Category Archives: oa.advantage

Revisiting Methodology for Identifying Open Access Advantages | SpringerLink

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Abstract:  Although many empirical studies have investigated whether open access increases citations, researchers have not reached a consensus regarding the issue. This study revisited the methodology for identifying the effects of open access and revealed the causes for contradictory conclusions using four indices for journals that transitioned from subscription to open access. The four indices are two citation scores along with the number of citations and number of articles for eight journals independently launched by leading publishers. Correlation coefficients were used to compare the time trends in the values of the four indices. Although the aggregated data of the eight journals indicated that open access had a positive effect, the effect varied across journals. A few journals produced different results between the two citation scores as well as between citation scores and number of citations or articles. Furthermore, a publisher’s choice of which journal to shift to open access influenced their performance after the shift. Therefore, results varied based on the choice of journals, indices, and types of data (aggregated vs. individual journals), leading to contradictory conclusions regarding open access advantages.

 

Slow, slow, quick, quick, slow: five altmetric sources observed over a decade show evolving trends, by research age, attention source maturity and open access status | SpringerLink

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The study of temporal trends in altmetrics is under-developed, and this multi-year observation study addresses some of the deficits in our understanding of altmetric behaviour over time. The attention surrounding research outputs, as partially captured by altmetrics, or alternative metrics, constitutes many varied forms of data. Over the years 2008–2013, a set of 7739 papers were sampled on six occasions. Five altmetric data sources were recorded (Twitter, Mendeley, News, Blogs and Policy) and analysed for temporal trends, with particular attention being paid to their Open Access status and discipline. Twitter attention both starts and ends quickly. Mendeley readers accumulate quickly, and continue to grow over the following years. News and blog attention is quick to start, although news attention persists over a longer timeframe. Citations in policy documents are slow to start, and are observed to be growing over a decade after publication. Over time, growth in Twitter activity is confirmed, alongside an apparent decline in blogging attention. Mendeley usage is observed to grow, but shows signs of recent decline. Policy attention is identified as the slowest form of impact studied by altmetrics, and one that strongly favours the Humanities and Social Sciences. The Open Access Altmetrics Advantage is seen to emerge and evolve over time, with each attention source showing different trends. The existence of late-emergent attention in all attention sources is confirmed.

The Future of the Monograph in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences: Publisher Perspectives on a Transitioning Format | SpringerLink

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Abstract:  A web-based survey of academic publishers was undertaken in 2021 by a team at Oxford International Centre for Publishing into the state of monograph publication in the arts, humanities, and social sciences. 25 publishing organisations responded, including many of the larger presses, representing approximately 75% of monograph output. Responses to the survey showed that the Covid 19 pandemic has accelerated the existing trend from print to digital dissemination and that Open Access (OA) titles receive substantially greater levels of usage than those published traditionally. Responses also showed that for most publishers OA publication stands at under 25% of output and that fewer than 10% of authors enquire about OA publication options. Continuing problem areas highlighted by respondents were the clearing of rights for OA publication and the standardisation of title and usage metadata. All responding organisations confirmed that they expect to be publishing monographs in ten years’ time, but that they anticipate the format and/or the model will be different, with open access expected to play a key part in the future, perhaps in the context of a mixed economy of OA and ‘toll access’ publication.

 

Slow, slow, quick, quick, slow: five altmetric sources observed over a decade show evolving trends, by research age, attention source maturity and open access status

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Abstract:  The study of temporal trends in altmetrics is under-developed, and this multi-year observation study addresses some of the deficits in our understanding of altmetric behaviour over time. The attention surrounding research outputs, as partially captured by altmetrics, or alternative metrics, constitutes many varied forms of data. Over the years 2008-2013, a set of 7739 papers were sampled on six occasions. Five altmetric data sources were recorded (Twitter, Mendeley, News, Blogs and Policy) and analysed for temporal trends, with particular attention being paid to their Open Access status and discipline. Twitter attention both starts and ends quickly. Mendeley readers accumulate quickly, and continue to grow over the following years. News and blog attention is quick to start, although news attention persists over a longer timeframe. Citations in policy documents are slow to start, and are observed to be growing over a decade after publication. Over time, growth in Twitter activity is confirmed, alongside an apparent decline in blogging attention. Mendeley usage is observed to grow, but shows signs of recent decline. Policy attention is identified as the slowest form of impact studied by altmetrics, and one that strongly favours the Humanities and Social Sciences. The Open Access Altmetrics Advantage is seen to emerge and evolve over time, with each attention source showing different trends. The existence of late-emergent attention in all attention sources is confirmed.

