Kousha, K; Abdoli, M. 2010. The citation impact of Open Access agricultural research A comparison between OA and non-OA publications. ONLINE INFORMATION REVIEW 34 (5): 772-785

[Eugene Garfield]

Kousha, K; Abdoli, M. 2010. The citation impact of Open Access agricultural 
research A comparison between OA and non-OA publications. ONLINE 
INFORMATION REVIEW 34 (5): 772-785

Author Full Name(s): Kousha, Kayvan; Abdoli, Mahshid
Language: English
Document Type: Article

Author Keywords: Open systems; Electronic publishing; Archiving; Research; 
Agricultural
KeyWords Plus: GOOGLE SCHOLAR CITATIONS; ARTICLES

Abstract: Purpose - The main purpose of this study is to assess the citation 
advantage for self-archived Open Access (OA) agriculture research against its 
non-OA counterparts.
Design/methodology/approach - At the article level, the paper compared the 
citation counts of self-archived research with non-OA articles based upon a 
sample of 400 research articles from ISI-indexed (ISI, Institute for Scientific 
Information) agriculture journals in 2005. At the journal level the paper 
compared impact factors (IFs) of OA against non-OA agriculture journals from 
2005 to 2007 as reported by the ISI Journal Citation Reports. The paper also 
sought evidence of citation impact based on a random sample of 100 OA and 
100 non-OA publications from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of 
the United Nations in 2005. It used both ISI and Scopus databases for citation 
counting and also Google and Google Scholar for locating the self-archived 
articles published in the non-OA journals.
Findings - The results showed that there is an obvious citation advantage for 
self-archived agriculture articles as compared to non-OA articles. Out of a 
random sample of 400 articles published in non-OA agriculture journals, about 
14 per cent were OA and had a median citation count of four whereas the 
median for non-OA articles was two. However, at the journal level the average 
IF for OA agriculture journals from 2005 to 2007 was 0.29, considerably lower 
than the average IF for non-OA journals (0.65). Finally it found that FAO 
publications which were freely accessible online tended to attract more 
citations than non-OA publications in the same year and had a mean citation 
count of 1.73 whereas the mean for non-OA publications was 0.28.
Originality/value - Self-archived agriculture research articles tended to attract 
higher citations than their non-OA counterparts. This knowledge of the citation 
impact of OA agricultural research gives a better understanding about the 
potential effect of self-archiving on the citation impact.

Addresses: [Kousha, Kayvan] Univ Tehran, Dept Lib & Informat Sci, Tehran, 
Iran; [Abdoli, Mahshid] Natl Lib & Arch Iran, Dept Int Affairs, Tehran, Iran

Reprint Address: Kousha, K, Univ Tehran, Dept Lib & Informat Sci, Tehran, Iran.

E-mail Address: kkoosha at ut.ac.ir
ISSN: 1468-4527
DOI: 10.1108/14684521011084618
URL (not open access): http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/14684521011084618