Which domains do open†access journals do best in? A 5†year longitudinal study

Erjia Yan and Kai Li

Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, 2018, vol. 69, issue 6, 844-856

Abstract: Although researchers have begun to investigate the difference in scientific impact between closed†access and open†access journals, studies that focus specifically on dynamic and disciplinary differences remain scarce. This study serves to fill this gap by using a large longitudinal dataset to examine these differences. Using CiteScore as a proxy for journal scientific impact, we employ a series of statistical tests to identify the quartile categories and disciplinary areas in which impact trends differ notably between closed†and open†access journals. We find that closed†access journals have a noticeable advantage in social sciences (for example, business and economics), whereas open†access journals perform well in medical and healthcare domains (for example, health profession and nursing). Moreover, we find that after controlling for a journal's rank and disciplinary differences, there are statistically more closed†access journals in the top 10%, Quartile 1, and Quartile 2 categories as measured by CiteScore; in contrast, more open†access journals in Quartile 4 gained scientific impact from 2011 to 2015. Considering dynamic and disciplinary trends in tandem, we find that more closed†access journals in Social Sciences gained in impact, whereas in biochemistry and medicine, more open†access journals experienced such gains.

Date: 2018
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