 

The Effect of Open Access on Scholarly and Societal Metrics of Impact in the ASHA Journals | Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research

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Abstract:  Purpose:

 This study examined the effect of open access (OA) status on scholarly and societal metrics of impact (citation counts and altmetric scores, respectively) across manuscripts published in the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) Journals.

Method:

 

Three thousand four hundred nineteen manuscripts published in four active ASHA Journals were grouped across three access statuses based on their availability to the public: Gold OA, Green OA, and Closed Access. Two linear mixed-effects models tested the effects of OA status on citation counts and altmetric scores of the manuscripts.

Results: 

Both Green OA and Gold OA significantly predicted a 2.70 and 5.21 respective increase in citation counts compared with Closed Access manuscripts (p < .001). Gold OA was estimated to predict a 25.7-point significant increase in altmetric scores (p < .001), but Green OA was only marginally significant (p = .68) in predicting a 1.44 increase in altmetric scores relative to Closed Access manuscripts.

Discussion:

 

Communication sciences and disorders (CSD) research that is fully open receives more online attention and, overall, more scientific attention than research that is paywalled or available through Green OA methods. Additional research is needed to understand secondary variables affecting these and other scholarly and societal metrics of impact across studies in CSD. Ongoing support and incentives to reduce the inequities of OA publishing are critical for continued scientific advancement.

The Effect of Open Access on Scholarly and Societal Metrics of Impact in the ASHA Journals | Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research

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Abstract:  Purpose:

 This study examined the effect of open access (OA) status on scholarly and societal metrics of impact (citation counts and altmetric scores, respectively) across manuscripts published in the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) Journals.

Method:

 

Three thousand four hundred nineteen manuscripts published in four active ASHA Journals were grouped across three access statuses based on their availability to the public: Gold OA, Green OA, and Closed Access. Two linear mixed-effects models tested the effects of OA status on citation counts and altmetric scores of the manuscripts.

Results: 

Both Green OA and Gold OA significantly predicted a 2.70 and 5.21 respective increase in citation counts compared with Closed Access manuscripts (p < .001). Gold OA was estimated to predict a 25.7-point significant increase in altmetric scores (p < .001), but Green OA was only marginally significant (p = .68) in predicting a 1.44 increase in altmetric scores relative to Closed Access manuscripts.

Discussion:

 

Communication sciences and disorders (CSD) research that is fully open receives more online attention and, overall, more scientific attention than research that is paywalled or available through Green OA methods. Additional research is needed to understand secondary variables affecting these and other scholarly and societal metrics of impact across studies in CSD. Ongoing support and incentives to reduce the inequities of OA publishing are critical for continued scientific advancement.

Coverage of DOAJ journals’ citations through OpenCitations – Protocol

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Abstract:  This is the protocol for the research of the coverage of DOAJ journals’ citations through OpenCitations.

Our goal is to find out:

about the coverage of articles from open access journals in DOAJ journals as citing and cited articles,

how many citations do DOAJ journals receive and do, and how many of these citations involve open access articles as both citing and cited entities,

as well as the presence of trends over time of the availability of citations involving articles published in open access journals in DOAJ journals.

Our research focuses on DOAJ journals exclusively, using OpenCitations as a tool. Previous research has been made on open citations using COCI (Heibi, Peroni & Shotton 2019), and on DOAJ journals’ citations (Saadat and Shabani 2012), paving the grounds for our present analysis.

 

After careful considerations on the best way to retrieve data from DOAJ and OpenCitations, we opted for downloading the public data dumps. Using the API resulted in a way too long running time, and the same problem arose for using the SPARQL endpoint of OpenCitations.

