Interesting thoughts on open-access publishing

06Apr11

Somewhat to my chagrin, I never actually read in detail the much-discussed study supposedly finding that open-access scholarly publication increases citation rates. Turns out that’s not quite right; online access, open or not, increases citation rates (Dept of Duh calling…). It’s hard to generalize to other fields, but at least in science, the reality is that institutions at which a lot of science is done all subscribe to the publications of interest – and blustery threats about library subscription rates aside, that isn’t going to change in the near future, diluting the impact of open-access publication on distribution.

So now we have a report from the Scholarly Kitchen of a new OA study finding that OA articles are more widely distributed, but with no difference in citation counts, suggesting that:

The real beneficiaries of open access may not be the research community, which traditionally has excellent access to the scientific literature, but communities of practice that consume, but rarely contribute to, the corpus of literature. These communities may include students, educators, physicians, patients, government, and industry researchers.

Now the next question: is the current low level of contribution from these communities a feature of their indirect engagement with research, or their traditional lack of access to the existing literature? Will we start seeing more genuine contributions from hobbyists and ‘citizen scientists’ without the direct involvement of a professional scientist?

On the other hand, as enthusiastic as I am about the consumption access side of OA, the production access side remains problematic, as SK notes:

…I find suggestions that authors can purchase their way to increased citations by paying author fees deeply disturbing. If there is indeed a citation advantage to open access publishing, is it acceptable for publishers to try to rake in more fees by inducing authors to game the system this way? Does this potential pathway toward buying status favor the well-funded laboratory, allowing the rich to become richer?

If an alleged citation advantage is behind an author’s motivation to pay fees, then what happens if all journals become full OA publications and the playing field is leveled? Without the conferred advantage, will authors continue to accept the new economic conditions?

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