Abstract: This article statistically analyzes how the citation impact of articles deposited in the Condensed Matter section of the preprint server ArXiv (hosted by Cornell University), and subsequently published in a scientific journal, compares to that of articles in the same journal that were not deposited in the archive. Its principal aim is to further illustrate and roughly estimate the effect of two factors, “early view” and “quality bias,” on differences in citation impact between these two sets of papers, using citation data from Thomson Scientific's Web of Science. It presents estimates for a number of journals in the field of condensed matter physics. To discriminate between an “open access” effect and an early view effect, longitudinal citation data were analyzed covering a time period as long as 7 years. Quality bias was measured by calculating ArXiv citation impact differentials at the level of individual authors publishing in a journal, taking into account coauthorship. The analysis provided evidence of a strong quality bias and early view effect. Correcting for these effects, there is in a sample of six condensed matter physics journals studied in detail no sign of a general “open access advantage” of papers deposited in ArXiv. The study does provide evidence that ArXiv accelerates citation due to the fact that ArXiv makes papers available earlier rather than makes them freely available.
PS: I blogged the preprint of this article on November 15, 2006.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 9/01/2007 10:30:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
