Results analysis
Motivation for publishing/sharing work with others
It seemed important to gain an understanding of what motivates the authors to publish/share their work with others and it was hoped that by understanding this it might help with the design of future advocacy of the institutional repository, QUEprints, to coincide with these motivations. The authors were asked: What is the primary motivation for you publishing/sharing your work with others? Almost half of the authors (43 per cent) cited personal career progression,19 per cent said it was to share their findings with others and 14 per cent said that it was to be research active for the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE)
When asked directly: Has the Research Assessment Exercise influenced where you choose to publish?, 76 per cent said that it had and, when probed further: What has its effect been on your choice?, the majority said that it made them try, wherever possible, to publish their work in the journals that have a high impact factor rating in their subject area and, interestingly, a couple of the authors said that it had made them focus on publishing in journals with a relatively fast turnaround time between when they submit their work and when it actually gets published, so as not to miss out on including the paper in their Department’s RAE submission. These findings suggest that the influence of the RAE and an author’s personal career progression are powerful motivators both in terms of their reasons for sharing their work and deciding where and how to disseminate research. For the IR to be successful, it seems logical to assume that it needs to sit comfortably with these motivations.
Current publishing behaviour, and awareness and use of open access dissemination methods
Having ascertained their primary motivation for sharing their work, the next questions focused on discovering the methods the authors were currently using to disseminate their work. Eighty-one per cent said they shared their last piece of work with others via a traditional refereed journal. When asked: How do you normally share your research with others?’, all the authors mentioned the refereed journal, with the second most frequently cited method being conferences, mentioned by 71 per cent of the authors. Able to provide as few