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The Open Access Citation Advantage: Quality Advantage Or Quality Bias?

The Open Access Citation Advantage: Quality Advantage Or Quality Bias?
The Open Access Citation Advantage: Quality Advantage Or Quality Bias?
Many studies have now reported the positive correlation between Open Access (OA) self-archiving and citation counts ("OA Advantage," OAA). But does this OAA occur because (QB) authors are more likely to self-selectively self-archive articles that are more likely to be cited (self-selection "Quality Bias": QB)? or because (QA) articles that are self-archived are more likely to be cited ("Quality Advantage": QA)? The probable answer is both. Three studies [by (i) Kurtz and co-workers in astrophysics, (ii) Moed in condensed matter physics, and (iii) Davis & Fromerth in mathematics] had reported the OAA to be due to QB [plus Early Advantage, EA, from self-archiving the preprint before publication, in (i) and (ii)] rather than QA. These three fields, however, (1) have less of a postprint access problem than most other fields and (i) and (ii) also happen to be among the minority of fields that (2) make heavy use of prepublication preprints. Chawki Hajjem has now analyzed preliminary evidence based on over 100,000 articles from multiple fields, comparing self-selected self-archiving with mandated self-archiving to estimate the contributions of QB and QA to the OAA. Both factors contribute, and the contribution of QA is greater.
open access, self-archiving, citation, research impact, scientometrics, mandates
Hajjem, Chawki
4bf0a8ac-941b-4573-bc97-8748e1356bc3
Harnad, Stevan
442ee520-71a1-4283-8e01-106693487d8b
Hajjem, Chawki
4bf0a8ac-941b-4573-bc97-8748e1356bc3
Harnad, Stevan
442ee520-71a1-4283-8e01-106693487d8b

Hajjem, Chawki and Harnad, Stevan (2007) The Open Access Citation Advantage: Quality Advantage Or Quality Bias?

Record type: Monograph (Project Report)

Abstract

Many studies have now reported the positive correlation between Open Access (OA) self-archiving and citation counts ("OA Advantage," OAA). But does this OAA occur because (QB) authors are more likely to self-selectively self-archive articles that are more likely to be cited (self-selection "Quality Bias": QB)? or because (QA) articles that are self-archived are more likely to be cited ("Quality Advantage": QA)? The probable answer is both. Three studies [by (i) Kurtz and co-workers in astrophysics, (ii) Moed in condensed matter physics, and (iii) Davis & Fromerth in mathematics] had reported the OAA to be due to QB [plus Early Advantage, EA, from self-archiving the preprint before publication, in (i) and (ii)] rather than QA. These three fields, however, (1) have less of a postprint access problem than most other fields and (i) and (ii) also happen to be among the minority of fields that (2) make heavy use of prepublication preprints. Chawki Hajjem has now analyzed preliminary evidence based on over 100,000 articles from multiple fields, comparing self-selected self-archiving with mandated self-archiving to estimate the contributions of QB and QA to the OAA. Both factors contribute, and the contribution of QA is greater.

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More information

Published date: January 2007
Additional Information: Commentary On: http://arxiv.org/abs/cs.DL/0611060
Keywords: open access, self-archiving, citation, research impact, scientometrics, mandates
Organisations: Web & Internet Science

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 263328
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/263328
PURE UUID: 9d768b1c-6568-4a8d-b413-d98701d12212
ORCID for Stevan Harnad: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-6153-1129

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 21 Jan 2007
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 02:48

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Contributors

Author: Chawki Hajjem
Author: Stevan Harnad ORCID iD

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