Research Papers

Contribution of the Open Access Modality to the Impact of Hybrid Journals Controlling by Field and Time Effects

  • Pablo Dorta-González , 1, ,
  • María Isabel Dorta-González 2
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  • 1University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, TiDES Research Institute, 35017 Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain
  • 2University of La Laguna, 38271 La Laguna, Spain
† Pablo Dorta-González (E-mail: , ORCID: 0000-0003-0494-2903).

Received date: 2021-11-16

  Revised date: 2022-01-23

  Accepted date: 2022-02-18

  Online published: 2022-03-07

Abstract

Purpose: Researchers are more likely to read and cite papers to which they have access than those that they cannot obtain. Thus, the objective of this work is to analyze the contribution of the Open Access (OA) modality to the impact of hybrid journals.

Design/methodology/approach: The “research articles” in the year 2017 from 200 hybrid journals in four subject areas, and the citations received by such articles in the period 2017-2020 in the Scopus database, were analyzed. The hybrid OA papers were compared with the paywalled ones. The journals were randomly selected from those with share of OA papers higher than some minimal value. More than 60 thousand research articles were analyzed in the sample, of which 24% under the OA modality.

Findings: We obtain at journal level that cites per article in both hybrid modalities (OA and paywalled) strongly correlate. However, there is no correlation between the OA prevalence and cites per article. There is OA citation advantage in 80% of hybrid journals. Moreover, the OA citation advantage is consistent across fields and held in time. We obtain an OA citation advantage of 50% in average, and higher than 37% in half of the hybrid journals. Finally, the OA citation advantage is higher in Humanities than in Science and Social Science.

Research limitations: Some of the citation advantage is likely due to more access allows more people to read and hence cite articles they otherwise would not. However, causation is difficult to establish and there are many possible bias. Several factors can affect the observed differences in citation rates. Funder mandates can be one of them. Funders are likely to have OA requirement, and well-funded studies are more likely to receive more citations than poorly funded studies. Another discussed factor is the selection bias postulate, which suggests that authors choose only their most impactful studies to be open access.

Practical implications: For hybrid journals, the open access modality is positive, in the sense that it provides a greater number of potential readers. This in turn translates into a greater number of citations and an improvement in the position of the journal in the rankings by impact factor. For researchers it is also positive because it increases the potential number of readers and citations received.

Originality/value: Our study refines previous results by comparing documents more similar to each other. Although it does not examine the cause of the observed citation advantage, we find that it exists in a very large sample.

Cite this article

Pablo Dorta-González , María Isabel Dorta-González . Contribution of the Open Access Modality to the Impact of Hybrid Journals Controlling by Field and Time Effects[J]. Journal of Data and Information Science, 2022 , 7(2) : 57 -83 . DOI: 10.2478/jdis-2022-0007

1 Introduction

Researchers are more likely to read and cite papers to which they have access than those that they cannot obtain. Thus, since the emergence of the world wide web, scientists and scholarly publishers have used different forms of Open Access (OA), a disruptive model for the dissemination of research publications (Björk, 2004). In the last years, more and more scientists are making their research results openly accessible to increase its visibility, usage, and citation impact (Dorta-González et al., 2017; 2020).
The common characteristic of all different forms of OA is that the primary source of communication of research results, the peer reviewed article, is available to anybody with Internet access free of charge and access barriers (Prosser, 2003).
There are four main OA modalities. Gold OA refers to scholarly articles in fully accessible OA journals. Green OA refers to publishing in a subscription or pay-per-view journal, in addition to self-archiving the pre- or post-print paper in a repository (Harnad et al., 2004). Hybrid OA is an intermediate form of OA, where authors pay scholarly publishers to make articles freely accessible within journals, in which reading the content otherwise requires a subscription or pay-per-view (Björk, 2017). And finally, Delayed OA refers to scholarly articles in subscription journals made available openly on the web directly through the publisher at the expiry of a set embargo period (Laakso & Björk, 2013).
As previously said, a hybrid journal is a traditional one, for which readers need a subscription or where readers can pay to view individual articles. However, the journal offers authors the possibility to open their individual article on condition of the payment of a price similarly than in a gold OA journal. The price level in the hybrid OA is typically around 3,000 USD, which many authors and their institutions perceive as high (Tenopir et al., 2017).
Hybrid journals are a risk free transition path towards full OA, in contrast to starting new full OA journals or converting ones, since the subscription revenue remains (Prosser, 2003). Thus, since Springer announced in 2004 the hybrid option “Open Choice” for their full portfolio of subscription journals, most big publishers have adopted similar modalities and the number of journals offering the hybrid possibility has increased in recent years.
The vast majority of subscription journals from the leading scholarly publishers are nowadays hybrid. The number of journals offering the hybrid option has increased from around 2,000 in the year 2009 to almost 10,000 in the year 2016, and the number of individual articles in the same period has grown from an estimated 8,000 in the year 2009 to 45,000 in the year 2016 (Björk, 2017).
Since Lawrence proposed in 2001 the OA citation advantage, this postulate has been discussed in depth without an agreement being reached (Davis et al., 2008). Furthermore, some authors are critical about the causal link between OA and higher citations, stating that the benefits of OA are uncertain and vary among different fields (Davis & Walters, 2011).
In this paper, as novel contribution, we take a journal-level approach to assessing the OA citation advantage, while many others take a paper-level approach. This is because research articles in both publication modalities in the same hybrid journal and publication year, are quite similar in discipline and with a priori the same citation potential.
Thus, based on citation data from the Scopus database, we provide longitudinal estimations of cites per article in both publication modalities in hybrid journals. Moreover, we answer the following questions:
1. Are hybrid OA research articles more highly cited than their paywalled counterparts?
2. How does this difference vary according to field and time?

