Re: How to compare research impact of toll- vs. open-access research
This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not understand this format, some or all of this message may not be legible. Prior Topic Thread: How to compare research impact of toll- vs. open-access research http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/2858.html Fyi and posting. Gene Eugene Garfield, PhD. http://www.eugenegarfield.org/ President, The Scientist LLC. http://www.the-scientist.com/ Chairman Emeritus, ISI http://www.isinet.com/ Attached is the news release regarding Open Access journals covered by Web of Science. OpenAccess.doc Rodney Yancey Manager, Corporate Communications Thomson Scientific [Amsci Forum Moderator's Note: The ISI press release says: Today, Thomson ISI... announced that journals published in the new Open Access (OA) model are beginning to register impact in the world of scholarly research... Of the 8,700 selected journals currently covered in Web of Science, 191 are OA journals... [A study on] whether OA journals perform differently from other journals in their respective fields [found] that there was no discernible difference in terms of citation impact or frequency with which the journal is cited. http://www.isinet.com/oaj But if you want to get a better idea of the effect of OA on impact, don't just compare the 2% of ISI journals that are OA journals with the 98% that are not, to find that they are equal in impact (for this may well be comparing apples with oranges). Compare the much higher percentage of *articles* from the 98% non-OA journals that have been made OA by their authors -- by self-archiving them -- with articles (from the very same journals and volumes) that have *not* been made OA by their authors: You will find that there is indeed a discernible difference in terms of frequency with which the *article* is cited, and that that difference is from 250%-550% in favor of the articles that their authors have made OA! That is what an ongoing series of comparisons based on a 10-year sample of the same ISI database across all disciplines is revealing (in computer science and physics so far): http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/OA-TAadvantage.pdf Stevan Harnad.]
Re: How to compare research impact of toll- vs. open-access research
The results obtained for computer science by analysis of CiteSeer are distorted for a variety of reasons. They cannot be compared with the literature of e.g. life sciences. Computer science is heavily dependent upon conference literature. I cannot comment upon the physics literature, but there are other studies which seem to indicate that readership increases will not necessarily be followed by increased citation impact. In one study of a single chemical journal that I refereed there were about 100 readerships for each citation of that journal, but there did not seem to be any perceptible increase of citation by the research literature. Undoubtedly the web will increase apparent readership of literature, but that will not necessarily change the population of relevant researchers who are in a position to cite particular studies. I do not think the ISI study is definitive but it is not irrelevant. Gene Eugene Garfield, PhD. email garfi...@codex.cis.upenn.edu tel 215-243-2205 fax 215-387-1266 President, The Scientist www.the-scientist.com Chairman Emeritus, ISI www.isinet.com home page: www.eugenegarfield.org Past President, American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIST) www.asis.org -Original Message- From: Stevan Harnad [mailto:har...@ecs.soton.ac.uk] Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2004 8:13 PM To: sigmetr...@listserv.utk.edu Subject: Re: How to compare research impact of toll- vs. open-access research Prior Topic Thread: How to compare research impact of toll- vs. open-access research http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/2858.html -- Forwarded message -- List-Post: goal@eprints.org List-Post: goal@eprints.org Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2004 23:11:59 +0100 From: Garfield, Eugene garfi...@codex.cis.upenn.edu To: american-scientist-open-access-fo...@listserver.sigmaxi.org Fyi and posting. Gene Eugene Garfield, PhD. http://www.eugenegarfield.org/ President, The Scientist LLC. http://www.the-scientist.com/ Chairman Emeritus, ISI http://www.isinet.com/ Attached is the news release regarding Open Access journals covered by Web of Science. OpenAccess.doc Rodney Yancey, Manager, Corporate Communications, Thomson Scientific [Amsci Forum Moderator's Note: The ISI press release says: Today, Thomson ISI... announced that journals published in the new Open Access (OA) model are beginning to register impact in the world of scholarly research... Of the 8,700 selected journals currently covered in Web of Science, 191 are OA journals... [A study on] whether OA journals perform differently from other journals in their respective fields [found] that there was no discernible difference in terms of citation impact or frequency with which the journal is cited. http://www.isinet.com/oaj But if you want to get a better idea of the effect of OA on impact, don't just compare the 2% of ISI journals that are OA journals with the 98% that are not, to find that they are equal in impact (for this may well be comparing apples with oranges). Compare the much higher percentage of *articles* from the 98% non-OA journals that have been made OA by their authors -- by self-archiving them -- with articles (from the very same journals and volumes) that have *not* been made OA by their authors: You will find that there is indeed a discernible difference in terms of frequency with which the *article* is cited, and that that difference is from 250%-550% in favor of the articles that their authors have made OA! That is what an ongoing series of comparisons based on a 10-year sample of the same ISI database across all disciplines is revealing (in computer science and physics so far): http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/OA-TAadvantage.pdf Stevan Harnad.] __
What is the threshold for open access Nirvana?
