Do open access articles have greater citation impact?: A critical review of the literature |
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| Institution: | 1. Wiley-Blackwell, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK;2. Elsevier, The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford OX5 1GB, UK;3. Thomson Scientific, 3501 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA;1. Wiley-Blackwell, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK;2. Elsevier, The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford OX5 1GB, UK;3. Thomson Scientific, 3501 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA;1. Laboratory for Studies of Research and Technology Transfer at the Institute for System Analysis and Computer Science (IASI-CNR), National Research Council of Italy, Italy;2. Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Impresa, Università degli Studi di Roma “Tor Vergata”, Via del Politecnico 1, 00133 Roma, Italy;1. Faculty of Engineering, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel;2. Faculty of Engineering Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, Israel;1. Eindhoven University of Technology, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, P.O. Box 513, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands;2. University of Twente, Department of Applied Mathematics, P.O. Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands;3. Centre for Science and Technology Studies, Leiden University, P.O. Box 905, 2300 AX Leiden, The Netherlands;1. Department of Computer Science, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL, USA;2. Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL, USA |
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| Abstract: | The last few years have seen the emergence of several open access options in scholarly communication which can broadly be grouped into two areas referred to as ‘gold’ and ‘green’ open access (OA). In this article we review the literature examining the relationship between OA status and citation counts of scholarly articles. Early studies showed a correlation between the free online availability or OA status of articles and higher citation counts, and implied causality without due consideration of potential confounding factors. More recent investigations have dissected the nature of the relationship between article OA status and citations. Three non-exclusive postulates have been proposed to account for the observed citation differences between OA and non-OA articles: an open access postulate, a selection bias postulate, and an early view postulate. The most rigorous study to date (in condensed matter physics) showed that, after controlling for the early view postulate, the remaining difference in citation counts between OA and non-OA articles is explained by the selection bias postulate. No evidence was found to support the OA postulate per se; i.e. article OA status alone has little or no effect on citations. Further studies using a similarly rigorous approach are required to determine the generality of this finding. |
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