2 Theoretical framework on open access citation advantage

Many researchers, starting with Lawrence (2001), have found that OA articles tend to have more citations than pay-for-access articles. This OA citation advantage has been observed in a variety of academic fields including computer science (Lawrence, 2001), philosophy, political science, electrical & electronic engineering, and mathematics (Antelman, 2004), physics (Harnad et al., 2004), biology and chemistry (Eysenbach, 2006), as well as civil engineering (Koler-Povh, Južnič, & Turk, 2014).
However, this postulate has been discussed in the literature in depth without an agreement being reached (Davis et al., 2008; Dorta-González & Santana-Jiménez, 2018; Gargouri et al., 2010; González-Betancor & Dorta-González, 2019; Joint, 2009; Norris, Oppenheim, & Rowland, 2008; Wang et al., 2015). Furthermore, some authors are critical about the causal link between OA and higher citations, stating that the benefits of OA are uncertain and vary among different fields (Craig et al., 2007; Davis & Walters, 2011).
Kurtz et al. (2005), and later other authors (Craig et al., 2007; Davis et al., 2008; Moed, 2007), set out three postulates supporting the existence of a correlation between OA and increased citations. (1) OA articles are easier to obtain, and therefore easier to read and cite (Open Access postulate). (2) OA articles tend to be available online prior to their publication and therefore begin accumulating citations earlier than pay-for-access articles (Early View postulate). And (3) more prominent authors are more likely to provide OA to their articles, and authors are more likely to provide OA to their highest quality articles (Selection Bias postulate). Moreover, these authors conclude that early view and selection bias effects are the main factors behind this correlation.
Gaule and Maystre (2011) and Niyazov et al. (2016) found evidence of selection bias in OA, but still estimated a statistically significant citation advantage even after controlling for that bias. Regardless of the validity or generality of their conclusions, these studies establish that any analysis must take into account the effect of time (citation time window) and selection bias.
At journal level, Gumpenberger, Ovalle-Perandones, and Gorraiz (2013) showed that the impact factor of gold OA journals was increasing, and that one-third of newly launched OA journals were indexed in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) after three years. However, Björk and Solomon (2012) argued that the economic model is not related to journal impact. This result has been confirmed by Solomon, Laakso, and Björk (2013), concluding that articles are cited at a similar rate regardless of the distribution model.
The OA citation advantage is not universally supported. Many studies have been criticised on methodological grounds (Davis & Walters, 2011), and a research using the randomized-control trial method failed to find evidence of an OA citation advantage (Davis, 2011).
However, recent studies using robust methods have observed an OA citation advantage. McCabe and Snyder (2014) used a complex statistical model to remove author bias and reported a small but meaningful 8% OA citation advantage. Archambault et al. (2014) in a massive sample of over one million articles and using field-normalized citation rates, described a 40% OA citation advantage. Ottaviani (2016) reported a 19% OA citation advantage excluding the author self-selection bias and beyond the first years after publication.

3 Methodology

Since the end of 2020, Scopus has new Open Access filters providing information on the type of open access per article. With this new classification system, users can now filter their results or use specific OA tags, i.e. gold, hybrid gold, green, and bronze (delayed).
The source of OA information in Scopus is Unpaywall, an open-source browser extension that lets users find OA articles from publishers and repositories (run by OurResearch, a non-profit organization).
In this study, four subject areas in the Scopus database, one in each branch of knowledge, are considered: Arts & Humanities; Economics, Econometrics & Finance; Medicine; and Physics & Astronomy.
We decided a priori to take four subject areas. This number was set so that both figures and tables could be displayed in the paper. The subject areas were selected based on the previous experience of the authors and trying to cover fields as diverse as possible.
For each of these subject areas, the “research articles” in the year 2017 from 50 hybrid journals, and the citations received by such research articles in the period 2017-2020, were downloaded from the Scopus database (April 8, 2021).
Only 2017 was taken as the year of publication (census) in order to have a citation window of at least three full years for all documents (a full window of three years plus the time elapsed during the year of publication). Note that in most areas the maximum of the distribution of citations is reached before the third year from its publication. Articles published at the beginning of 2017 accumulate their citations for almost four years, while those published at the end of 2017 accumulate their citations for just over three years. This consideration has no consequences on the results obtained since the publication under the hybrid open access modality is distributed uniformly among all the issues of the same year.
The 200 journals were randomly selected from those with share of OA papers in 2017 higher than some minimal value: 5% in Medicine, 4% in Arts & Humanities, 2% in Physics & Astronomy, and 2% in Economics, Econometrics & Finance. Said threshold was set based on the prevalence of the OA modality in each subject area, so that this percentage is higher in areas where the OA modality in hybrid journals is more widespread. This information is detailed in the dataset in Appendix.
A total of 2,020,793 “research articles” were published in the Scopus database in 2017, of which 69,093 were in hybrid journals under the OA modality (3.4%). During that same year, the selected four subject areas published 874,556 research articles, of which 33,796 were in hybrid journals with OA modality (3.9%).
The distribution by subject areas is show in Table 1. The hybrid OA prevalence is 4.6% in Medicine, 3.7% in Arts & Humanities, 2.7% in Physics & Astronomy, and 2.5% in Economics, Econometrics & Finance. The four subject areas represents 43.3% of the database in 2017 by including the largest (Medicine) and the fourth largest (Physics & Astronomy) subject areas. Moreover, the OA articles in hybrid journals in the four subject areas represent 48.9% of the database by including also the largest (Medicine) and the fourth largest (Physics & Astronomy) subject areas in hybrid OA articles.
Table 1. Description of the subject areas in the study.
Subject Area Research Articles in 2017
OA Hybrid % Other modalities* % Total
Arts & Humanities 2,821 3.7% 74,458 96.3% 77,279
Economics, Econometrics & Finance 1,097 2.5% 43,376 97.5% 44,473
Medicine 23,243 4.6% 485,260 95.4% 508,503
Physics & Astronomy 6,635 2.7% 237,666 97.3% 244,301
Aggregate Areas 33,796 3.9% 840,760 96.1% 874,556
Scopus database 69,093 3.4% 1,951,700 96.6% 2,020,793
% 48.9% 43.1% 43.3%

