Document Type

Presentation

Version Deposited

Not Published

Publication Date

11-21-2025

Abstract

Presented at STEM Librarian Collaborative Conference 2025:

https://www.stemlib.co/schedule.html

Transformative agreements, also known as read and publish agreements, are a relatively new journal subscription model used by academic libraries to facilitate both access to scholarly content and open-access publishing for institutionally affiliated researchers. In these agreements, institutions pay publishers a single fee that covers both access to subscription content and the publication costs for their affiliated authors, thereby shifting the traditional subscription model towards a more sustainable and equitable system for scholarly communication.

A preliminary literature review has revealed previous studies that address several of the topics being investigated in this proposed research project such as Parmhed’s 2023 study (1), which found that transformative read and publish agreements led to an increase in institutional publishing frequency in Open Access journals and Yang’s 2015 study (2) revealed concerns and barriers by some faculty members reported in publishing their works via Open Access.

Our research project delves into the adoption and impact of 17 newly launched transformative Open Access publishing agreements on faculty publishing behaviors and perspectives. Through a mixed-methods approach involving one survey and multiple one-on-one interviews, the research team of four academic librarians aims to uncover how introducing these new agreements has influenced the publishing choices of researchers and their perceptions of Open Access publishing in general. Findings from this study will contribute to the scholarship on transformative agreements and inform future strategies for promoting Open Access within academic communities. The study also aims to investigate the impact of these initiatives on researchers' decisions regarding publication venues and their overall support for Open Access publishing. Insights gained from this study can inform the ongoing development and refinement of scholarly communication initiatives within the university and the broader academic community.

Research questions examined and presented:

Through a mixed-methods approach involving a cross-sectional survey and interviews, the research team aims to uncover how the introduction of transformative agreements influenced University researchers' perception of open-access publishing?

How have the new transformative agreements influenced University authors’ choice of journal?

Have transformative agreements changed authors' opinions on the quality of open-access publications?

How access to these agreements may have impacted academic departments' views on the prestige and impact of Open Access journals.

Preliminary findings from both the survey and interview data will be shared during the presentation, offering early insights into faculty publishing behaviors and attitudes toward the new transformative agreements. This is an important contribution as these agreements continue to be adopted by US academic institutions.

  1. Parmhed, Sara, and Johanna Säll. "Transformative agreements and their practical impact: a librarian perspective." Insights the UKSG journal 36 (2023).

  1. Yang, Zheng Y. Lan, and Yu Li. "University faculty awareness and attitudes towards open access publishing and the institutional repository: A case study." Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication 3, no. 1 (2015).

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Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

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