download counts and self-archiving

From: Michael Smith <Michael.E.Smith.2_at_ASU.EDU>
Date: Sun, 22 Aug 2010 14:59:03 -0700

When I was pitching self-archiving to some colleagues last week, two of them
mentioned the following argument AGAINST self-archiving. University
bean-counters have started using the number of times articles are downloaded
(from publishers sites, I guess) as a measure of faculty productivity or impact.
If one self-archives, then people will be less likely to download from the
publishers site, thereby lowering one’s download score. I can think of various
reasons why this is NOT a good reason to avoid self-archiving, but I wonder if
there are any data on this, or if any bibliometric researchers have addressed
this topic explicitly.

 

Mike Smith

 

Michael E. Smith, Professor

School of Human Evolution & Social Change

Arizona State University

www.public.asu.edu/~mesmith9

 
Received on Mon Aug 23 2010 - 04:16:31 BST