*Paywalled modality in hybrid journals, paywalled journals, and OA journals

In the sample, the 62,608 research articles from 200 hybrid journals were analyzed. Of these, 8,043 research articles were published under the OA modality. This represents 23.8% of the total OA research articles published in hybrid journals in the subject areas considered (33,796). This information disaggregate by subject areas is show in Table 2. The areas that are overrepresented in the sample in relation to the OA, in relative terms, are Economics, Econometrics & Finance (49.3%) and Arts & Humanities (40.8%). However, in absolute terms, the total number of OA articles included in these two areas are lower than in Medicine and Physics & Astronomy, due to the larger size of the journals in the latter.
Table 2. Representativeness of the sample.
Subject Area Research Articles in Hybrid Journals in 2017
Sample Population Sample %
OA Hybrid Paywalled OA Hybrid OA Hybrid
Arts & Humanities 1,151 5,759 2,821 40.8%
Economics, Econometrics & Finance 541 5,411 1,097 49.3%
Medicine 4,381 15,772 23,243 18.8%
Physics & Astronomy 1,970 27,623 6,635 29.7%
Total 8,043 54,565 33,796 23.8%

3 Results

3.1 Cites per article in hybrid journals by modality

About the correlation between variables (Table 3), as expected, the size of the journal does not correlate with any other variable. The OA prevalence in hybrid journals, this is the proportion of research articles under the OA modality, does not correlate with the position of the journal in the citation ranking (best CiteScore percentile). As a particular case, it does weakly and negatively in Arts & Humanities (-0.69), that is, the best-positioned journals in the citation ranking have a lower proportion of OA articles. This is due to some highly prestigious journals that are still in the initial stages of the hybrid publication model.
Table 3. Pearson's linear correlation coefficient.
Best CiteScore Percentile 2017 Research Articles
2017
OA
Prevalence
OA Cites
per Article
Paywalled Cites per Article
Arts & Humanities
Best CiteScore Percentile 2017 1.00 0.03 -0.69 0.50 0.57
Research Articles 2017 0.03 1.00 -0.21 0.30 0.42
OA Prevalence -0.69 -0.21 1.00 -0.39 -0.40
OA Cites per Article 0.50 0.30 -0.39 1.00 0.81
Paywalled Cites per Article 0.57 0.42 -0.40 0.81 1.00
Economics, Econometrics & Finance
Best CiteScore Percentile 2017 1.00 -0.16 0.07 0.60 0.57
Research Articles 2017 -0.16 1.00 -0.52 0.13 0.11
OA Prevalence 0.07 -0.52 1.00 -0.14 -0.12
OA Cites per Article 0.60 0.13 -0.14 1.00 0.85
Paywalled Cites per Article 0.57 0.11 -0.12 0.85 1.00
Medicine
Best CiteScore Percentile 2017 1.00 -0.48 -0.22 0.29 0.34
Research Articles 2017 -0.48 1.00 -0.14 -0.18 -0.20
OA Prevalence -0.22 -0.14 1.00 0.01 -0.02
OA Cites per Article 0.29 -0.18 0.01 1.00 0.97
Paywalled Cites per Article 0.34 -0.20 -0.02 0.97 1.00
Physics & Astronomy
Best CiteScore Percentile 2017 1.00 0.12 0.00 0.33 0.52
Research Articles 2017 0.12 1.00 -0.35 0.03 0.15
OA Prevalence 0.00 -0.35 1.00 -0.17 -0.17
OA Cites per Article 0.33 0.03 -0.17 1.00 0.49
Paywalled Cites per Article 0.52 0.15 -0.17 0.49 1.00

Note: (a) The OA prevalence is the proportion of articles in the OA modality of the hybrid journal. (b) Weuse the term ‘Best percentile' because a journal may be assigned to several subject fields and have different percentiles in each of them.

The OA prevalence either does not correlate with cites per article in the hybrid modalities. However, the position of the journal in the citation ranking (percentile) correlates weakly with cites per article in both hybrid modalities.
Note the only two variables that present high correlation, above 0.81 in three subject areas, are cites per article according to modality. That is, the higher cites per article in one modality, the greater in the other. Medicine highlight with a very high correlation (0.97). The exception is Physics & Astronomy, where the correlation reduces to 0.49.
As previously commented, there is a strong and positive linear correlation for cites per article in both hybrid modalities (see Figure 1). The coefficient of determination is generally high, with the exception of Physics & Astronomy. The hybrid journals with the greatest impact in one modality are also in the other. The bisector of the square, that is, the imaginary line that begins in the lower left corner and ends in the upper right corner of the square, separates the citation advantage for each modality. The bubbles below the bisector correspond to hybrid journals with citation advantage for the OA modality. Similarly, the bubbles above the bisector correspond to hybrid journals with citation advantage in the paywalled modality (citation disadvantage for the OA). Note in all the areas there is a majority of journals below the bisector, where the citation advantage corresponds to the OA hybrid modality. In fact, the regression line falls below the bisector in all cases, that is, the OA citation advantage in hybrid journals is observed even in the least squares estimate.
Figure 1. Scatter plot for cites per article in both hybrid modalities. Average across all citation years for the 200 hybrid journals in the sample. Bubble size proportional to OA prevalence.
In relation to the OA prevalence, this is the proportion of articles in the OA modality of the hybrid journal, indicated through the size of the bubble in Figure 1, there is a tendency for big bubbles to gravitate around the origin. This is especially evident for Humanities and Physics. This means that hybrid journals with higher proportion of OA papers are usually cited less, which is in accordance with mostly negative correlation coefficients for these indicators in Table 3.
The box diagram for the average of cites per article in hybrid journals, according to modality and year of citation, is show in Figure 2. In all subject areas and each citation year, cites per article for those in the OA modality are clearly higher than the citations in the paywalled modality. These average citations for the OA modality are higher both in mean (indicated with the x symbol) and in quartiles of the distribution (box and whisker). Note that the mean of the distribution is considerably larger than the median. This is because the distribution is asymmetric with a long tail on the right.
Figure 2. Box and whisker plot (without outliers) for the distribution of cites per article by hybrid modality and year of citation. Average in the citation years for the 200 hybrid journals in the sample.
The increase in the number of citations over time relates to the shape of the citation distribution in each subject area. Thus, for example, in Physics & Astronomy the maximum of the distribution reaches in the third year. Beyond this logical increase in the number of citations over years, no clear time effect observes in Figure 2.

