Re: OA Impact Advantage = EA + (AA) + (QB) + QA + (CA) + UA

[Stevan Harnad <harnad@ecs.soton.ac.uk>]

On Fri, 30 Sep 2005, Phil Davis wrote:

> In effect, there may be two complimentary processes taking place at the
> same time: 1) A self-promotion effect (Wren's Trophy Effect, where
> authors are more likely to promote their own high-impact articles) 2)
> The Mathew Effect (where readers are more likely to cite high-impact
> articles)

There is no doubt that there is more incentive to make an article one
thinks is especially important more widely visible and accessible by
self-archiving it. And of course, visibility and accessibility influence
what one can and does use and cite (though it was only a Matthew Effect
when the prestige of your journal and institution and even your own
current reputation were the determining factors: OA levels the playing
field).

> If we take these two axioms as being true, then generalizations (like
> open access publishing increases citations from 50%-250%)

When will the message penetrate that the 50%-250% citation advantage data
are *not based on OA publishing*! They are based on OA self-archiving of
articles published in non-OA journals.

> should not be made without sufficient qualifications.  It may be more
> reasonable to say that "author republishing/redistribution may increase
> citation impact, especially among highly prestigious journals and
> authors".

It is not republishing. Self-archiving is online-access provision to
material that is published (once, and only once) in the journal it was
published in. It is supplementary distribution.

The relative weights of the components of the OA self-archiving advantage
(Early Advantage, Usage (Download) Advantage, Quality Advantage (Level
Playing Field), Quality Bias (Self-Selection of higher-Q work),
Competitive Advantage (of self-archived articles over non-self-archived
articles in the same journal), etc., will need to be analyzed, explicitly
and carefully. Otherwise all we have is intuitive hunches about their
respective contributions.

    "OA Impact Advantage = EA + (AA) + (QB) + QA + (CA) + UA"
    http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/29-guid.html

We will soon test the intuitive hunch that it is the high-impact journals'
articles that are currently being self-archived more...

Stevan Harnad

> SOURCES
> 
> Merton, Robert K. "The Mathew Effect in Science", Science. Jan 5, 1968 
> 159(3810):56-63
> Can be found in JSTOR
> 
> Jonathan Wren's study in BMJ. 2005 May 14; 330(7500): 1128.
> "Open access and openly accessible: a study of scientific publications 
> shared via the internet"
> http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/abstract/330/7500/1128
> 
> Kristin Antleman's paper in CREL Sept. 2004  65(5), p.372 -382
> "Do Open-Access Articles Have a Greater Research Impact?
> http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/staff/kaantelm/do_open_access_CRL.pdf
> 
> 
> At 10:57 PM 9/29/2005, you wrote:
> >Dear Phil,
> >
> >since I know you to be a better statistician than I, what is your
> >evaluation of the two separate studies:
> 
> [SNIP]