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

["Peter Banks" <pbanks@diabetes.org>]

It is not a silly question. Dr. Harnad and his colleagues address it in
their paper "Citation Impact of Open Access Articles vs. Articles
available only through subscription ("Toll-Access")"
<http://citebase.eprints.org/isi_study/> They do say they have factored
out self-citation.

Whether the issue of self-citation or any other aspect of this work is
convincing is another matter. Although Peter Suber recently claimed (in a
letter to the Washington Times) that "Study after study has shown that
free online access increases the impact of research literature, as
measured by citations, 50 percent to 250 percent," I am not sure what
"study after study" refers to, though is clearly is a reference to
Harnad's work.

Dr. Harnad has provided one other refererence
<http://www.crsc.uqam.ca/lab/chawki/graphes/EtudeImpact.htm>, 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. Indeed, in
the first study, the authors make this disclaimer: "Warning: The data
presented here are preliminary unrefereed results that are still being
analyzed and corrected (we welcome any suggestions or questions). This is
not yet the "definitive" version of our findings. Please do not cite them
without consultation with the authors."

I would encourage interested parties to take the authors up on their
invitation for (much needed, in my view) peer review.

Peter Banks
Acting Vice President for Publications/Publisher
American Diabetes Association
1701 North Beauregard Street
Alexandria, VA 22311
703/299-2033
FAX 703/683-2890
Email: pbanks@diabetes.org

>>> harnad@ecs.soton.ac.uk 09/25/05 3:12 PM >>>
On Fri, 23 Sep 2005, Sally Morris (ALPSP) wrote:

> The problem lies with Stevan's 50% figure - apparently picked out of the
> air, and with no factual basis whatsoever - for the increased 'return on
> investment' if research is OA.  I don't find it very convincing to base
> such sweeping conclusions on a completely unsupported figure

Picked out of the air? I reported (and provided the references and URLs)
the strong new empirical evidence that open access articles consistently
receive 50%-250% more citations, comparing always within the same journal
and same year. Here are some summary data at the discipline level:

[SNIP]