3.2 Open Access citation advantage in hybrid journals

The OA citation advantage (disadvantage when it is negative) for a journal in a particular year, is defined in relation to the sign of the subtraction as follows. If cites per OA article is greater than cites per paywalled article, then the OA citation advantage is:
(Cites per OA - Cites per Paywalled) / Cites per Paywalled.
However, if cites per OA article is less than cites per paywalled article, then the OA citation advantage (disadvantage because de result is negative) is:
(Cites per OA - Cites per Paywalled) / Cites per OA.
The OA citation advantage in relation to the journal percentile shows in Figure 3. There are differences in OA citation advantages between fields. For example, in Medicine there are few journals with a citation disadvantage for the OA, and in most cases the citation advantage is in the range 0-100%. However, in Economics, Econometrics & Finance the differences among journals are much greater and a big number of cases fall into the range from -100% to 200%. Note the only two highly disadvantaged journals have medium percentiles. A more detailed analysis will follow.
Figure 3. OA citation advantage in relation to the best CiteScore percentile. We use the term “Best percentile” because a journal may be assigned to several subject fields and have different percentiles in each of them.
Figure 4 shows the OA citation advantage by subject areas, with and without outliers. Note the citation advantage of the OA modality in hybrid journals is clear for all subject areas. The data distribution, represented by the box and whiskers, displaces toward the positive part of the vertical axis. The median of the distribution (the inner line that divides the box into two parts) is in the range 25-50%, while the mean is in 40-60%. There is a citation advantage in more than 75% of the journals. Thus, the 25th percentile (the bottom line of the box) is located close to 0% in the worst case (Economics, Econometrics & Finance). Furthermore, the OA citation advantage is consistent across fields (Figure 4) and held in time (Figure 5).
Figure 4. OA citation advantage by subject areas.
Figure 5. OA citation advantage along time.
There is OA citation advantage in 80% of hybrid journals (Table 4). In the remaining 20% there are OA citation disadvantage or there are no differences. The results are relatively stable both across fields and over time. The subject areas where the number of journals with OA citation advantage is higher are Medicine (88%) and Arts & Humanities (82%).
Table 4. Number of journals with OA citation advantage.
Subject Area Number of Journals with OA Citation Advantage
2017 2018 2019 2020 2017-2020
Arts & Humanities 33 66% 41 82% 40 80% 39 78% 41 82%
Economics, Econometrics & Finance 35 70% 38 76% 34 68% 40 80% 37 74%
Medicine 39 78% 43 86% 44 88% 40 80% 44 88%
Physics & Astronomy 38 76% 38 76% 35 70% 36 72% 37 74%
Aggregate areas 145 73% 160 80% 153 77% 155 78% 159 80%
The average of the OA citation advantage (Table 5) increases with time in the area where the OA prevalence is highest (Medicine), but has a U-shape in the area where the OA prevalence is lowest (Economics, Econometrics & Finance).
Table 5. Mean of the OA citation advantage.
Subject Area Mean OA Citation Advantage
2017 2018 2019 2020 2017-2020
Arts & Humanities 110.6% 102.8% 34.4% 82.5% 62.4%
Economics, Econometrics & Finance 83.9% 28.4% 28.8% 64.1% 41.4%
Medicine 41.7% 43.5% 44.7% 47.4% 44.3%
Physics & Astronomy 41.4% 48.6% 57.0% 56.3% 53.1%
Aggregate areas 50.3%
For the aggregate citations in 2017-2020, the average OA citation advantage varies in the range 41.4-62.4%, with a mean for the aggregate areas of 50.3%. The highest average reaches in Arts & Humanities, while the lowest observes in Economics, Econometrics & Finance.
The outliers observed in the data distribution can skew the mean. However, half of the journals have OA citation advantage above the median of the distribution (and the other half below). Thus, the median (Table 6) is more robust measure of central tendency than the mean for data with such a high variance. The median OA citation advantage in 2017-2020 varies among fields in the range 26.9-49.4%, being 36.8% its value for the aggregate areas. The highest median reaches in Arts & Humanities, while the lowest observes in Medicine.
Table 6. Median of the OA citation advantage.
Subject Area Median OA Citation Advantage
2017 2018 2019 2020 2017-2020
Arts & Humanities 38.9% 62.9% 31.8% 44.1% 49.4%
Economics, Econometrics & Finance 41.8% 37.9% 24.2% 45.8% 39.0%
Medicine 29.2% 32.1% 31.5% 28.0% 26.9%
Physics & Astronomy 30.5% 30.0% 30.7% 24.8% 27.9%
Aggregate areas 36.8%
Thus, we can conclude that the citation advantage of the OA modality in hybrid journals, in relation to the paywalled modality, is around 50.3% in average for the 200 journals and four years in the sample, and higher than 36.8% in half of the journals. Moreover, this OA citation advantage held in time. Finally, the highest OA citation advantage is observed in Arts & Humanities.

4 Discussion and conclusions

Access to academic literature is a current debate in the research community. Research funders are increasingly mandating OA dissemination while, at the same time, the growth in costs have led more and more university libraries to cancel some subscriptions.
In this paper, the “research articles” in the year 2017 from 200 hybrid journals in four subject areas, and the citations received by such articles in the period 2017-2020 in the Scopus database, were analyzed. The journals were randomly selected from those with share of OA papers higher than some minimal value. More than 60 thousand research articles were analyzed in the sample, of which 24% under the OA modality.
Interestingly, we found that in general, the citations per article in both hybrid modalities strongly correlate. The hybrid journals with the greatest impact in one modality are also in the other. The evidence for this result is weaker in the field of Physics. However, there is no correlation between the OA prevalence, this is the proportion of articles in the OA modality of the hybrid journal, and cites per article in any of the hybrid modalities.
We found that there is OA citation advantage in 80% of hybrid journals. This result is strong both across fields and over time. The number of journals with OA citation advantage is higher in Medicine (88%) and Humanities (82%).
We found that the average OA citation advantage increases with time in the field where the OA prevalence is highest (Medicine), but has a U-shape in the field with lowest OA prevalence (Economics). The average OA citation advantage in 2017-2020 varies among fields in the range 41-62%, with an aggregate mean of 50%. The highest average is obtained in Humanities, while the lowest is observed in Economics.
The median OA citation advantage in 2017-2020 varies in the range 27-49% according to fields, being 37% its value for the aggregate fields. The highest median is observed again in Humanities, while the lowest is obtained in Medicine.
Thus, we can conclude that the citation advantage of the OA modality in hybrid journals, in relation to the paywalled modality, is around 50% in average for the 200 journals and four years in the sample, and higher than 37% in half of the journals. Moreover, the OA citation advantage is consistent across fields and held in time. Finally, the OA citation advantage is higher in Humanities than in Science and Social Science.
There are some considerations in this regard. Some journals in the random sample have been cataloged by the Scopus database as Humanities, but are actually at the intersection with other areas. Notice that there are journals assigned to two different subject categories from two different areas. Indeed, these journals that employ scientific methods with applications to the Humanities receive more citations than pure humanistic journals. Therefore, the results obtained for this area must be taken with caution.
On the reliability of the data source, Unpaywall is indirectly used (through Scopus) to determine the publication modality in hybrid journals. Notice that Unpaywall is based on algorithms and not on indexing. This is the reason why, regardless of the discipline, the OA finder Unpaywall does not locate as many OA versions of journal articles as manual searches (Piwowar et al., 2018; Sergiadis, 2019).
Our study refines previous results by comparing documents more similar to each other, both in discipline and citation potential. Some of the citation advantage in the open access modality is likely due to more access allows more people to read and hence cite articles they otherwise would not. However, causation is difficult to establish and there are many possible bias. Several factors can affect the observed differences in citation rates. Funder mandates can be one of them. Funders are likely to have OA requirement, and well-funded studies are more likely to receive more citations than poorly funded studies (Aagaard, Kladakis, & Nielsen, 2020).
Another discussed factor is the selection bias postulate (Craig et al., 2007), which suggests that authors choose only their most impactful studies to be open access. Selection bias can occur in both paid open access journals (gold OA) and hybrid journals. This is due to researchers who have financial resources to publish their results prioritize the publication in open access those papers that they consider may have a greater impact. The current study does not examine the cause of the observed citation advantage, but does find that it exists in a very large sample.

