Responding To Requests For Reprints: How Do JABA Authors Meassure Up?
A one-question survey can track how often behavior analysts share their work, and you can run the same audit today.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Lindsley (1996) sent a short survey to every author who published in JABA that year.
The survey asked one thing: did you answer the reprint requests you received?
The goal was to see how often scientists share their work when asked.
What they found
Most authors answered the survey, but the paper only reports the response rate to the survey itself.
It does not tell us how many authors actually mailed out reprints.
Still, it shows the idea is trackable: you can count sharing behavior.
How this fits with other research
Brand et al. (2020) used the same simple survey style to ask agencies about privacy fears with smart-home tech.
Both papers prove a one-page survey can map a hidden practice issue fast.
Tarifa-Rodriguez et al. (2024) updated the idea for 2024: they counted social-media shares, likes, and retweets instead of paper reprints.
Together the three studies form a timeline: mail reprints (1996) → email PDFs → public posts (2024).
No clash exists; each layer just tracks the newest way scientists spread their work.
Why it matters
You can copy the 1996 audit today. Pick any new ABA article, email the authors, and log how many reply with a copy within a week.
Turn that number into a staff-training goal: aim for 100 % open sharing.
It takes one afternoon, costs nothing, and shows your team values transparency.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The dissemination of knowledge to other scientists and practitioners in one's field of interest is of critical importance, and the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis has been in the forefront of the dissemination of knowledge for behavior analysts for more than a quarter of a century.Unfortunately, physical access to JABA and other professional journals is difficult for some practitioners and members of the academic community, particularly international professionals (Gnepp, 1981).JABA subscribers span 54 countries other than the United States, and for these subscribers, as well as others who have restricted access to the relevant literature, the responding to requests for reprints continues to be an important avenue for dissemination.In fact, dissemination should be considered ''an ongoing obligation of the authors of scholarly works, part and parcel of the process of disseminating knowledge'' (Thyer, 1994, p. 83).To assess JABA authors' response rate for requests for reprints,
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 1996 · doi:10.1901/jaba.1996.29-589