Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Overall, I thought this paper was excellent, and would be an incredible addition to recent scholarship on OA. I thought the paper was very well-written and presented, and had a very strong set of supporting references throughout the paper. I only had a few minor comments for consideration.

Opening sentence- I thought the "OA refers to the unrestricted online access, sharing, and re-use of scholarly research" was in general true, though I wonder if the author could add the word "largely" or something similar before unrestricted? I know the author later delved into the nuances between levels of OA, and I think there could be an argument that Green OA does have some restrictions, in that it is not the final published version of a scholarly article.

The methodology was excellent, and I thoroughly enjoyed this study and adjoining paper. I think this could be a great base to apply for similar studies to other topics/disciplines. 

Additionally, the use of graphs and tables were very well used and I believe help illustrate the study very well. (Perhaps a question for the editor, but will some figures be in color? Specifically 1 and 2 I think would benefit by color)

I thought the future research directions section was good, though I wonder if the author might expand a bit on the libraries' role. I think this is an area that I think is of particular interest (especially since I think practitioners will be excited to look at local applications of this study). 

And lastly, I was looking around for other scholarship on this topic, and found one interesting article from the researcher POV on whether or not to share scholarship using tools such as shareyourpaper. Adding it here in case it's of interest- Murphy, E.J. An Ethical Dilemma: To Share or Not To Share Your Paper Published in Lipids Using an On-Line Outlet. Lipids 52, 573–574 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11745-017-4268-8

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The text is an interesting article that analyzes the potential of open access in clinical trial results publications. It shows the limits still existing in self-archiving practices.

The structure is correct and well-written.

Regarding the methodology, it is well-developed. The process is correct and developed. Tools such as Unpaywall and Shareyourpaper are chosen. However, there needs to be a clear justification for selecting these tools.

The research questions should be numbered (RQ1, RQ2) and referred to in this way in the text, checking if they could be answered or not.

Some statements could be qualified or expanded: i.e., self-archiving mandates at the level of German research institutions and funders remain uncommon. Do they exist? If so, what do they specify? The authors could develop this point further to frame the study better. Although the authors mentioned it in the discussion, they should incorporate some introductory considerations previously.

The figure caption texts are too long. Reconsider including some parts of these pieces of information in the main text.

 

Regarding future directions, I will develop more the relationship with libraries' involvement in using this methodology and tools. 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf