While universities worldwide are exploring open access platforms and solutions to address the issue of excessive publishing costs for scientific papers and books, major publishing houses continue to maximise profits from individual scientists and universities by offering publishing under certain conditions. These conditions include paying individual article processing charges and/or institutional or even national subscriptions to packages of scientific journals and books. The idea of open access as an accelerator of scientific discovery, promoting collaboration across disciplines and borders while enhancing the visibility and impact of research, is still not universally attainable due to the often very high costs of publishing and disseminating scientific material. Every major scientific publisher has a publicly available document listing journals that offer the publication of scientific papers by paying Article Processing Charges, ranging from zero to thousands of dollars and euros. Some universities try to avoid paying for publishing by collecting data about scientific journals that do not charge any type of fee for publishing while still being open access. However, these journals are sometimes not high-profile or prestigious, making them less attractive to individual scientists despite university policies favouring highly visible open-access publications. As a result, individual scientists revert to fee-paying journals because of their status in the global scientific community.

This presentation will share the findings of a research study on scientists in Croatia working at faculties of the University of Zagreb that offer STEM study programs (though not all are strictly STEM institutions). A total of 18 faculties, from the University of Zagreb, were selected from the list of public academic institutions funded by the state budget. The purpose of this research was to understand the publishing experiences of scientists, working as researchers and teachers in STEM programs, in journals which are a predominant publishing venue in STEM. The STEM area publishing preferences have been described well in literature and therefore will not be discussed in this presentation. The goal was to collect data on the current publishing experiences of these scientists. The principal research method was a questionnaire. An online questionnaire consisting of 12 closed-type questions was designed. The invitation to participate was sent at the end of June 2024 to the management of 18 faculties of the University of Zagreb that offer STEM study programs, to be distributed to their employed scientists. Consequently, a convenience sample of scientists was used, focusing only on their publishing experiences. The research questions were: 1.) Is the diamond open access model (publishing without any financial constraints) preferred by more than 50% of the respondents? 2.) Is indexing in prestigious citation databases of published work still more important than the possibility for any interested person to read it in open access? The hypothesis of the research study was that diamond open access is not yet significantly present in the sample. The study was initiated on June 26, 2024, and concluded on July 10, 2024. Preliminary results showed that over 50% of scientists still pay APCs when publishing their papers in open access; scientists were not necessarily highly interested in the financing models of journals they publish in; approximately one-fifth of respondents managed to avoid publishing fees though fee waivers; about three-quarters of respondents check journal details before publishing; respondents believe open access publishing is too expensive and only moderately meets their expectations for quick and affordable publishing; indexing in important citation databases and speedy review are the two most important criteria when choosing a journal; approximately three-quarters of respondents preferred open access journals for publication; some respondents did not recognize the advantages of preprints, while others valued them for rapid dissemination and feedback; respondents expressed confidence in the quality of open access journals for publishing and reading; they believe that open access improves the quality of published papers due to easier publication; approximately three-quarters of respondents think open access journals are important for the development of science. The results indicate that while respondents recognize the main values of open access publishing, they still struggle with its financial aspects and the issue of the value or prestige of open access journals.

KEYWORDS

Croatia; open access; publishing; publishing costs; STEM study programs