Current research on the impact of open access publishing on citations and visibility in social media

Abstract

How do social media activity and open publishing connect in the research papers from Finnish universities? A recent study on the advantages and disadvantages of altmetric activity in various disciplines and on commonly used platforms (e.g. Twitter, Mendeley etc.) uses new methods to discover connections in this area. As one would expect, the results show lot of variation according to discipline and platform in use. For instance, in psychology open access publishing showed a clear advantage on Twitter whereas Mendeley activity showed in a disadvantage for open articles. In physical sciences and veterinary medicine OA publishing and altmetric activity where associated on all platforms investigated.

• Kim Holmberg et al: Do articles in open access journals have more frequent altmetric activity than articles in subscription-based journals? An investigation of the research output of Finnish universities

More on the subject:

• According to a study in American Journal of Medicine, open publishing increases citation rates in cardiology journals. The share of open access articles in cardiovascular journals is currently 40%. Open access publishing is significantly associated with increased short-term citation number. Discovering long term citation impact would need further study. (Note that this paper describing the effects of open access is in fact published behind a paywall!)