RE: Open access to research worth 1.5bn a year

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

While I agree that the Wren study is well done, it does not really address
the question for which Dr. Harnad is trying to use it. Unlike Harnad's own
research, which attempts to show that OA leads to more citation, Wren
makes the complementary point: that citation leads to more OA. The
existence of Wren's "Trophy Effect" neither proves nor disproves Harnad's
contention that OA drives citations--and it certainly provides no evidence
one way or the other for 50-250% being the magnitude of any such effect of
OA on impact factor.

Peter Banks
Acting Vice President for Publications/Publisher
American Diabetes Association
Email: pbanks@diabetes.org

>>> pmd8@cornell.edu 09/30/05 6:06 PM >>>

To oblige David's request, I found both the Wren study and the Antleman's
study to be excellent and defendable studies.  Both of them defined Open
Access as some form of reprint found somewhere on the Internet other than
the publisher's site (author's own site, repository, etc.).  In other
words, they were not interested in Open Access as primary publishing
model, but on enhanced availability afforded by authors republishing (or
redistributing) their own work online.

Both also reported a similar result, that is, there was a high degree of 
association between high-prestige journals and frequency of author 
reprints.  In Wren's study, journals with high Impact Factors (New England 
Journal of Medicine, Nature, Science, and Cell) were associated with a 
higher degree of author republishing than lower-impact journals.  He goes 
further and to discusses possible causes of this difference and briefly 
discusses a "trophy effect" -- the desire for researchers to display their 
accomplishments-- which would explain why high impact publications are more 
common online" (p.4).  Antelman also suggests from her data that "the 
greatest impact of open access is with the most-cited articles" (p.378).

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)

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

--Phil Davis


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