Author contributionsAppendix: Dataset

Pablo Dorta-González (pablo.dorta@ulpgc.es): Conceptualization (Equal), Formal analysis (Equal), Investigation (Equal), Methodology (Equal), Supervision (Equal), Validation (Equal), Writing—original draft (Equal), Writing—review & editing (Equal). María Isabel Dorta-González (isadorta@ull.edu.es): Data curation (Equal), Formal analysis (Equal), Investigation (Equal), Writing—original draft (Equal), Writing—review & editing (Equal).
Journal Best CiteScore Percentile 2017 Modality Research Articles 2017 % Cites 2017 Cites 2018 Cites 2019 Cites 2020 Total Cites Cites per Article OA Citation Advantage
Arts and Humanities
Anales de Literatura Hispanoamericana 29 Paywalled 20 43.5% 0 1 0 0 1 0.05 53.8%
OA 26 56.5% 0 0 1 1 2 0.08
Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 94 Paywalled 102 90.3% 86 157 202 217 662 6.49 44.3%
OA 11 9.7% 11 27 26 39 103 9.36
Archaeology Ethnology and Anthropology of Eurasia 56 Paywalled 12 27.9% 0 2 5 6 13 1.08 37.0%
OA 31 72.1% 2 10 14 20 46 1.48
Archaeometry 99 Paywalled 64 88.9% 35 62 85 83 265 4.14 69.1%
OA 8 11.1% 3 21 14 18 56 7.00
Archives of Design Research 16 Paywalled 14 29.2% 0 1 2 1 4 0.29 219.1%
OA 34 70.8% 1 8 12 10 31 0.91
Archives of Sexual Behavior 91 Paywalled 197 94.7% 274 484 692 727 2,177 11.05 20.1%
OA 11 5.3% 10 30 45 61 146 13.27
Artnodes 69 Paywalled 11 47.8% 0 0 3 1 4 0.36 -118.2%
OA 12 52.2% 0 0 1 1 2 0.17
Attention Perception and Psychophysics 94 Paywalled 177 88.9% 61 261 350 363 1,035 5.85 61.7%
OA 22 11.1% 22 52 69 65 208 9.45
Behavior Research Methods 95 Paywalled 132 82.0% 132 416 654 850 2,052 15.55 71.9%
OA 29 18.0% 52 163 225 335 775 26.72
Bioethics 96 Paywalled 59 89.4% 39 109 111 112 371 6.29 61.3%
OA 7 10.6% 11 21 23 16 71 10.14
Biology and Philosophy 96 Paywalled 48 85.7% 21 51 68 100 240 5.00 122.5%
OA 8 14.3% 15 28 25 21 89 11.13
Brain and Cognition 92 Paywalled 96 93.2% 56 205 302 348 911 9.49 116.8%
OA 7 6.8% 26 40 34 44 144 20.57
Brain and Language 98 Paywalled 97 94.2% 62 241 267 310 880 9.07 8.4%
OA 6 5.8% 2 19 18 20 59 9.83
Cognition 99 Paywalled 222 91.0% 173 632 822 889 2,516 11.33 24.3%
OA 22 9.0% 20 82 95 113 310 14.09
Cognition and Emotion 86 Paywalled 141 91.0% 151 318 419 480 1,368 9.70 9.0%
OA 14 9.0% 19 21 43 65 148 10.57
Computers in Human Behavior 97 Paywalled 634 95.6% 715 2,976 5,094 6,609 15,394 24.28 45.9%
OA 29 4.4% 39 207 344 437 1,027 35.41
Contemporary British History 87 Paywalled 19 70.4% 4 3 9 10 26 1.37 146.6%
OA 8 29.6% 5 9 5 8 27 3.38
Cultural and Social History 75 Paywalled 30 81.1% 3 4 4 12 23 0.77 105.0%
OA 7 18.9% 0 3 6 2 11 1.57
Design Journal 35 Paywalled 45 9.9% 5 17 34 39 95 2.11 -12.3%
OA 410 90.1% 3 136 259 373 771 1.88
Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 76 Paywalled 41 69.5% 5 17 27 35 84 2.05 79.0%
OA 18 30.5% 3 12 21 30 66 3.67
Evolution and Human Behavior 96 Paywalled 79 91.9% 90 195 282 353 920 11.65 -35.9%
OA 7 8.1% 6 17 16 21 60 8.57
Gender Place and Culture 97 Paywalled 97 92.4% 30 123 212 276 641 6.61 72.1%
OA 8 7.6% 1 20 20 50 91 11.38
Human Ecology 93 Paywalled 58 85.3% 14 56 107 103 280 4.83 9.8%
OA 10 14.7% 1 12 13 27 53 5.30
International Journal of Audiology 95 Paywalled 107 89.9% 44 151 233 209 637 5.95 -197.7%
OA 12 10.1% 6 20 20 20 24 2.00
International Journal of Transpersonal Studies 48 Paywalled 11 57.9% 12 1 10 8 31 2.82 -32.6%
OA 8 42.1% 0 5 8 4 17 2.13
Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 98 Paywalled 34 79.1% 6 35 63 56 160 4.71 41.7%
OA 9 20.9% 14 11 17 18 60 6.67
Journal of Archaeological Science 99 Paywalled 105 91.3% 107 275 350 429 1,161 11.06 20.3%
OA 10 8.7% 17 32 44 40 133 13.30
Journal of Archaeological Science Reports 80 Paywalled 379 95.9% 177 545 737 806 2,265 5.98 74.6%
OA 16 4.1% 11 42 49 65 167 10.44
Journal of Business Ethics 97 Paywalled 300 92.6% 345 953 1,772 2,610 5,680 18.93 -23.5%
OA 24 7.4% 27 82 108 151 368 15.33
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 89 Paywalled 124 83.8% 126 213 338 457 1,134 9.15 82.2%
OA 24 16.2% 49 79 103 169 400 16.67
Journal of Intellectual and Developmental Disability 62 Paywalled 30 78.9% 15 31 34 54 134 4.47 95.9%
OA 8 21.1% 8 17 23 22 70 8.75
Journal of Medical Ethics 90 Paywalled 113 80.1% 82 200 218 221 721 6.38 44.4%
OA 28 19.9% 28 69 70 91 258 9.21
Journal of Memory and Language 98 Paywalled 88 87.1% 97 311 346 428 1,182 13.43 152.6%
OA 13 12.9% 20 98 128 195 441 33.92
Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 76 Paywalled 79 87.8% 15 42 54 93 204 2.58 61.9%
OA 11 12.2% 8 12 13 13 46 4.18
Journal of Religion and Health 98 Paywalled 163 93.7% 75 155 215 263 708 4.34 151.2%
OA 11 6.3% 7 34 31 48 120 10.91
Journal of Southern African Studies 59 Paywalled 59 85.5% 9 39 50 46 144 2.44 457.2%
OA 10 14.5% 35 25 31 45 136 13.60
Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 71 Paywalled 805 93.2% 322 1,364 1,850 1,642 5,178 6.43 24.6%
OA 59 6.8% 28 120 167 158 473 8.02
Journal of World Prehistory 98 Paywalled 5 41.7% 2 18 20 28 68 13.60 -58.7%
OA 7 58.3% 6 17 16 21 60 8.57
Law and Philosophy 78 Paywalled 12 63.2% 2 12 5 3 22 1.83 375.3%
OA 7 36.8% 0 15 22 24 61 8.71
Medical Humanities 85 Paywalled 81 88.0% 11 23 35 49 118 1.46 268.2%
