Re: prediction: exponential increase in citations to open access articles

[Phil Davis <pmd8@cornell.edu>]

Re: Heather's Prediction

"The impact of Open Access Journals: a citation study from Thomson ISI",
released to liblicense on April 15th appears to be the only generalizable
piece of research that we've seen so far (see excerpt of conclusions
below).  The study done by Steve Lawrence, "Free online availability
substantially increases a paper's impact". Nature 2001, v.411 n.6837,
p.521 has been cited as evidence that online journals will be cited more
than what he calls "off-line" journals; however those who cite it as
evidence seem to miss the point that this study was limited to the study
of computer science conference articles and may not be generalizable to
other disciplines.

Rather than starting with personal predictions, it might be more
constructive to question why the ISI results seem to contradict Heather's
Personal Predictions.  To reduce the chatter on this list, I ask that
those respondents who post frequently to the list at least read the report
before responding.  --Phil Davis

The impact of Open Access Journals: a citation study from Thomson ISI
http://www.isinet.com/media/presentrep/acropdf/impact-oa-journals.pdf

Page 10.

"In ISI's Editorial Development Department, we have witnessed the
evaluation, and selection or rejection of thousands of journals. In many
cases we have been deluged with eloquent letters from sincere supporters
of a particular journal under evaluation. We are often told of an
extremely wide and growing base of subscribers to a particular journal.
*What we find, though, is that wide distribution does not necessarily
result in higher citations*.

Open Access journals certainly have the potential to garner an even
greater readership. Except where technology does not permit, anyone in the
world will have access to them. Yet how does this additional exposure
affect the importance and influence of the journal, as measured by
citations? *To date, no clear effect has been observed.  Though there is
some suggestion in aggregate of a slightly more rapid accumulation of
citations, this effect is, so far, minimal. The wide distribution of these
OA journals has not yet been shown to have any appreciable effect on their
appearance in lists of cited references in other journals". .