Calver, MC; Bradley, JS. 2010. Patterns of Citations of Open Access and Non-Open Access Conservation Biology Journal Papers and Book Chapters. CONSERVATION BIOLOGY 24 (3): 872-880

[Eugene Garfield]

Calver, MC; Bradley, JS. 2010. Patterns of Citations of Open Access and Non-
Open Access Conservation Biology Journal Papers and Book Chapters. 
CONSERVATION BIOLOGY 24 (3): 872-880

Author Full Name(s): Calver, Michael C.; Bradley, J. Stuart
Language: English
Document Type: Article

Abstract: Open access (OA) publishing, whereby authors, their institutions, or 
their granting bodies pay or provide a repository through which peer-reviewed 
work is available online for free, is championed as a model to increase the 
number of citations per paper and disseminate results widely, especially to 
researchers in developing countries. We compared the number of citations of 
OA and non-OA papers in six journals and four books published since 2000 to 
test whether OA increases number of citations overall and increases citations 
made by authors in developing countries. After controlling for type of paper (e. 
g., review or research paper), length of paper, authors' citation profiles, 
number of authors per paper, and whether the author or the publisher released 
the paper in OA, OA had no statistically significant influence on the overall 
number of citations per journal paper. Journal papers were cited more 
frequently if the authors had published highly cited papers previously, were 
members of large teams of authors, or published relatively long papers, but 
papers were not cited more frequently if they were published in an OA source. 
Nevertheless, author-archived OA book chapters accrued up to eight times 
more citations than chapters in the same book that were not available through 
OA, perhaps because there is no online abstracting service for book chapters. 
There was also little evidence that journal papers or book chapters published in 
OA received more citations from authors in developing countries relative to 
those journal papers or book chapters not published in OA. For scholarly 
publications in conservation biology, only book chapters had an OA citation 
advantage, and OA did not increase the number of citations papers or chapters 
received from authors in developing countries.

Addresses: [Calver, Michael C.; Bradley, J. Stuart] Murdoch Univ, Sch Biol Sci & 
Biotechnol, Murdoch, WA 6150, Australia

Reprint Address: Calver, MC, Murdoch Univ, Sch Biol Sci & Biotechnol, Murdoch, 
WA 6150, Australia.

E-mail Address: m.calver at murdoch.edu.au

ISSN: 0888-8892
DOI: 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2010.01509.x
Fulltext: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/123369590/abstract