Impact

Open Access increases citation? A brief overview of two reports Impact
Photo by adamr

Open Access increases citation? A brief overview of two reports

March 26, 2013 2195

Photo by adamr

Last week I have published a post about visibility and citations in Open Access. The post was referring to the results of two separate reports related to the subject. As the question of visibility and citations in OA journals and books remains valid, being a subject of intense debate in scientific community, the issue is worth exploring.

This time round I would like to mention two interesting researches, which studied the coverage and range of citations in Open Access offering, basing on comparison between OA and non-OA journals.

The research conducted by Michael Norris is quite thorough, on almost 400 pages the author describes the results of his extensive analysis in: “The citation advantage of open access articles”.

The aim of the research was to compare the level of citations between OA and not-OA articles in journals from very different scientific disciplines indeed, like ecology, applied mathematics, sociology and economics. The researchers performed two rounds of data collection. In the first one, they examined 4633 articles for the four subjects from high impact journals. 2280 (49%) were OA and had an average citation count of 9.04; in the case of closed journals (e.g. – published behind pay walls) the citation count leveled at an astonishingly meager 5.76. What is interesting, sociology had the highest citation advantage –  but at the same time – the lowest number of OA articles.

“The citation advantage of open access articles” is worth further examination and I will keep coming back to this subject in a near future, but at the moment I would like to focus on the second research. “Open access publishing, article downloads, and citations: randomised controlled trial” is a study designed to measure the effect of free access to the scientific literature, basing on the amount of total article downloads and citations. The researchers examined 1619 articles and reviews from 11 journals published by the American Physiological Society.

The results are remarkable and show a definite link between publishing open access and the number of following article downloads and of unique visitors in the six months after publication. The report reads:

“Full text downloads were 89% higher, PDF downloads 42% higher, and unique visitors 23% higher for open access articles than for subscription access articles. Abstract downloads were 24% lower for open access articles. “

It has been confirmed: longer articles, articles with more references, and those published in journals with higher impact factors had significantly more downloads; more downloads are also attributed to the publicity and reviews in scientific and lay press review. Having the article featured on the front cover of the journal – can also bring about an increase in full text downloads.

The study reveals two interesting facts. First of all, Open Access benefits higher visibility of articles – i.e. –  the number of downloads. Still, publishing an article in an open access journal doesn’t necessary influence the level of citations, not at least in the first 9-12 months.

Here we come! Two different methods and two different results. Which one is more accurate? It is hard to determine. Open Access is not a panacea for all problems. It does not automatically increase the level of citations. But, without doubt, it helps when it comes to getting more visibility, which obviously is of a great advantage for the articles and their authors. There are other factors in play which shape the level of citations for specific paper; for example the Impact Factor of journal,  promotion efforts of publisher and author himself, the chosen subject and field of research, as well as an extended reference list at the end of a research paper. All these factors may have impact on citations level. But all in all, almost all studies into this subject confirm –  direct or indirect –  positive impact of Open Access on level of citations.

Find the original article, and more like it,  on the Open Science blog

READ RELATED ARTICLES

Open Access and the Privatisation of Knowledge

Social Science’s Dangerously Low Profile, and How to Fix It

OA and the UK Humanities & Social Sciences

Implementing Finch Conference

Related Articles

Three Decades of Rural Health Research and a Bumper Crop of Insights from South Africa
Impact
March 27, 2024

Three Decades of Rural Health Research and a Bumper Crop of Insights from South Africa

Read Now
Daniel Kahneman, 1934-2024: The Grandfather of Behavioral Economics
News
March 27, 2024

Daniel Kahneman, 1934-2024: The Grandfather of Behavioral Economics

Read Now
Using Translational Research as a Model for Long-Term Impact
Impact
March 21, 2024

Using Translational Research as a Model for Long-Term Impact

Read Now
2024 Holberg Prize Goes to Political Theorist Achille Mbembe
News
March 14, 2024

2024 Holberg Prize Goes to Political Theorist Achille Mbembe

Read Now
Norman B. Anderson, 1955-2024: Pioneering Psychologist and First Director of OBSSR

Norman B. Anderson, 1955-2024: Pioneering Psychologist and First Director of OBSSR

Norman B. Anderson, a clinical psychologist whose work as both a researcher and an administrator saw him serve as the inaugural director of the U.S. National Institute of Health’s Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research and as chief executive officer of the American Psychological Association, died on March 1.

Read Now
New Feminist Newsletter The Evidence Makes Research on Gender Inequality Widely Accessible

New Feminist Newsletter The Evidence Makes Research on Gender Inequality Widely Accessible

Gloria Media, with support from Sage, has launched The Evidence, a feminist newsletter that covers what you need to know about gender […]

Read Now
New Podcast Series Applies Social Science to Social Justice Issues

New Podcast Series Applies Social Science to Social Justice Issues

Sage (the parent of Social Science Space) and the Surviving Society podcast have launched a collaborative podcast series, Social Science for Social […]

Read Now
0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

4 Comments
Newest
Oldest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Pablo Markin

This is a good point. At the same time, if bodies disbursing public support to scholarly research, such as the Austrian Science Fund, are to have a long-term impact on the sustainability of the entire academic ecosystem that they directly or indirectly finance, either Gold or Green Open Access can be one of the more important venues for that, since the discourse on impact factor scores reinforces the dominant position of few private, profit-oriented publishers in the paywall-based journal sector. High adoption rates of Open Access seem to indicate that slowly gains in acceptance in the academic community: http://openscience.com/the-performance-of-the-austrian-science-funds-open-access-promotion-policy/.

Pablo Markin

Another topic to discuss is article processing charges (APCs) that publishing in the open access model frequently involves: http://openscience.com/how-much-do-top-publishers-charge-for-open-access/.

Robert Dingwall

This is a very difficult area because so much work has been done retrospectively trying to compare apples and oranges with a lot of statistical jiggery-pokery. These data are interesting – but they are also broadly consistent with Davis’s work – which underlines even more strongly the lack of difference in citation impact over a two year period. Davis, P. (2008) ‘Open access publishing, article downloads, and citations: randomised controlled trial’, BMJ 2008;337:a568; doi:10.1136/bmj.a568 See also the interview with Davis at http://www.researchtrends.com/issue12-july-2009/expert-opinion-3/ OA may get work read – but this is not the same as citation and impact. How many… Read more »