Do open-access dermatology articles have higher citation counts than those with subscription-based access? | PLOS ONE

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Abstract:  Background

Open-access (OA) publishing is increasingly prevalent in dermatology, and many journals now offer hybrid options, including conventional (subscription-based access [SA]) publishing or OA (with an author publishing charge) in a subscription journal. OA publishing has been noted in many disciplines, but this has been rarely studied in dermatology.

Methods

Using the Clarivate Journal Citation Report, we compiled a list of English-language dermatology hybrid OA journals containing more than 5% OA articles. We sampled any OA review or original research article in 4 issues from 2018 to 2019 and matched an equal number of SA articles. Citation count, citation count excluding self-citations and view counts found using Scopus and Altmetrics score were recorded for each article. Statistical analyses were performed using logistic and negative binomial models using R software.

Results

Twenty-seven hybrid dermatology journals were found, and 538 articles were sampled (269 OA, 269 SA). For both original research and review articles, OA articles had significantly higher mean citation counts (mean 13.2, standard deviation [SD] 17.0) compared to SA articles (mean 7.9, SD 8.8) (odds ratio [OR] 1.04; 95% CI 1.02–1.05; P < .001) including when adjusted for time from publication. Original research OA articles had significantly higher citation counts than original research SA articles (excluding self-citations; OR, 1.03; 95% CI, 1.01–1.05; P = .003), and review articles also had OA citation advantage than review SA articles (OR, 1.06; 95% CI, 1.02–1.11; P = .008). There was, however, no significant difference in citation counts between review articles and original research articles (OR, 1.00; 95% CI, 0.19–5.31; P = 1.000).

There was no significant difference seen in view counts (OA: mean±SD 17.7±10.8; SA: mean±SD 17.1±12.4) and Altmetric score (OA: mean±SD 13.2±47.8; SA: mean±SD 6.3±25.0) between OA and SA articles. Potential confounders included the fact that more OA articles were published in Europe than in Asia, and pharmaceutical-funded articles were more likely to be published OA.

Conclusions

We noted a higher citation count for OA articles than SA articles in dermatology hybrid journals. However, dermatology researchers should take into account confounding factors when deciding whether to increase the impact of their work by selecting OA over SA publishing.

On the culture of open access: the Sci-hub paradox | Research Square

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Abstract:  Shadow libraries have gradually become key players of scientific knowledge dissemination, despite their illegality in most countries of the world. Many publishers and scientist-editors decry such libraries for their copyright infringement and loss of publication usage information, while some scholars and institutions support them, sometimes in a roundabout way, for their role in reducing inequalities of access to knowledge, particularly in low-income countries. Although there is a wealth of literature on shadow libraries, none of this have focused on its potential role in knowledge dissemination, through the open access movement. Here we analyze how shadow libraries can affect researchers’ citation practices, highlighting some counter-intuitive findings about their impact on the Open Access Citation Advantage (OACA). Based on a large randomized sample, this study first shows that OA publications, including those in fully OA journals, receive more citations than their subscription-based counterparts do. However, the OACA has slightly decreased over the seven last years. The introduction of a distinction between those accessible or not via the Sci-hub platform among subscription-based suggest that the generalization of its use cancels the positive effect of OA publishing. The results show that publications in fully OA journals (and to a lesser extent those in hybrid journals) are victims of the success of Sci-hub. Thus, paradoxically, although Sci-hub may seem to facilitate access to scientific knowledge, it negatively affects the OA movement as a whole, by reducing the comparative advantage of OA publications in terms of visibility for researchers. The democratization of the use of Sci-hub may therefore lead to a vicious cycle against the development of fully OA journals.

 

Do open-access dermatology articles have higher citation counts than those with subscription-based access? | PLOS ONE

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Open-access (OA) publishing is increasingly prevalent in dermatology, and many journals now offer hybrid options, including conventional (subscription-based access [SA]) publishing or OA (with an author publishing charge) in a subscription journal. OA publishing has been noted in many disciplines, but this has been rarely studied in dermatology.

Methods

Using the Clarivate Journal Citation Report, we compiled a list of English-language dermatology hybrid OA journals containing more than 5% OA articles. We sampled any OA review or original research article in 4 issues from 2018 to 2019 and matched an equal number of SA articles. Citation count, citation count excluding self-citations and view counts found using Scopus and Altmetrics score were recorded for each article. Statistical analyses were performed using logistic and negative binomial models using R software.

