The aim of this study was to address the need of further studies on researchers’ expectancies and attitudes towards open access publishing. In particular we wanted to focus on acceptance and user behavior regarding institutional archives. The approach is domain specific and was based on a framework of theories on intellectual and social organization of the sciences and communication practices in the digital era. In the study we apply a theoretical model of user acceptance and user behavior (UTAUT) developed by Venkatesh et al. in 2003 as an explanatory model for developing a survey form for a quantitative empirical research on user attitudes and preferences. Thus our research approach is new and crossdisciplinary in the way we combine earlier research results from the fields of organizational theory, information science and information systems science. This is in our view a fruitful approach broadening the theoretical base of the study and bringing in a deeper understanding of the research problems. As a result of the study we will present a model framework and a web survey form for how to carry out the empirical study.