Does OA Give A Citation Advantage? (Still debating, 7 years later...)

It is a debate that has been going on since 2006: does open access increase citations?

First up was Gunther Eysenbach’s “Citation Advantage of Open Access Articles”, which provided data comparing OA and non-OA articles from the same journal within the first 4-16 months after publication. Eysenbach found that “OA articles are cited earlier and…more often than non-OA articles…there seems to be an advantage in terms of immediacy…but also in terms of total impact”.

Matter settled, right? 

Not so much.

 
In 2010, Jennifer Howard wrote on Wired Campus’ The Chronicle of Higher Education a blog post titled “Is There an Open-Access Citation Advantage?”.  Her post focuses on a Stevan Harnad-penned paper that claims (once again) that open access increases citation, and she cites Philip M. Davis’ response to Harnad suggested that the methods used in Harnad’s study provided “inconsistent and counterintuitive results…not properly addressed in their narrative”.  This post led to a lively debate in the comments of the article, with Harnad boldly asserting that “Jennifer Howard miss[ed] the point of our article” and pointing out that Davis’ results were released before the 2-3 year point after which most articles have hit their stride. Harnad’s study was taken from a large pool of academics from various disciplines, allowing them to self-select the papers they would use. Another user argued that he believed stories from researchers would be essential to add context to the findings. Harnad didn’t agree with that point either, arguing that a paper is only beneficial if it is accessible. If no one can find it, no one can work from it.

Whew, rough crowd.

The debate rages on. On 14 March, Open Science published Kamil Mizera’s write up on two conflicting reports: Michael Norris’s 400-page “The citation advantage of open access” and Phillip M. Davis et al.’s “Open access publishing, article downloads, and citations: randomised controlled trial”. The two reports come up with different results and Mizera’s conclusion is that yes, open access does help in increasing the article’s visibility but it is not the only determinant: equally important are the Impact Factor of the journal itself and promotion through the author or publisher. 

On 9 April, Henk F. Moed wrote “The Effect of Open Access Upon Citation Impact”, giving a brief tour on the debate and its major players: Harnad and Davis are mentioned alongside numerous others. Moed’s main point is that there is a flaw in the trials; all of them were “carried out in a citation index with a selective coverage of the good, international journals in their fields”. Again, it comes down to context: would citation be as easily discernible in less-known, low-impact journals.

So for now, I suspect the whole matter will remain in dispute.

1.  Eysenbach, Gunther. “Citation Advantage of Open Access Articles.” Public Library of Sciences. PLOS Biology, 16 May 2006. Web. 26 March 2013.

2. Howard, Jennifer. “Is There An Open Access Citation Advantage?” The Chronicle of Higher Education. Wired Campus (2010). Web. 8 April 2013.

3. Stevanharnad  [Stevan Harnard]: “ Re: Is there an open access citation advantage? Correlation, causation, and the weight of evidence.” The Chronicle of Higher Education. Wired Campus (2010). Web. 8 April 2013.

4. Mizera, Kamil. “Open Access Increases Citation? A Brief Overview of Two Reports.” Open Science (2013). Web. 26 March 2013.

5. Moed, Dr. Henk. “The Effect of Open Access upon Citation Impact.” Elsevier. Elsevier (2012). Web. 8 April 2013.