Web survey of 251 students. Analysis. Interview data were analysed thematically, then evaluated against a theoretical framework. The interview data were then used to inform the design of the survey tool. Survey responses were analysed as a single set, then by disciple using SurveyMonkey’s online toolkit and Excel. Results. While awareness of open access and repository archiving is still low, the majority of interview and survey respondents were found to be supportive of the concept of open access. The perceived benefits of enhanced exposure and potential for sharing outweigh the perceived risks. The majority of respondents were supportive of an existing mandatory thesis submission policy. Conclusions. Low levels of awareness of the university repository remains an issue, and could be addressed by further investigating the effectiveness of different communication channels for promotion. Introduction and research objectives In most New Zealand universities, institutional repository archiving is not compulsory for academics but is often mandatory for doctoral and/or masters students. The University of Auckland and Massey University for instance, have implemented mandatory deposit of theses for all doctoral students enrolled since 1 January 2007. On one hand, open access to postgraduate theses is exciting, as student authors can disseminate their research to a wide audience and may be cited more easily by researchers in their academic community. On the other, open access archiving may raise concerns over copyright, plagiarism and premature publication of findings. Studies focusing on the attitudes of academic staff have been conducted in New Zealand and overseas, but very few studies have been conducted into the attitudes of postgraduate students toward these new models of scholarly publishing. No studies on student perceptions of repository archiving or open access publishing have been conducted in New Zealand, as reflected in the current body of literature. This study attempts to uncover underlying attitudes of a sample of New Zealand doctoral students toward open access publishing and repository archiving in journals and repositories and their attitudes toward the mandatory submission of their theses to their university's repository. Investigating how and from whom awareness, perceptions and attitudes towards these modes of publishing arise is an important facet of the project. Gaining insight into these issues has the potential to contribute to efforts aimed at raising awareness of the benefits of open access and promoting repositories in different disciplines. It is anticipated that an understanding of the attitudes of doctoral students toward open archiving of theses and a better understanding of their research and publishing behaviour could assist university library staff in developing repository submission policies and processes that suit students and in doing so, encourage student collaboration in the ongoing development of repository collections. The main research question of this study is: What attitudes and perceptions do postgraduate students hold in relation to the potential significance, benefit and risk of archiving their doctoral theses in an open access institutional repository? The research addresses the main question through the following sub-questions: 1. To what extent are students aware of repositories and open access in the context of scholarly publishing? 2. Do students use documents archived in repositories, open journals and open monographs in their own thesis research? 3. Do students from different disciplines have different perceptions of open access publishing and repository archiving? 4. How and from whom have existing perceptions of repositories and open access publishing been formed? 5. Are students willing to comply with mandatory repository submission policies? The research questions also attempt to address a broader issue: What can institutions do to improve awareness of the role of the institutional repository, address risks or potentially negative aspects of repository archiving and encourage the ongoing use and consistent deposit of doctoral theses in the future?
Source: Information Research
Authors: Kate Valentine Stanton, Chern Li Liew
Language: English
Subfield: Library and Information Sciences
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W9641725