Craig, LD; Plume, AM; McVeigh, ME; Pringle, J; Amin, M Do open access articles have greater citation impact? A critical review of the literature JOURNAL OF INFORMETRICS, 1 (3): 239-248 JUL 2007

[Eugene Garfield]

E-mail Address: iain.craig at oxon.blackwellpublishing.com; 
a.plume at elsevier.com; marie.mcveigh at thomson.com; 
james.pringle at thomson.com; m.amin at elsevier.com

Author(s): Craig, LD (Craig, Lain D.); Plume, AM (Plume, Andrew M.); 
McVeigh, ME (McVeigh, Marie E.); Pringle, J (Pringle, James); Amin, M 
(Amin, Mayur)
 
Title: Do open access articles have greater citation impact? A critical 
review of the literature 

Source: JOURNAL OF INFORMETRICS, 1 (3): 239-248 JUL 2007 

Language: English 

Document Type: Review 

Author Keywords: open access; citation analysis; early view; quality bias 

Abstract: The last few years have seen the emergence of several open 
access options in scholarly communication which can broadly be grouped 
into two areas referred to as 'gold' and 'green' open access (OA). In this 
article we review the literature examining the relationship between OA 
status and citation counts of scholarly articles. Early studies showed a 
correlation between the free online availability or OA status of articles 
and higher citation counts, and implied causality without due 
consideration of potential confounding factors. More recent investigations 
have dissected the nature of the relationship between article CA status 
and citations. Three non-exclusive postulates have been proposed to 
account for the observed citation differences between OA and non-OA 
articles: an open access postulate, a selection bias postulate, and an 
early view postulate. The most rigorous study to date (in condensed matter 
physics) showed that, after controlling for the early view postulate, the 
remaining difference in citation counts between OA and non-OA articles is 
explained by the selection bias postulate. No evidence was found to 
support the OA postulate per se; i.e. article OA status alone has little 
or no effect on citations. Further studies using a similarly rigorous 
approach are required to determine the generality of this finding. (c) 
2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 

Addresses: Wiley Blackwell, Oxford OX4 2DQ, England; Elsevier, Oxford OX5 
1GB, England; Thomson Sci, Philadelphia, PA 19104 USA 

Reprint Address: Craig, LD, Wiley Blackwell, 9600 Garsington Rd, Oxford 
OX4 2DQ, England. 

E-mail Address: iain.craig at oxon.blackwellpublishing.com; 
a.plume at elsevier.com; marie.mcveigh at thomson.com; 
james.pringle at thomson.com; m.amin at elsevier.com 

Cited Reference Count: 26 

Times Cited: 0 

Publisher: ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV 

Publisher Address: PO BOX 211, 1000 AE AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS 

ISSN: 1751-1577 

ANDERSON K
J ELECT PUBLISHING 6 : 2001 

ANTELMAN K
Do open-access articles really have a greater research impact? Response to 
Philip Davis 
COLLEGE & RESEARCH LIBRARIES 67 : 105 2006 

ANTELMAN K
Do open-access articles have a greater research impact? 
COLLEGE & RESEARCH LIBRARIES 65 : 372 2004 

ANTELMAN K
EVALUATION ALGORITHM : 2005 

BARILAN J
An ego-centric citation analysis of the works of Michael O. Rabin based on 
multiple citation indexes 
INFORMATION PROCESSING & MANAGEMENT 42 : 1553 DOI 
10.1016/j.ipm.2006.03.019 2006 

BOYACK KW
Mapping knowledge domains: Characterizing PNAS 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF 
AMERICA 101 : 5192 DOI 10.1073/pnas.0307509100 2004 

BRODY T
CITATION ANAL OPEN A : 2004 

DAVIS PM
Do open-access articles really have a greater research impact? 
COLLEGE & RESEARCH LIBRARIES 67 : 103 2006 

DAVIS PM
Does the arXiv lead to higher citations and reduced publisher downloads 
for mathematics articles? 
SCIENTOMETRICS 71 : 203 DOI 10.1007/s11192-007-1661-8 2007 

EYSENBACH G
Citation advantage of open access articles 
PLOS BIOLOGY 4 : 692 ARTN e157 2006 

GLANZEL W
Does co-authorship inflate the share of self-citations? 
SCIENTOMETRICS 61 : 395 2004 

HAJJEM C
B IEEE COMPUTER SOC 28 : 39 2005 

HAJJEM C
MANUAL EVALUATION RO : 2006 

HARNAD S
D LIB MAGAZINE 10 : 2004 

HARNAD S
SERIALS REV 30 : 310 2004 

HENNEKEN EA
J ELECT PUBLISHING 9 : 2006 

KURTZ MJ
The effect of use and access on citations 
INFORMATION PROCESSING & MANAGEMENT 41 : 1395 DOI 
10.1016/j.ipm.2005.03.010 2005 

LAWRENCE S
Free online availability substantially increases a paper's impact 
NATURE 411 : 521 2001 

LAWRENCE S
ONLINE INVISIBLE : 2001 

METCALFE TS
B AM ASTRON SOC 37 : 555 2005 

MOED HF
CITATION ANAL RES EV : 2005 

MOED HF
J AM SOC INFORM SCI : 2007 

SCHWARZ GJ
B AM ASTRON SOC 36 : 1654 2004 

SEGLEN PO
THE SKEWNESS OF SCIENCE 
JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE 43 : 628 1992 

SWAN A
OPEN ACCESS SELF ARC : 2005 

ZITT M
Relativity of citation performance and excellence measures: From cross-
field to cross-scale effects of field-normalisation 
SCIENTOMETRICS 63 : 373 DOI 10.1007/s11192-005-0218-y 2005