[GOAL] Re: Tireless Ad Hoc Critiques of OA Study After OA Study: Will Wishful Thinking Ever Cease?

[Stefan Busch]

To my knowledge the only serious studies that did not find an OA
citation advantage are those conducted by Phil Davies, e.g.
http://www.fasebj.org/content/early/2011/03/29/fj.11-183988.full.pdf+htm
l . While the selection of articles here was randomized, the selection
of journals was not. The "participating journals" tended to be
high-impact ones, effectively must-reads for the researchers in the
relevant discipline, or even beyond, meaning that practically all those
in a position to contribute to the citation count had read the articles.
Hence no surprise that there was no meaningfully higher citation rate
for articles for which the subscription barrier had been lifted.

For journals that do not fall into the "must-read category", however,
there is a marked difference, or at least we - at BioMed Central -
observe a marked difference. Typically after 2 or 3 years after a
journal converts from TA to OA, i.e. when the impact factor (the one
everybody refers to) is based on two years' worth of OA, the IF tends to
go up significantly. More anecdotal evidence, yes, but necessarily so as
the only strictly non-anecdotal evidence for the OA citation effect is
impossible to deliver (working with the same set of articles ....). Over
the coming years, when there will be more data on journals whose
conversion to OA happened two or more years ago, there will be a raft of
such anecdotal evidence.    

Stefan Busch

-----Original Message-----
From: goal-bounces at eprints.org [mailto:goal-bounces at eprints.org] On
Behalf Of Andrew A. Adams
Sent: 23 March 2012 09:08
To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)
Subject: [GOAL] Re: Tireless Ad Hoc Critiques of OA Study After OA
Study: Will Wishful Thinking Ever Cease?


 
> Is it really common sense? You write: "Not only is OA research
> downloaded and cited more -- as common sense would expect, as a result
> of making it accessible free for all, rather than just for those whose
> institutions can afford a subscription".
> 
> First, downloaded more - I can agree. But cited more? This might be an
> entire different matter. Usually, as common sense would expect,
> researchers will cite. The general public, however, will not cite -
> they do not publish research articles. Given that researchers have
> "more" access than the general public, due to the access policies of
> their institution (paid-for-access, open-access, access-by-delivery),
> the citations to articles will not be hampered by
> accessibility. Because when it comes to citing an article, a serious
> researcher has to read it. And to read it, means: getting access, in
> one way or another.

Jan,

You are putting the cart before the horse here. A decision to cite
depends 
(when the researcher is doing their job properly) on being able to read.
Only 
after an article has been read can the decision to cite or not come into
it. 
For some articles it may be plain from what is toll-fre accesible (the
title 
for pretty much all articles, the abstract for almost all) that an
article is 
important enough to pay whatever price is demanded for access in order
to 
read it and then perhaps to cite it. Given that the cost for an article
to 
which one has no institutional subscription access is usually, in my 
experience, $30+ for access, then in most cases I would expect
researchers to 
look for alternative articles to read on a topic in which they are
looking 
for relevant material. Those alternative articles will be one to which
their 
institution has a subscription or those for which an OA version is
easily 
available  (typically through a search engine though also through web
links 
and through repository browsing and other routes).

If one works in a narrow field one is likely to have access to the small

number of journals one needs. The broader one's field, and for 
interdisciplinary researchers this is a particular problem, the less
likely 
it is that one's institution has a relevant subscription.

My own approach is certainly this. When looking at an area of research I
use 
various methods of finding apparently-appropriate material, which I then

delve deeper into, spiralling in on what is available to me (through 
subscription or OA) and reading a little bit more at each stage until I
get 
to the point of reading a whole article before perhaps citing it. If I
don't 
have access to the article, it doesn't even get added to my citaton
database 
- what would be the point? I can't cite it if I can't read it and I have

never paid for access to an inividual article --- I check for a version
I can 
access, subscription or OA, then email the author if I can to ask for an

eprint, but if that fails I abandon the idea of reading that article and
move 
on. There's more published in my area than I could read all of so I read
and 
then cite from what's available to me.

Anecdote not evidence, sure, but the large amounts of data on OA
increasing 
citation rates does seem clear - in all significantly sized studies with

appropriately chosen sets of articles, those that are available without
cost 
to any and all potential citers are more often cited than those for whom

potential citers are limited to those in institutions with subscription 
access to that article or those persuaded sight unseen to pay for access
to 
that specific article.

-- 
Professor Andrew A Adams                      aaa at meiji.ac.jp
Professor at Graduate School of Business Administration,  and
Deputy Director of the Centre for Business Information Ethics
Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan       http://www.a-cubed.info/


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