<div dir="ltr"><br><div class="gmail_quote">---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>From: <b class="gmail_sendername">Stevan Harnad</b> <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:amsciforum@gmail.com">amsciforum@gmail.com</a>></span><br>Date: Sun, Sep 14, 2014 at 4:24 PM<br>Subject: The Open Access Citation Advantage<br>To: ASIS&T Special Interest Group on Metrics <<a href="mailto:SIGMETRICS@listserv.utk.edu">SIGMETRICS@listserv.utk.edu</a>><br><br><br><div dir="ltr"><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px">A <a href="http://www.currentscience.ac.in/Volumes/107/05/0733.pdf" target="_blank">CSIR-NISCAIR (India) study</a> by Prathap (2014) compared OA and non-OA by comparing journal impact factors for 13 Indian journals betore and after they converted to Gold OA (2004-2014) and found no difference. </div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px"><br></div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px">Comparing journal impact factors before and after conversion to OA are not the best way to test the OA citation advantage, which should be tested at the individual article level, within journals, for OA and non-OA articles published at the same time. Many things change across time. </div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px"><br></div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px">Prathap cites the work of <a href="http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2014/08/05/is-open-access-a-cause-or-an-effect/" target="_blank">Davis</a> who in turn cites the <a href="http://www.nature.com/press_releases/ncomms-report2014.pdf" target="_blank">RIN study</a> and the <a href="http://blogs.nature.com/ofschemesandmemes/2014/07/30/investigating-the-open-access-citation-advantage" target="_blank">Nature Blog article</a> about the OA citation (and download) advantage.</div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px"><br></div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px">The RIN within-journal study found a small citation advantage for paid hybrid Gold OA <i>Nature Communications</i> articles compared to non-OA Nature Communications articles 2010-2014.</div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px"><br></div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px">Phil Davis cited an error in the RIN study -- OA and non-OA may have been mixed up — and re-iterated his preferred hypothesis that the OA citation advantage is a self-selection artifact (but also suggested that because of the RIN error, the actual OA citation advantage, though a self-selection artifact, might be much bigger!).</div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px"><br></div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px">I have not since heard an official confirmation or correction of any error by RIN or Nature.</div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px"><br></div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px">As to the self-selection hypothesis, I tried to post a commentary on the Nature Blog where the RIN study was discussed by <a href="http://blogs.nature.com/ofschemesandmemes/2014/07/30/investigating-the-open-access-citation-advantage" target="_blank">Ellen Collins of RIN</a> (but I’m not sure whether it will appear: the software never acknowledged getting it, and I posted twice):</div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px"><br></div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px">The RIN study did not compare non-OA vs. OA in general but non-OA versus hybrid Gold OA in particular (hence a self-selected decision as to whether or not to pay for hybrid Gold OA). </div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px"><br></div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px">I pointed out that our 2010 within-journal OA/non-OA comparison (<a href="http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0013636" target="_blank">Gargouri et al</a>) had shown — for individual articles, with a far larger sample, across all journals and disciplines, and for unpaid Green OA self-archiving rather than for hybrid Gold OA payment — that there is an OA citation advantage of the same size regardless of whether the (Green) OA is self-selected or mandatory.</div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px"><br></div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px">Most of the OA advantage studies either compare on too short a time period (too early for the OA advantage to be detectable) or they average across too long a time period in which the <i>timing of the OA itself </i>is unknown. The timing of OA is important, however, because some publishers embargo OA for a year, and<a href="http://openaccess.eprints.org/uploads/citegrowarxiv.jpg" target="_blank"> late access may never make up the lost access</a>. </div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px"><br></div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px">Future repository-based studies, where the date on which the paper is made OA can be determined, relative to the paper’s acceptance data and publication date), will allow OA timing to be controlled better. </div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px"><br></div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px">Timing (as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causality" target="_blank">David Hume</a> would agree) is crucial to inferring causality (even if it cannot “prove” it).</div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px"><br></div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px">Meanwhile, I’d say that it still remains most likely that there is indeed a significant OA citation advantage, and that the advantage is causal, not just an artifactual side-effect of author self-selection. Ditto for the even bigger OA download advantage (and the two effects are unlikely to be unconnected!).</div><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px"><br></div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px">Stevan Harnad</div></font></span></div>
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