Dramatic Growth of Open Access

[Heather Morrison <heatherm@eln.bc.ca>]

My figures illustrating the dramatic growth of open access are 
not meant to be a precise indication of the quantity of OA items, 
only a rough indicator of the growth rate.  Such a precise 
calculation would require more resources than is available to me.

For example, that more than 780,000 additional records have been 
added to OAIster in the first quarter of this year, approximately 
a doubling of last year's growth rate, strongly suggests that 
open access archives are beginning to fill.  However, this is not 
proof, as not all OAIster records are fulltext; some are OA to 
metadata only.

The DOAJ increase is a stronger indication of the growth of open 
access per se, as all titles are vetted to ensure that they meet 
high quality control (peer review) standards, and that they are 
fully open access (no delay period).

While the number of articles available that are OA is an 
important figure, as others have pointed, the increase in OA 
journals is a strong indicator of the commitment of a great many 
people around the world to open access. Even a title starting off 
small with few articles, is a journal with an editorial board, 
some form of OA business model, and peer reviewers.

Not only is DOAJ increasing in the number of titles - it appears 
to be increasing in its growth rate as well. About a year ago, 
DOAJ was adding titles at an average rate of about 1 per day. 
Now, DOAJ is adding new titles at the rate of about 2 per day. To 
see where I am getting these calculations, look up the DOAJ new 
titles at: http://www.doaj.org/new When interpreting this data, 
be sure to take into account that DOAJ is a small office.  If 
there is a temporary decrease in additions to the new titles list 
over the summer, this may well reflect staff vacations.

Helpful as it would be to know the precise numbers of open access 
articles, OA implementation is far more important than counting.

Heather G. Morrison
March 31, 2006 Dramatic Growth of Open Access
http://tinyurl.com/o7zkf