Re: Quality and mandated open access

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

More indicators of quality correlating with open access:

The first impact factor for PLoS Biology was 13.9, placing it # 1 
among general journals in biology.  This is truly remarkable for 
a new journal just started in 2003, regardless of business model. 
I understand that this was announced on liblicense this past 
June.  I can't find a the liblicense post, but have found a 
citation on Librarian's Rx, at: 
http://blogs.library.ualberta.ca/rx/?p=215#more-215

The BioMedCentral Press Release, "Impressive New Impact Factors 
for BioMedCentral's open-access journals" is another indication 
of high quality correlating with open access. at: 
http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/about/pr-releases?pr=20060620b

DOAJ and quality:  every journal listed in the Directory of Open 
Access Journals is vetted by a professional librarian.  Only 
peer- reviewed journals are listed.

As Peter Suber points out in the October SPARC Open Access 
Newsletter, there is substantial evidence that open access 
articles are cited quite a bit more than non-open access 
articles.  Some critics argue that there is author bias here: 
authors make their best work open access.  For open access and 
quality, it doesn't matter.  The citation impact advantage will 
attract authors to open access, and hence quality; or, open 
access venues will begin with more quality, due to author bias. 
Either way, quality correlates with open access.

Let's assume that there is a correlation between research funding 
and quality of results.  This makes sense.  Not only do funded 
researchers have more money to work with, they have already 
passed a quality test in competing successfully for funding.  As 
soon as an open access mandate by a funding agency takes effect, 
then, this quality work becomes open access.

In the medium to long term, it is the non-OA venue that is likely 
to experience a drop in quality.  Why would researchers of the 
future deliberately seek out venues with lower citation impact 
which will not meet the requrements of major funders?

No worries, we already know quite a bit about transitioning to 
open access.  For details, please see my blog series on this 
topic, at: 
http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com/2006/06/transitioning-to-open- 
access-series.html

Heather Morrison
http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com