Familiarity and Experience with Open Access among Iranian Medical Researchers

This study presents partial results from an ongoing doctoral research project. It explores the current status of familiarity and experience with Open Access (OA) among medical researchers in Iran. As a developing country, Iran has been involved in the OA movement via publishing several OA journals, but there are few research studies that indicate the perspectives of Iranian medical researchers with regards to OA. Data has been collected by using questionnaires, and the respondents are 367 clinical and basic science academic staff of medical schools at public medical universities. The results of this survey indicate that in nearly all 13 categories of terms, initiatives, and services of OA, more than half of the respondents are unfamiliar. Only half of the researchers have publishing experience with OA journals. The respondents familiar with OA have more publishing practice than those who are unfamiliar with it. This research is among the earliest studies investigating OA in Iran.