I have generally avoided discussion in this listserv but I think you have introduced a significant distortion to the discussion by quoting the figure of 24,000 scientific journals which allegedly produce 2,500,000 articles per year. I presume someone has estimated the average of 100 articles per year. A more realistic figure for journals would be ten to fifteen thousand scientific journals putting aside the crucial question of definition. If open access is to become viable it seems to me the key factor is the group of 500 to 1000 highest impact journals which account for a substantial portion of the significant articles which are published and most cited. Unless these journals make it possible for authors to self-archive or to be freely accessible you cannot achieve open access nirvana. One might argue that once e.g. 50% or more of these most important journals are in the fold the breakthrough threshold has been reached. Since it has been demonstrated that on line access improves both readership and citation impact we can certainly expect that the vast majority of the low impact journals would be well advised to make their journals open access. Whether this increases their impact remains to be seen, but increased readership or attention seems inevitable. __ Eugene Garfield, PhD. email: garfi...@codex.cis.upenn.edu home page: www.eugenegarfield.org Tel: 215-243-2205 Fax 215-387-1266 President, The Scientist LLC. www.the-scientist.com 3535 Market St., Phila. PA 19104-3389 Chairman Emeritus, ISI www.isinet.com 3501 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104-3302 Past President, American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIST) www.asis.org -Original Message- From: Stevan Harnad [mailto:har...@ecs.soton.ac.uk] Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 1:41 PM To: american-scientist-open-access-fo...@listserver.sigmaxi.org Subject: Re: A Note of Caution About Reforming the System I am a science writer from [deleted]. I am sending you four questions I have for an article that I am writing about the open access debate in [deleted]. 1 There are approximately 20,000 scientific journals. Currently only a fraction operates on an open access model. Do you expect the number of open journals to rise significantly in the next, say, 10 years? The number of journals in question is peer-reviewed research journals (not necessarily only scientific ones) and the current updated estimate of how many of them there in all is 24,000, publishing about 2,500,000 articles annually: http://www.ulrichsweb.com/ulrichsweb/analysis/ About 1000 (under 5%) of the 24,000 journals are Open Access (OA) journals. The rest are Toll Access (TA). http://www.doaj.org/ I expect the number of OA journals to rise in the next 10 years, and I hope it will rise significantly, but I do not believe it will rise anywhere near significantly enough to bring us near 100% on its own. But it is not necessary for all or even most of the remaining 23,000 TA journals to convert to OA for there to be 100% open access to all 2,500,000 articles published annually: Creating, converting and publishing in OA journals is the golden road to OA. The green road to OA is for those authors who do not have a suitable OA journal in which to publish their article: they can instead publish it in a suitable TA journal but also provide OA to it by self-archiving it in their own institution's OA Eprint Archives: http://software.eprints.org/archives.php http://oaister.umdl.umich.edu/o/oaister/ http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/ Via this dual open-access provision strategy all peer-reviewed journal articles can be made OA very soon. 2 Some open journals also employ open peer review. What do you think about it? Are both kinds of openness linked as some proponents argue? They are not linked at all -- and when they are linked in some people's minds, it serves as a deterrent to OA provision. http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/#7.Pee The goal of the OA movement is to free peer-reviewed research from access-tolls, so as to maximise its usage and impact. The goal is not to free peer-reviewed research from peer-review! Peer-review reform is a completely independent issue, and reform proposals need to be tested and shown to work before being considered for adoption. None have been. They have simply been advocated a priori. That is why associating open-access and open review proposals has worked to the detriment of open access. 3 Is the open access model only a way back to the roots of science as public knowledge? Or an essential future direction towards a new chance for interdisciplinarity as cross-disciplinary access to papers is getting much easier? If it had not been for the true and sizeable costs of Gutenberg-era publication and dissemination, peer-revewed research would never have been sold for payment, as most of the rest of the literature is. The authors of research articles do not write for royalties or
Re: What is the threshold for open access Nirvana?
