"Without reading the study and the methodology behind this, it is interesting in terms of results....my initial thought was that most people are encouraged to publish in both, i.e. in journals as well as retaining rights for publication in repositories, so how are these separated in the study." - HSM
Press Release 09-026
Open Access to Scientific Papers May Not Guarantee Wide DisseminationNew research challenges assumption that having research published in open access journals and other free sources leads to more exposure and citations
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Millions of research papers and other scholarly material are available on the internet, however, in many cases a person or library must pay to access them. In recent years, as the internet has helped lower the cost of publishing, more and more scientists have begun publishing their research in open source outlets on the internet. Since these publications are free to anyone with an internet connection, the belief has been that more interested readers will find them and potentially cite them. New research from James A. Evans and Jacob Reimer of the University of Chicago suggests that being in an open source publication does not necessarily increase the number of times a research paper is used by other researchers.
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James Evans, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Chicago, discusses his research into the impact of open source publishing on disseminating scientific information. Evans and his partner Jacob Reimer, a student of neurobiology at the University of Chicago, examined millions of journal articles and other publications. They concluded that having a publication available online in an open source journal did increase the number of times it was read and cited, but having the publication available online in a commercial format increased its usage even more. These findings seemingly contradict previous research into open source publishing. Evans and Reimer did discover that open source publishing provides a vital source of information for researchers and scholars in the developing world who may not otherwise have access to this type of material. Their research appears in the February 20, 2009 edition of the journal Science.
Credit: National Science Foundation/AAAS
The research into open source publications appears in the February 20, 2009, edition of the journal Science.
Credit: Copyright AAAS 2009
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Immediate Open Access Versus Embargoed Access
Evans & Reimer (2009) (E & R) show that a large portion of the increased citations generated by making articles freely accessible online ("Open Access," OA) come from Developing-World authors citing OA articles more. It is very likely that a within-US comparison based on the same data would show much the same effect: making articles OA should increase citations from authors at the Have-Not universities (with the smaller journal subscription budgets) more than from Harvard authors. Articles by Developing World (and US Have-Not) authors should also be cited more if they are made OA, but the main beneficiaries of OA will be the best articles, wherever they are published. This raises the question of how many citations – and how much corresponding research uptake, usage, progress and impact – are lost when articles are embargoed for 6-12 months by their publishers against being made OA by their authors. (It is important to note that E & R's results are not based on immediate OA but on free access after an embargo of up to a year or more.)
For full text of this commentary, see: Open Access Benefits for the Developed and Developing World: The Harvards and the Have-Nots
Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum
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