I always turn away when escaping side control. Yes, you can expose the back if you get sloppy, but it's the path of least resistance. It's much easier (from the top guy's perspective) to stop a guy from turning into you, being that you can exert force forward driving off your toes, than it is to stop him from turning away from you, seeing as you don't have anywhere near the same leverage to pull him towards you.
My favorite 'turning away' escape is to just collar-tie him with my near side hand, using the elbow in his collarbone to block the back, then do a really low, circular sit-up motion to get up on my far elbow/hand. (Very similar to Marcelo's sit up escape approach, but lower to the ground.) If this fails, I follow it up with the running escape series, but I find it to be the most high percentage option, unless he clamps down on my head and arm with a death grip (in which case you have some reversal options).