Do Open-Access Articles Have a Greater Research Impact?

["Sloan, Bernie" <bernies@uillinois.edu>]

Some of you may be interested in an article in the new issue of College
and Research Libraries:

Antelman, Kristen. Do Open-Access Articles Have a Greater Research
Impact? College and Research Libraries, 65(5), 372-382.

Abstract:

Although many authors believe that their work has a greater research
impact if it is freely available, studies to demonstrate that impact are
few. This study looks at articles in four disciplines at varying stages of
adoption of open access-philosophy, political science, electrical and
electronic engineering and mathematics-to see whether they have a greater
impact as measured by citations in the ISI Web of Science database when
their authors make them freely available on the Internet. The finding is
that, across all four disciplines, freely available articles do have a
greater research impact. Shedding light on this category of open access
reveals that scholars in diverse disciplines are adopting open-access
practices and being rewarded for it.

Bernie Sloan
Senior Library Information Systems Consultant, ILCSO
University of Illinois Office for Planning and Budgeting
616 E. Green Street, Suite 213
Champaign, IL  61820

Phone: (217) 333-4895
Fax:   (217) 265-0454
E-mail: bernies@uillinois.edu