You have avoided my main point by regurgitating to me what you have stated before. However, I appreciate your prompt response. Don't you ever sleep? Gene When responding, please attach my original message __ Eugene Garfield, PhD. email: garfi...@codex.cis.upenn.edu home page: www.eugenegarfield.org Tel: 215-243-2205 Fax 215-387-1266 President, The Scientist LLC. www.the-scientist.com 3535 Market St., Phila. PA 19104-3389 Chairman Emeritus, ISI www.isinet.com 3501 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104-3302 Past President, American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIST) www.asis.org -Original Message- From: Stevan Harnad [mailto:har...@ecs.soton.ac.uk] Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 2:27 PM To: american-scientist-open-access-fo...@listserver.sigmaxi.org Subject: Re: What is the threshold for open access Nirvana? On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, Garfield, Eugene wrote: I think you have introduced a significant distortion to the discussion by quoting the figure of 24,000 scientific journals... A more realistic figure for journals would be ten to fifteen thousand scientific journals putting aside the crucial question of definition. The 24,000 figure comes from Ulrich's/Bowkers http://www.ulrichsweb.com/ulrichsweb/analysis/ and it is not for *scientific* journals only but for all *peer-reviewed* journals. Open access is not just for scientific research, but for scholarly research as well. Since it has been demonstrated that on line access improves both readership and citation impact we can certainly expect that the vast majority of the low impact journals would be well advised to make their journals open access. Whether this increases their impact remains to be seen, but increased readership or attention seems inevitable. There are also data showing that download impact is strongly correlated with later citation impact. http://citebase.eprints.org/analysis/correlation.php Hitchcock, Steve, Tim Brody, Christopher Gutteridge, Les Carr, Wendy Hall, Stevan Harnad, Donna Bergmark, Carl Lagoze, Open Citation Linking: The Way Forward. D-Lib Magazine. Volume 8 Number 10. October 2002. http://www.dlib.org/dlib/october02/hitchcock/10hitchcock.html Hitchcock, Steve; Woukeu, Arouna; Brody, Tim; Carr, Les; Hall, Wendy and Harnad, Stevan. (2003) Evaluating Citebase, an open access Web-based citation-ranked search and impact discovery service http://opcit.eprints.org/evaluation/Citebase-evaluation/evaluation-report.ht ml More data on the causal connection between access and impact are being collected and analyzed. It is hoped that these data will be sufficient to persuade all researchers (not just scientists!) as well as their institutions and funders that open-acess provision is optimal for research -- and that it can be done immediately. Harnad, S., Carr, L., Brody, T. Oppenheim, C. (2003) Mandated online RAE CVs Linked to University Eprint Archives: Improving the UK Research Assessment Exercise whilst making it cheaper and easier. Ariadne 35 (April 2003). http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue35/harnad/ Stevan Harnad NOTE: A complete archive of the ongoing discussion of providing open access to the peer-reviewed research literature online (1998-2004) is available at the American Scientist Open Access Forum: To join the Forum: http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.h tml Post discussion to: american-scientist-open-access-fo...@amsci.org Hypermail Archive: http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/index.html Unified Dual Open-Access-Provision Policy: BOAI-2 (gold): Publish your article in a suitable open-access journal whenever one exists. http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/boaifaq.htm#journals BOAI-1 (green): Otherwise, publish your article in a suitable toll-access journal and also self-archive it. http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/ http://www.soros.org/openaccess/read.shtml http://www.eprints.org/signup/sign.php
