The impact of open access citation and social media on leading top Information Science journals

The impact of open access citation and social media on leading top Information Science journals Paulo Roberto Cintra* Ariadne Chloe Furnival** Douglas Henrique Milanez*** Artículo recibido: 20 de noviembre de 2017 Artículo aceptado: 16 de agosto de 2018 Artículo de investigación Abstract This study assesses possible advantages of open access can bring to the area of Information Science, using bibliometric citation indicators and Altmetric scores to analyze sixteen hybrid scientific journals, filtered by respective Impact Factors and included in the Journal Citation Reports. Data collection was performed using Web of Science, Google Scholar, Altmetric.com and Mendeley. The verification was performed in two periods in order to examine whether open access exerted influence over time. Results indicate that open access boost the number of citations and mentions in social * Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Brasil ** DCI, Universidade Federal de São Carlos, Brasil *** NIT-Materiais, Universidade Federal de São Carlos, Brasil INVESTIGACIÓN BIBLIOTECOLÓGICA, vol. 32, núm. 77, octubre/diciembre, 2018, México, ISSN: 2448-8321 pp. 117-132 117 INVESTIGACIÓN BIBLIOTECOLÓGICA, vol. 32, núm. 77, octubre/diciembre, 2018, México, ISSN: 2448-8321, pp. 117-132 media for the sample of papers drawn from journals under study. Moreover, this boost is greater when authors upon publishing pay the processing charge to guarantee the immediate open access availability of the paper. In conclusion, while open access can boost the number of citations of a paper, the quality of the paper itself drives most citations. Keywords: Open Access; Journals; Information Science; Bibliometrics; Altmetrics Impacto del acceso abierto en citaciones y medios sociales de las principales revistas de Ciencia de la Información Paulo Roberto Cintra, Ariadne Chloe-Furnival y Douglas Henrique-Martínez Resumen El objetivo de esta investigación fue verificar las posibles ventajas que el acceso abierto puede ofrecer al área de la Ciencia de la Información. Para ello, se analizaron los indicadores bibliométricos de citas y los datos de altmetría en 16 revistas científicas híbridas, seleccionadas mediante el Journal Citation Reports y filtradas con base en sus respectivos factores de impacto. La recolección de datos fue realizada en Web of Science, Google Scholar, Altmetric.com y Mendeley. Esta verificación se realizó en dos periodos de tiempo diferentes para examinar si hubo alguna influencia del acceso abierto en el tiempo. Los resultados indican que el acceso abierto puede ofrecer una ventaja en el número de citas y menciones en las redes sociales para el conjunto de artículos de las revistas analizadas aquí, y que esta ventaja es mayor para los casos en que los autores pagaron el cargo por procesamiento del artículo a garantizar la disponibilidad inmediata del artículo en acceso abierto al momento de la publicación. En la conclusión se afirma que no es sólo el acceso abierto el que provoca una mayor cantidad de citas a un artículo, aunque ayuda, sino la calidad del propio artículo. Palabras clave: Acceso Abierto; Revistas Científicas; Ciencia de la Información; Bibliometría; Altmetría 118 Introduction M aking information available and accessible to anyone is an intrinsic part of the work of Library and Information Science professionals, a principle that, according to Way (2010), was already identified by Ranganathan in The Five Laws of Library Science. What is observed, however, is that most scientists and researchers tend not to make their work available in open access (OA). In fact, as reported by Gargouri et al. (2010), only 15 to 20% of articles published worldwide are self-archived. According to the researchers, even if institutional strategies are adopted to encourage researchers to self-archive, many authors would only self-archive when required by institutions where they are they employed or by funding agencies. Given the fact that the impact of scientific research is usually gauged by the number of citations garnered by a scientific paper, a much-debated question is whether works available through OA are more frequently cited than those available only through non-OA1. This hypothesis, known as the “Open Access Citation Advantage” (OACA), argues that the ease of access can increase visibility and, consequently, potentiate citation frequency. The pioneering work in this area by Lawrence (2001) is often cited in this respect. He analyzed citation patterns of conference papers from the field of Computer Science and related areas, verifying that the most recent articles were more likely to be available online. This ease of access contributed, in turn, to the increase in the number of citations these papers receive. Since the publication of Lawrence’s (2001) results, as Swan (2010) has shown, numerous other studies have been performed with the aim of examining the existence of the OACA in several other knowledge fields (Antelman, 2004; Harnad and Brody, 2004; Atchinson and Bull, 2015). Archambault et al. (2013), for example, verified OACA in 22 knowledge fields. Swan (2010), however, emphasized that there is also research showing there is no advantage in the number of citations for certain scientific fields, such as Economics (Frandsen, 2009 in Swan, 2010). For the specific case of the Library and Information Science, Xia, Myers and Wilhoite (2011) conducted research to verify the existence of the OACA in 20 journals selected from Ulrich´s Periodicals Directory and the Journal Citation Report ( JCR). As a result, the authors found there is a positive and statistically significant correlation between the number of citations and OA availability. Furthermore, the researchers verified that the number of citations 1 The expression non-open access (non- OA) is used for papers with subscription access only via the journals, without an open access version available on the web. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.22201/iibi.24488321xe.2018.77. 57874 THE IMPACT OF OPEN ACCESS CITATION AND SOCIAL MEDIA ON LEADING... 119 INVESTIGACIÓN BIBLIOTECOLÓGICA, vol. 32, núm. 77, octubre/diciembre, 2018, México, ISSN: 2448-8321, pp. 117-132 120 also increases hand in hand with number of OA copies available on the web, which is more likely to occur when the paper has multiple authors, who either self-archive the paper in their respective institutional repository, or who receive help from librarians or student assistants with the archiving process in the repository. Nevertheless, according to Gargouri et al. (2010), criticisms of the OACA hypothesis point out that these OA citation advantages may merely reflect self-selection bias. In other words, scientists will make only those papers available in OA that they themselves consider to be of higher quality and, therefore, potentially more likely to be cited by the scientific community. Harnad (2005), for example, sought to identify the reasons why publications made availab (...truncated)