2006/07/31 by Τ. S. Metcalfe, Travis S. Metcalfe · 4 citations
Computer Science · Decision Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #Academic Publishing and Open Access #Research Data Management Practices #astro-ph #scientometrics and bibliometrics research
paper · pdf · doi:10.1007/s11207-006-0262-7
published as Solar Phys. 239 (2006) 549-553 · 5 pages, 1 table, Solar Physics accepted
arxiv created 2006/10/16 · openalex publication_date 2006/11/30 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
Papers that are posted to a digital preprint archive are typically cited twice as often as papers that are not posted. This has been demonstrated for papers published in a wide variety of journals, and in many different subfields of astronomy. Most astronomers now use the arXiv.org server ( astro-ph ) to distribute preprints, but the solar physics community has an independent archive hosted at Montana State University. For several samples of solar physics papers published in 2003, I quantify the boost in citation rates for preprints posted to each of these servers. I show that papers on the MSU archive typically have citation rates 1.7 times higher than the average of similar papers that are not posted as preprints, while those posted to astro-ph get 2.6 times the average. A comparable boost is found for papers published in conference proceedings, suggesting that the higher citation rates are not the result of self-selection of above-average papers.