OA 11 12.0% 11 11 14 23 59 5.36
Memory 75 Paywalled 123 92.5% 69 172 253 251 745 6.06 7.3%
OA 10 7.5% 6 14 27 18 65 6.50
Memory and Cognition 83 Paywalled 93 90.3% 47 149 185 239 620 6.67 53.0%
OA 10 9.7% 12 23 23 44 102 10.20
Neophilologus 63 Paywalled 35 81.4% 1 2 3 11 17 0.49 2.9%
OA 8 18.6% 0 0 1 3 4 0.50
Philosophia United States 63 Paywalled 105 84.7% 9 27 63 60 159 1.51 -43.9%
OA 19 15.3% 0 3 6 11 20 1.05
Philosophical Explorations 79 Paywalled 23 59.0% 4 15 28 35 82 3.57 10.4%
OA 16 41.0% 2 17 22 22 63 3.94
Philosophical Studies 92 Paywalled 162 92.0% 46 113 192 238 589 3.64 -121.3%
OA 14 8.0% 1 7 1 14 23 1.64
Philosophy and Technology 92 Paywalled 14 56.0% 6 17 18 33 74 5.29 268.1%
OA 11 44.0% 17 41 75 81 214 19.45
Political Geography 99 Paywalled 72 83.7% 39 143 233 295 710 9.86 70.9%
OA 14 16.3% 15 51 79 91 236 16.86
Review of Philosophy and Psychology 94 Paywalled 33 80.5% 14 27 42 60 143 4.33 44.2%
OA 8 19.5% 7 18 9 16 50 6.25
Synthese 90 Paywalled 209 88.2% 42 139 203 290 674 3.22 80.5%
OA 28 11.8% 19 38 47 59 163 5.82
Economics, Econometrics & Finance
Applied Economics 47 Paywalled 410 97.9% 98 336 561 752 1,747 4.26 158.2%
OA 9 2.1% 10 21 19 49 99 11.00
Applied Economics Letters 36 Paywalled 307 97.5% 71 157 286 332 846 2.76 -10.2%
OA 8 2.5% 1 7 3 9 20 2.50
Applied Health Economics and Health Policy 83 Paywalled 49 89.1% 21 74 84 114 293 5.98 58.9%
OA 6 10.9% 9 10 22 16 57 9.50
Computational Economics 72 Paywalled 54 91.5% 19 42 66 68 195 3.61 32.9%
OA 5 8.5% 4 7 5 8 24 4.80
Ecological Economics 92 Paywalled 266 92.4% 255 953 1,330 1,654 4,192 15.76 14.8%
OA 22 7.6% 29 96 123 150 398 18.09
Economic Geography 98 Paywalled 15 75.0% 15 64 89 100 268 17.87 73.5%
OA 5 25.0% 7 24 52 72 155 31.00
Economic Journal 91 Paywalled 105 87.5% 99 218 323 422 1,062 10.11 -3.2%
OA 15 12.5% 9 29 49 60 147 9.80
Economic Theory 68 Paywalled 59 86.8% 35 44 53 76 208 3.53 -98.3%
OA 9 13.2% 7 1 3 5 16 1.78
Economics Letters 53 Paywalled 390 95.6% 53 356 761 859 2,029 5.20 -73.4%
OA 18 4.4% 5 11 14 24 54 3.00
Economist Netherlands 43 Paywalled 10 52.6% 8 4 9 5 26 2.60 -290.0%
OA 9 47.4% 4 0 2 0 6 0.67
Empirical Economics 64 Paywalled 126 90.6% 27 133 173 241 574 4.56 -23.4%
OA 13 9.4% 4 4 14 26 48 3.69
Energy Economics 93 Paywalled 342 96.9% 333 1,352 2,193 2,966 6,844 20.01 -53.9%
OA 11 3.1% 8 31 50 54 143 13.00
Environmental and Resource Economics 81 Paywalled 95 84.8% 80 167 279 303 829 8.73 52.3%
OA 17 15.2% 28 49 62 87 226 13.29
European Journal of Health Economics 95 Paywalled 53 65.4% 55 98 130 156 439 8.28 -13.7%
OA 28 34.6% 13 58 49 84 204 7.29
Experimental Economics 94 Paywalled 35 83.3% 16 56 74 71 217 6.20 49.8%
OA 7 16.7% 7 17 25 16 65 9.29
Finance and Stochastics 87 Paywalled 20 62.5% 6 28 32 29 95 4.75 166.7%
OA 12 37.5% 4 26 49 73 152 12.67
Fiscal Studies 82 Paywalled 18 75.0% 11 20 29 47 107 5.94 31.8%
OA 6 25.0% 6 6 13 22 47 7.83
Food Policy 98 Paywalled 79 72.5% 49 203 312 398 962 12.18 142.8%
OA 30 27.5% 60 160 269 398 887 29.57
Forest Policy and Economics 92 Paywalled 148 94.3% 198 447 518 604 1,767 11.94 136.4%
OA 9 5.7% 29 60 87 78 254 28.22
Global Policy 74 Paywalled 126 95.5% 72 123 172 218 585 4.64 215.9%
OA 6 4.5% 12 19 28 29 88 14.67
Globalizations 88 Paywalled 74 91.4% 73 121 146 163 503 6.80 114.4%
OA 7 8.6% 5 25 28 44 102 14.57
Internat Environmental Agreements Politics Law and Economics 91 Paywalled 37 80.4% 31 52 68 68 219 5.92 237.9%
OA 9 19.6% 20 35 61 64 180 20.00
International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability 80 Paywalled 43 87.8% 29 83 120 171 403 9.37 63.6%
OA 6 12.2% 2 16 35 39 92 15.33
International Journal of Game Theory 54 Paywalled 47 90.4% 9 31 30 33 103 2.19 -265.2%
OA 5 9.6% 0 1 0 2 3 0.60
International Journal of Production Economics 98 Paywalled 281 96.6% 331 1,284 2,207 2,930 6,752 24.03 81.5%
OA 10 3.4% 7 80 121 228 436 43.60
Journal of Common Market Studies 96 Paywalled 91 94.8% 70 198 256 298 822 9.03 6.3%
OA 5 5.2% 4 15 8 21 48 9.60
Journal of Development Economics 92 Paywalled 65 91.5% 32 138 213 319 702 10.80 49.7%
OA 6 8.5% 4 17 34 42 97 16.17
Journal of Econometrics 82 Paywalled 119 95.2% 67 155 269 403 894 7.51 39.8%
OA 6 4.8% 8 10 15 30 63 10.50
Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 75 Paywalled 221 96.5% 53 266 463 635 1,417 6.41 56.0%
OA 8 3.5% 4 18 16 42 80 10.00
Journal of Economic Inequality 86 Paywalled 14 73.7% 2 12 30 29 73 5.21 -37.2%
OA 5 26.3% 4 2 5 8 19 3.80
Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 90 Paywalled 71 91.0% 85 259 392 571 1,307 18.41 -23.9%
OA 7 9.0% 11 27 35 31 104 14.86
Journal of International Economics 90 Paywalled 81 87.1% 30 142 225 349 746 9.21 109.9%
OA 12 12.9% 9 38 71 114 232 19.33
Journal of International Money and Finance 88 Paywalled 116 95.9% 52 187 316 499 1,054 9.09 21.1%
OA 5 4.1% 5 7 16 27 55 11.00
Journal of Public Economics 89 Paywalled 113 95.0% 47 184 333 449 1,013 8.96 45.0%
OA 6 5.0% 7 15 18 38 78 13.00
Journal of Risk and Uncertainty 82 Paywalled 11 52.4% 1 17 26 22 66 6.00 38.3%
OA 10 47.6% 0 18 27 38 83 8.30
Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 99 Paywalled 45 90.0% 125 320 663 1,045 2,153 47.84 20.0%
OA 5 10.0% 13 41 84 149 287 57.40
