Re: More on Open Access citations

[Joseph Esposito <espositoj@gmail.com>]

The reason that there is no citation advantage for online content 
is that increased discoverability and access (the properties of 
online content relative to print) have nothing to do with 
citations.  Access is not and has never been the issue.  It is a 
red herring, which has cost the participants in scholarly 
communications millions chasing it off the trail.

Of course, content has value even if it is not cited.  Thus some 
would say that those millions were well spent.

Joe Esposito

On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 6:19 PM, David Prosser 
<david.prosser@rluk.ac.uk> wrote:

> The absolutely fascinating thing about the paper by Mark McCabe
> and Chris Snyder is that it appears to show that there is, in
> general, no citation advantage accruing to online content.  Not
> just to online, open access content, but to any online content.
> Phil makes this clear in the title of his blog post, and it is
> only here that the subject is narrowed somewhat to only open
> access citations.
>
> If McCabe and Snyder are right then the widening of access
> through big deals, third-party intermediates, and open access has
> made no difference to citation rates.  Are access and citations
> so disconnected that an increase in one has no effect on the
> other?   Is it really the case that none of the business models
> for online access have increased citations?  Intriguing.
>
> (There is a JSTOR twist in the results; read the paper for
> details.)
>
> David
>