The open access movement and Cuban health research work: an author survey

Objective: To assess the level of knowledge about and the attitudes of the Cuban health researchers towards the open access movement. Methods: A descriptive, cross‐sectional study was conducted from March to June 2007 through a printed questionnaire administered to a group of Cuban researchers from several national health institutes, who were selected by means of a stratified random sampling (160 researchers from 11 institutions). Summary statistics and bivariate correlations were obtained using the spss statistical program, version 10.0 for Windows. Results: The best known initiatives for researchers were those related to biomedical sciences, i.e. PubMed Central, HINARI and BioMed Central. The rate of publication in open access journals and deposit in open access repositories was low. Most of researchers (85%) agree to upload a copy of their papers onto an open access repository if their institution requests so. Conclusions: Our findings indicate a need for the promotion of the beneficial aspects of the open access movement, as well as training and encouragement for researchers so that they can take full advantage of the potential of this movement.