Do Open-Access Articles Have a Greater Research Impact?

[Sloan, Bernie]

It's been pointed out to me that this article on open access and
research impact is, in fact, available via open access through E-LIS
[E-prints in Library and Information Science]:

http://eprints.rclis.org/archive/00002309/01/do_open_access_CRL.pdf

Bernie Sloan

-----Original Message-----
From: Sloan, Bernie
Sent: Monday, September 27, 2004 8:21 PM
To: 'ASIS&T Special Interest Group on Metrics'
Subject: Do Open-Access Articles Have a Greater Research Impact?

Some of you may be interested in an article in the new issue of College
and Research Libraries:

Antelman, Kristen. Do Open-Access Articles Have a Greater Research
Impact? College and Research Libraries, 65(5), 372-382. September 2004.

Abstract:

Although many authors believe that their work has a greater research
impact if it is freely available, studies to demonstrate that impact are
few. This study looks at articles in four disciplines at varying stages
of adoption of open access-philosophy, political science, electrical and
electronic engineering and mathematics-to see whether they have a
greater impact as measured by citations in the ISI Web of Science
database when their authors make them freely available on the Internet.
The finding is that, across all four disciplines, freely available
articles do have a greater research impact. Shedding light on this
category of open access reveals that scholars in diverse disciplines are
adopting open-access practices and being rewarded for it.

Bernie Sloan
Senior Library Information Systems Consultant, ILCSO
University of Illinois Office for Planning and Budgeting
616 E. Green Street, Suite 213
Champaign, IL  61820

Phone: (217) 333-4895
Fax:   (217) 265-0454
E-mail: bernies at uillinois.edu