Survey on open science attitudes and experiences among Serbian scholars: [Report prepared within the project BE-OPEN - Boosting Engagement of Serbian Universities in Open Science, under WP1: Mapping the Current Open Science Potentials at Serbian Universities]

The main goal of the survey is to explore the Serbian scholars’ experiences with open science in general, as well as to examine their attitudes towards open access practices. Approximately between 7.3% and 8.8% of the population that the questionnaire was addressed to responded to our call and completed the survey. Although such a relatively large response rate suggests that Serbian scholars are motivated to contribute to the implementation of open science practices, the results show that there is much room for improvement regarding knowledge of, and attitudes on, open science in Serbia. Experience of Serbian scholars with open science may be regarded as modest. Only about a third of the participants participated in research projects where open access publishing was mandatory, while slightly more than a half have published in open access (only about a fifth of the participants publish regularly in open access). At the same time, specific fields of science differ considerably not only in their experience and knowledge of open science, but also in their publication behaviour, which is driven by the basic premises of their scientific disciplines. Apparently, in their use of scientific information sources, the researchers mostly rely on public search engines (Google, Google Scholar) and a national service providing access to commercial databases (KoBSON), while the use of national and institutional repositories is far less frequent. In this survey, we assumed that researchers’ motivation for adopting the open science practices is highly influenced by their knowledge of, and attitudes about, open science. The results presented in the final section of this report suggest that misconceptions are present within all scientific fields, with slight differences. Visibility and possibility of higher citedness are almost universally recognized as assets of open science. Given a fairly modest level of experience with OS, great diversity in publication strategies and publication behaviours (including self-depositing), and the reserved attitudes towards OA, the future programs designed to boost awareness of OA issues have to be focused on enhancing both knowledge and motivation for adopting the open science practices. Apparently, raising knowledge would have to contain general information about OS, which would be complemented by the field-specific information aimed at resolving most frequent dilemmas and misconceptions present within each field. Motivation-based aspects of such programs may be facilitated by the researchers’ strongly expressed motivation towards visibility of their scientific output.Project: BE-OPEN (Boosting Engagement of Serbian Universities in Open Science