The Library’s Open Access Officers met Mike Waterson from Economics to talk about his experiences of Open Access.

Is this the first time you published Gold or have you used Green before?

It is the first time yes. As far as I am aware, it didn’t pop up in a significant way before as to whether I should do, but it will definitely crop up in the future because I have got another grant that I am working on. It’s an EPSRC grant.

What was the main reason for choosing Gold for your publishing as it was so new to you?

I looked at the journal and it had a very long embargo period, 36 months, and I thought that’s unlikely to be acceptable to the Research Council, so it seemed to make sense to go for Gold.

Yes, the 36 months is over the policy mandate on embargo periods. Was this an economics journal?

Yes.

What support did you receive along the process of getting approval for your publication, either from your peers or the University?

Well, actually, mainly from the Library. I think I asked our Research Administrator and I remembered we’d had this email a while ago (an email from the OA Officers).

What advice then would you give to a colleague in your subject area who might be new to Open Access?

Well, I suppose it would be to get in touch with people in the Library who are involved. For an academic, viewing it from my point of view, the big positive thing is the acceptance letter and then the bits afterwards are a bit of a nuisance, going through the proofs, that aspect. So it’s useful if it is a streamlined system.

Would you say that you experienced a streamlined and helpful process, or was it bureaucratic?

Well in my case it was surprisingly streamlined. You were here and got back to me the same day (OA Officer responded to the APC application).

What would you say are the key benefits of Open Access?

Well one obvious benefit is that you can put the journal copy up on your website. I suppose ultimately it would be nice to get more citations but it’s far too early to know that [if the process of Open Access would lead specifically to more citations compared to a non-OA route].

Is there anything else that you might want to talk about in general regarding Open Access?

I guess in principle it makes sense for people. I suppose like many people I tend to actually go physically to the Library very infrequently and so if something isn’t available on the computer you generally tend not to look at it.