Re: Open access to research worth £1.5bn a year

From: Michael Kurtz (kurtz@CFA.HARVARD.EDU)
Date: Wed Sep 28 2005 - 19:22:33 BST

Peter Banks wrote:

> so perhaps "study after study" means literally that: two studies. Or maybe there are more, but I can't find references. Neither of the studies above appears to have been peer reviewed or published other than by preprint.
>
>

While the causes of the effect (OA articles are more cited than non-OA
articles) may be disputed, and the policy decisions which flow from the
discussion of the effect may be disputed, I do not think there is any
real argument that the effect is real.

Certainly the first major article on this effect was refereed (S.
Lawrence, 2001, Nature, 411, 521). More recently my paper in
Information Processing and Management on the causes of the effect
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=2005IPM....41.1395K
was refereed, and confirms the effect. Stevan is, of course, the leader
in showing this.

Measuring the effect for physics or astronomy is easy. The following
link returns the number of articles published in the Astrophysical
Journal in 2003 and their number of citations:

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=ALL&start_year=2003&end_year=2003&nr_to_return=10&start_nr=1&ref_stems=ApJ&sort=CITATIONS

This next link shows the number of these papers which are available OA
in the arXiv, and their citations.

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=ALL&start_year=2003&end_year=2003&nr_to_return=10&start_nr=1&ref_stems=ApJ&sort=CITATIONS&data_and=YES&preprint_link=YES

The result is that 75% of the papers are in the arXiv, and they
represent 90% of the citations, a 250% OA effect.

By replacing ApJ with the mnemonic for any other physics or astronomy
journal one can repeat the measurement; for Nuclear Physics A (NuPhA)
one gets that 32% of the articles are in the arXiv, and they represent
78% of the citations, a 740% OA effect. 

--
Dr. Michael J. Kurtz
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
60 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
USA

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