Results

Twenty-seven hybrid dermatology journals were found, and 538 articles were sampled (269 OA, 269 SA). For both original research and review articles, OA articles had significantly higher mean citation counts (mean 13.2, standard deviation [SD] 17.0) compared to SA articles (mean 7.9, SD 8.8) (odds ratio [OR] 1.04; 95% CI 1.02–1.05; P < .001) including when adjusted for time from publication. Original research OA articles had significantly higher citation counts than original research SA articles (excluding self-citations; OR, 1.03; 95% CI, 1.01–1.05; P = .003), and review articles also had OA citation advantage than review SA articles (OR, 1.06; 95% CI, 1.02–1.11; P = .008). There was, however, no significant difference in citation counts between review articles and original research articles (OR, 1.00; 95% CI, 0.19–5.31; P = 1.000).

There was no significant difference seen in view counts (OA: mean±SD 17.7±10.8; SA: mean±SD 17.1±12.4) and Altmetric score (OA: mean±SD 13.2±47.8; SA: mean±SD 6.3±25.0) between OA and SA articles. Potential confounders included the fact that more OA articles were published in Europe than in Asia, and pharmaceutical-funded articles were more likely to be published OA.

Conclusions

We noted a higher citation count for OA articles than SA articles in dermatology hybrid journals. However, dermatology researchers should take into account confounding factors when deciding whether to increase the impact of their work by selecting OA over SA publishing.

Does it pay to pay? A comparison of the benefits of open-access publishing across various sub-fields in Biology | bioRxiv

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Abstract:  Authors are often faced with the decision of whether to maximize impact or minimize costs when publishing the results of their research. For example, to potentially improve impact via increased accessibility, many subscription-based journals now offer the option of paying a fee to publish open access (i.e., hybrid journals), but this solution excludes authors who lack the capacity to pay to make their research accessible. Here, we tested if paying to publish open access in a subscriptionbased journal benefited authors by conferring more citations relative to closed access articles. We identified 146,415 articles published in 152 hybrid journals in the field of biology from 2013-2018 to compare the number of citations between various types of open access and closed access articles. In a simple generalized linear model analysis of our full dataset, we found that publishing open access in hybrid journals that offer the option confers an average citation advantage to authors of 17.8 citations compared to closed access articles in similar journals. After taking into account the number of authors, journal impact, year of publication, and subject area, we still found that open access generated significantly more citations than closed access (p < 0.0001). However, results were complex, with exact differences in citation rates among access types impacted by these other variables. This citation advantage based on access type was even similar when comparing open and closed access articles published in the same issue of a journal (p < 0.0001). However, by examining articles where the authors paid an article processing charge, we found that cost itself was not predictive of citation rates (p = 0.14). Based on our findings of access type and other model parameters, we suggest that, in most cases, paying for access does confer a citation advantage. For authors with limited budgets, we recommend pursuing open access alternatives that do not require paying a fee as they still yielded more citations than closed access. For authors who are considering where to submit their next article, we offer additional suggestions on how to balance exposure via citations with publishing costs.

 

Open Access and Research Metrics – ChronosHub

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“Let’s talk about research metrics, notably journal and article metrics, in an open access context. Is open access content read and hence cited more widely? Do open access journals have a higher impact factor than non-OA journals, or vice versa? And how does flipping a journal from closed to open affect the Impact Factor? Should we be looking at other metrics for open access content? And what are authors looking for, when choosing journals to submit their articles to? Our panelists will share their insights and possible answers to these questions through short presentations and a discussion.”

