What does open peer review bring to scientific articles? Evidence from PLoS journals

Chunli Wei, Jingyi Zhao, Jue Ni and Jiang Li ()
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Chunli Wei: Nanjing University
Jingyi Zhao: Nanjing University
Jue Ni: Nanjing University
Jiang Li: Nanjing University

Scientometrics, 2023, vol. 128, issue 5, No 8, 2763-2776

Abstract: Abstract This study examined the impact of open peer review (OPR) on the usage and citations of scientific articles using a dataset of 6441 articles published in six Public Library of Science (PLoS) journals in 2020–2021. We compared OPR articles with their non-OPR counterparts in the same journal to determine whether OPR increased the visibility and citations of the articles. Our results demonstrated a positive association between OPR and higher article page views, saving, sharing, and a greater HTML to PDF conversion rate. However, we also found that OPR articles had a lower PDF to citations conversion rate compared to non-OPR articles. Furthermore, we investigated the effects of OPR on citations across various citation databases, including Web of Science, Scopus, Google Scholar, Semantic Scholar, and Dimensions. Our analysis indicated that OPR had a heterogeneous impact on citations across these databases. These findings provide compelling evidence for stakeholders, such as policymakers, publishers, and researchers, to participate in OPR and promote its adoption in scientific publishing. Additionally, our study underscores the importance of carefully selecting bibliographic databases when assessing the effect of OPR on article citations.

Keywords: Open peer review; Citations; Different datasets; Article usage metrics; Fixed-effect model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1007/s11192-023-04683-9

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