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Open Access to Research Increases Citation Impact

Open Access to Research Increases Citation Impact
Open Access to Research Increases Citation Impact
We analyzed the effect of providing 'Open Access' (OA; free online access to research articles) on their 'citation impact' (how often they are cited). Using a subset of the ISI CD-ROM database from 1992 - 2003, we compared, within each journal and year, articles to which their authors had (OA) or had not (NOA) provided open access by self-archiving them on the web. The number of OA and NOA articles and their respective citation counts were calculated within biology, business, psychology and sociology journals. The percentage of OA articles varied from 5-20% (mean and median, 12%). The citation counts (OA-NOA/NOA) showed a consistent OA advantage (mean 96%, median 73%) for all four fields and 28 subspecialties tested, varying from 25% to over 250%. An OA impact advantage has already been reported in the physical sciences and engineering (physics, computer science), but there was uncertainty about whether the same thing happens in other disciplines. Our data now show that both the biological and the social sciences show the OA advantage, and are hence likewise losing substantial amounts of potential impact for the 80-95% of their articles that are not yet self-archived. These results confirm that a mandatory self-archiving policy on the part of research institutions and funders would greatly enhance the impact of research results in all disciplines.
eprints, self-archiving, citation analysis, research impact, research funding, research assessment, institutional repositories, open access
Hajjem, Chawki
4bf0a8ac-941b-4573-bc97-8748e1356bc3
Gingras, Yves
403ebefd-91d1-4e2b-89cc-be8fe4aaf591
Brody, Tim
5a940894-c1e0-4754-81f6-430b7492a941
Carr, Les
0572b10e-039d-46c6-bf05-57cce71d3936
Harnad, Stevan
442ee520-71a1-4283-8e01-106693487d8b
Hajjem, Chawki
4bf0a8ac-941b-4573-bc97-8748e1356bc3
Gingras, Yves
403ebefd-91d1-4e2b-89cc-be8fe4aaf591
Brody, Tim
5a940894-c1e0-4754-81f6-430b7492a941
Carr, Les
0572b10e-039d-46c6-bf05-57cce71d3936
Harnad, Stevan
442ee520-71a1-4283-8e01-106693487d8b

Hajjem, Chawki, Gingras, Yves, Brody, Tim, Carr, Les and Harnad, Stevan (2005) Open Access to Research Increases Citation Impact

Record type: Monograph (Project Report)

Abstract

We analyzed the effect of providing 'Open Access' (OA; free online access to research articles) on their 'citation impact' (how often they are cited). Using a subset of the ISI CD-ROM database from 1992 - 2003, we compared, within each journal and year, articles to which their authors had (OA) or had not (NOA) provided open access by self-archiving them on the web. The number of OA and NOA articles and their respective citation counts were calculated within biology, business, psychology and sociology journals. The percentage of OA articles varied from 5-20% (mean and median, 12%). The citation counts (OA-NOA/NOA) showed a consistent OA advantage (mean 96%, median 73%) for all four fields and 28 subspecialties tested, varying from 25% to over 250%. An OA impact advantage has already been reported in the physical sciences and engineering (physics, computer science), but there was uncertainty about whether the same thing happens in other disciplines. Our data now show that both the biological and the social sciences show the OA advantage, and are hence likewise losing substantial amounts of potential impact for the 80-95% of their articles that are not yet self-archived. These results confirm that a mandatory self-archiving policy on the part of research institutions and funders would greatly enhance the impact of research results in all disciplines.

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Published date: 2005
Keywords: eprints, self-archiving, citation analysis, research impact, research funding, research assessment, institutional repositories, open access
Organisations: Web & Internet Science

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 261687
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/261687
PURE UUID: bb0fe3a5-0b84-4d0b-bb36-349ca72c2c3f
ORCID for Les Carr: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-2113-9680
ORCID for Stevan Harnad: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-6153-1129

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 16 Dec 2005
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 02:48

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Contributors

Author: Chawki Hajjem
Author: Yves Gingras
Author: Tim Brody
Author: Les Carr ORCID iD
Author: Stevan Harnad ORCID iD

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