How to compare research impact of toll- vs. open-access research

[Stevan Harnad]

Prior Topic Thread:

    "How to compare research impact of toll- vs. open-access research"
     http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/2858.html

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2004 23:11:59 +0100
From: "Garfield, Eugene" <garfield at codex.cis.upenn.edu>
To: AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM at LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG

Fyi and posting. Gene

Eugene Garfield, PhD. http://www.eugenegarfield.org/
President, The Scientist LLC. http://www.the-scientist.com/
Chairman Emeritus, ISI http://www.isinet.com/

Attached is the news release regarding Open Access journals covered by Web
of Science.

 <<OpenAccess.doc>>

Rodney Yancey, Manager, Corporate Communications, Thomson Scientific

    [Amsci Forum Moderator's Note: The ISI press release says:

        "Today, Thomson ISI... announced that journals published in the
        new Open Access (OA) model are beginning to register impact in
        the world of scholarly research...  Of the 8,700 selected journals
        currently covered in Web of Science, 191 are OA journals... [A
        study on] whether OA journals perform differently from other
        journals in their respective fields [found] that there was no
        discernible difference in terms of citation impact or frequency
        with which the journal is cited."  http://www.isinet.com/oaj

    But if you want to get a better idea of the effect of OA on impact,
    don't just compare the 2% of ISI journals that are OA journals
    with the 98% that are not, to find that they are equal in impact
    (for this may well be comparing apples with oranges). Compare the
    much higher percentage of *articles* from the 98% non-OA journals
    that have been made OA by their authors -- by self-archiving
    them -- with articles (from the very same journals and volumes)
    that have *not* been made OA by their authors: You will find that
    there is indeed a discernible difference in terms of frequency
    with which the *article* is cited, and that that difference
    is from 250%-550% in favor of the articles that their authors
    have made OA! That is what an ongoing series of comparisons
    based on a 10-year sample of the same ISI database across all
    disciplines is revealing (in computer science and physics so far):
    http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/OA-TAadvantage.pdf
    Stevan Harnad.]

______________________________________________________________________

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: OpenAccess.doc
Type: application/msword
Size: 57344 bytes
Desc: 
URL: <http://mail.asis.org/pipermail/sigmetrics/attachments/20040415/9cca7083/attachment.doc>