2016/08/22 by Ottaviani Jim · 1 citation
Decision Sciences · Medicine · #scientometrics and bibliometrics research #Academic Publishing and Open Access #Citation #Conflation #Confounding #Computer science #Citation analysis #Information retrieval #World Wide Web #Data science #Medicine #Epistemology #Pathology
paper · pdf · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0159614
openalex publication_date 2016/08/22 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
Many studies show that open access (OA) articles-articles from scholarly journals made freely available to readers without requiring subscription fees-are downloaded, and presumably read, more often than closed access/subscription-only articles. Assertions that OA articles are also cited more often generate more controversy. Confounding factors (authors may self-select only the best articles to make OA; absence of an appropriate control group of non-OA articles with which to compare citation figures; conflation of pre-publication vs. published/publisher versions of articles, etc.) make demonstrating a real citation difference difficult. This study addresses those factors and shows that an open access citation advantage as high as 19% exists, even when articles are embargoed during some or all of their prime citation years. Not surprisingly, better (defined as above median) articles gain more when made OA.