Cureus | Association Between Twitter Mention and Open-Access Status on Article Citation Metrics in the Field of Ophthalmology

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Abstract:  Introduction: It is possible that social media use can boost not just articles’ social impact but the number of citations and academic influence as well. If a positive correlation between Twitter usage and citation metrics exists in the ophthalmology literature, it is important to broadcast this information to the ophthalmology community so they can use Twitter to increase academic engagement with their research. There has also been an increase in the number of articles available as open access. Therefore, it is important to evaluate the presence of an open-access citation advantage in the field of ophthalmology. This study aims to evaluate the relationship between Twitter mention and open access status on citation metrics in the ophthalmology literature.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective cross-sectional study comparing article citation metrics to Twitter mentions and open access status. We gathered data on ophthalmology research articles from the six highest-ranked ophthalmology journals published as part of a January 2019 issue. Data were collected in April 2022, 38 months after online publication. Data on citations for each article was based on Google Scholar and Scopus websites. The Altmetric Bookmarklet extension was used to determine the amount of social engagement each article received. The open-access status of each article was based on the status listed in its corresponding journal. Two-tailed t-tests were used to compare social media engagement and open access status with the number of Google Scholar and Scopus citations.

Results: A total of 102 original research articles were analyzed. 89 (87.3%) articles received a Twitter mention. Articles tweeted at least once had a significantly higher Google Scholar score (27.2 +/- 4) compared to articles not tweeted (16.4 +/- 1.7; 1.7-fold increase, p<0.05). Likewise, the average Scopus score was significantly higher for tweeted articles (18.6 +/- 2.6) compared to articles not tweeted (11.8 +/- 1.6; 1.6-fold increase, p<0.05). Articles listed as open access had a significantly higher number of Twitter mentions (11.8 +/- 1.8) compared to articles that were not open access (5.6 +/- 0.7; 2.1-fold increase, p<0.05). Open-access articles also had higher citation scores compared to articles that are not open access, but this relationship was not statistically significant.

Conclusion: This is the first study to evaluate the relationship between article Twitter mention and citation score in the field of ophthalmology. It demonstrates a significant positive correlation between the article Twitter mention and citation score and provides further evidence that social media engagement can be beneficial to the dissemination of academic information. Further studies on the relationship between social media engagement and article dissemination are warranted in the field of ophthalmology.

Motivations, concerns and selection biases when posting preprints: A survey of bioRxiv authors | PLOS ONE

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Abstract:  Since 2013, the usage of preprints as a means of sharing research in biology has rapidly grown, in particular via the preprint server bioRxiv. Recent studies have found that journal articles that were previously posted to bioRxiv received a higher number of citations or mentions/shares on other online platforms compared to articles in the same journals that were not posted. However, the exact causal mechanism for this effect has not been established, and may in part be related to authors’ biases in the selection of articles that are chosen to be posted as preprints. We aimed to investigate this mechanism by conducting a mixed-methods survey of 1,444 authors of bioRxiv preprints, to investigate the reasons that they post or do not post certain articles as preprints, and to make comparisons between articles they choose to post and not post as preprints. We find that authors are most strongly motivated to post preprints to increase awareness of their work and increase the speed of its dissemination; conversely, the strongest reasons for not posting preprints centre around a lack of awareness of preprints and reluctance to publicly post work that has not undergone a peer review process. We additionally find evidence that authors do not consider quality, novelty or significance when posting or not posting research as preprints, however, authors retain an expectation that articles they post as preprints will receive more citations or be shared more widely online than articles not posted.

 

Guest Post – Wikipedia’s Citations Are Influencing Scholars and Publishers – The Scholarly Kitchen

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“A well-written Wikipedia page will cite scholarly publications with links to the articles in those citations that can be accessed immediately by users. At the 2019 Charleston Conference keynote, Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle claimed that 6% of Wikipedia readers click on a link in the footnotes (although another study found that it was more like 0.03%). In 2016, Wikipedia was the 6th-largest referrer for DOIs, with half of referrals successfully authenticating to access the article. External links on Wikipedia produce an estimated 7 million dollars of revenue per month. Given that Wikipedia is such a popular website, it’s unsurprising that academic publishers are actively pursuing ways to promote their work on Wikipedia. 

Scholarly publishers have reported increased traffic as a result of giving access to their publications to Wikipedia editors, and a controlled experiment on Wikipedia shows that they are right to value Wikipedia citations. Works cited on Wikipedia have an outsized influence on scholarly work — specifically in its literature reviews. Additionally, one research article found that open-access (OA) articles were cited more frequently than non-OA articles on Wikipedia in 2014, an idea supported by the generally increased readership of OA articles compared to paid-access articles (all of these ideas are explained in more detail below). …”