Journal of the European Economic Association 98 Paywalled 31 86.1% 24 69 144 201 438 14.13 -13.9%
OA 5 13.9% 1 16 18 27 62 12.40
Labour Economics 69 Paywalled 78 92.9% 31 80 150 247 508 6.51 15.2%
OA 6 7.1% 3 7 15 20 45 7.50
Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences 52 Paywalled 21 80.8% 2 9 22 22 55 2.62 37.5%
OA 5 19.2% 3 2 2 11 18 3.60
Marine Policy 96 Paywalled 304 90.2% 158 689 964 1,022 2,833 9.32 171.2%
OA 33 9.8% 47 204 266 317 834 25.27
Public Choice 71 Paywalled 60 84.5% 14 36 57 83 190 3.17 37.8%
OA 11 15.5% 2 8 18 20 48 4.36
Quantitative Finance 87 Paywalled 109 95.6% 36 123 175 209 543 4.98 56.6%
OA 5 4.4% 4 7 14 14 39 7.80
Resources Policy 96 Paywalled 121 92.4% 88 369 594 755 1,806 14.93 60.1%
OA 10 7.6% 8 46 94 91 239 23.90
Review of Income and Wealth 72 Paywalled 56 88.9% 19 58 91 84 252 4.50 166.7%
OA 7 11.1% 3 15 27 39 84 12.00
Review of International Political Economy 99 Paywalled 27 79.4% 9 42 73 99 223 8.26 86.8%
OA 7 20.6% 14 20 32 42 108 15.43
Small Business Economics 96 Paywalled 80 80.8% 54 200 479 623 1,356 16.95 36.6%
OA 19 19.2% 19 64 141 216 440 23.16
Social Choice and Welfare 54 Paywalled 64 87.7% 29 56 79 72 236 3.69 228.4%
OA 9 12.3% 14 23 29 43 109 12.11
Technological and Economic Development of Economy 93 Paywalled 22 48.9% 27 63 82 76 248 11.27 -36.5%
OA 23 51.1% 24 54 57 55 190 8.26
Theory and Decision 70 Paywalled 50 83.3% 6 18 44 61 129 2.58 24.0%
OA 10 16.7% 1 7 10 14 32 3.20
World Development 97 Paywalled 252 88.1% 203 746 1,180 1,591 3,720 14.76 74.1%
OA 34 11.9% 35 185 266 388 874 25.71
Medicine
Advances in Therapy 67 Paywalled 51 38.6% 26 111 113 133 383 7.51 66.4%
OA 81 61.4% 68 254 358 332 1,012 12.49
American Journal of Cardiology 82 Paywalled 626 94.0% 339 1,521 1,853 1,857 5,570 8.90 64.9%
OA 40 6.0% 47 158 202 180 587 14.68
American Journal of Preventive Medicine 97 Paywalled 237 79.5% 250 745 1,054 1,190 3,239 13.67 18.4%
OA 61 20.5% 56 198 332 401 987 16.18
American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 66 Paywalled 414 83.6% 156 678 869 1,022 2,725 6.58 73.3%
OA 81 16.4% 59 231 286 348 924 11.41
Annals of Oncology 98 Paywalled 244 82.4% 572 2,345 3,436 4,319 10,672 43.74 10.1%
OA 52 17.6% 183 656 875 791 2,505 48.17
Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases 99 Paywalled 179 66.8% 917 2,359 3,031 3,113 9,420 52.63 1.9%
OA 89 33.2% 593 1,378 1,364 1,437 4,772 53.62
Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy 92 Paywalled 751 85.2% 821 3,242 4,134 4,284 12,481 16.62 31.7%
OA 130 14.8% 200 787 937 921 2,845 21.88
Asian Pacific Journal of Tropical Medicine 93 Paywalled 47 30.7% 14 62 123 155 354 7.53 -6.9%
OA 106 69.3% 26 163 245 313 747 7.05
BMJ Online 98 Paywalled 186 59.6% 172 439 557 542 1,710 9.19 575.7%
OA 126 40.4% 487 1,836 2,410 3,094 7,827 62.12
Brain 98 Paywalled 178 74.8% 376 1,512 2,020 2,203 6,111 34.33 21.6%
OA 60 25.2% 173 642 781 908 2,504 41.73
Brain Structure and Function 93 Paywalled 200 78.1% 290 676 756 827 2,549 12.75 -4.5%
OA 56 21.9% 67 182 210 224 683 12.20
Breast Cancer Research and Treatment 77 Paywalled 298 83.0% 251 810 1,110 1,220 3,391 11.38 39.7%
OA 61 17.0% 50 244 312 364 970 15.90
British Journal of Dermatology 97 Paywalled 219 84.2% 473 833 994 1,059 3,359 15.34 94.8%
OA 41 15.8% 133 317 358 417 1,225 29.88
Cancer Science 76 Paywalled 103 40.4% 26 307 456 527 1,316 12.78 25.6%
OA 152 59.6% 184 646 765 845 2,440 16.05
Cell Systems 91 Paywalled 51 54.8% 49 233 367 437 1,086 21.29 48.3%
OA 42 45.2% 90 298 434 504 1,326 31.57
Clinical Infectious Diseases 97 Paywalled 427 80.4% 842 2,640 3,269 3,264 10,015 23.45 -9.9%
OA 104 19.6% 254 540 715 710 2,219 21.34
Clinical Therapeutics 80 Paywalled 110 72.8% 98 191 273 294 856 7.78 27.3%
OA 41 27.2% 25 96 140 145 406 9.90
Diabetes Obesity and Metabolism 95 Paywalled 145 71.8% 285 815 911 918 2,929 20.20 18.9%
OA 57 28.2% 164 407 401 397 1,369 24.02
European Heart Journal 99 Paywalled 299 86.7% 1,035 2,633 3,219 3,599 10,486 35.07 85.6%
OA 46 13.3% 302 769 925 998 2,994 65.09
European Radiology 91 Paywalled 485 84.8% 568 1,784 2,014 2,111 6,477 13.35 48.3%
OA 87 15.2% 132 448 546 597 1,723 19.80
Health Policy and Planning 87 Paywalled 116 70.7% 90 200 292 448 1,030 8.88 18.0%
OA 48 29.3% 47 108 169 179 503 10.48
Human Brain Mapping 96 Paywalled 377 90.4% 384 1,402 1,876 2,061 5,723 15.18 113.1%
OA 40 9.6% 76 289 434 495 1,294 32.35
Human Molecular Genetics 91 Paywalled 322 80.7% 283 1,219 1,592 1,853 4,947 15.36 14.7%
OA 77 19.3% 84 345 464 464 1,357 17.62
Human Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics 57 Paywalled 211 75.6% 93 385 485 564 1,527 7.24 23.1%
OA 68 24.4% 37 150 202 217 606 8.91
Infection and Immunity 85 Paywalled 240 86.0% 207 687 868 915 2,677 11.15 2.1%
OA 39 14.0% 43 98 150 153 444 11.38
International Journal of Cancer 93 Paywalled 430 90.0% 578 1,880 2,275 2,441 7,174 16.68 65.2%
OA 48 10.0% 67 341 420 495 1,323 27.56
International Journal of Cardiology 69 Paywalled 1104 94.6% 1,024 2,893 3,223 3,478 10,618 9.62 51.3%
OA 63 5.4% 89 220 273 335 917 14.56
International Journal of Epidemiology 90 Paywalled 176 72.1% 291 820 1,270 1,500 3,881 22.05 91.7%
OA 68 27.9% 187 575 893 1,220 2,875 42.28
International Journal of Oncology 74 Paywalled 273 69.5% 195 750 890 1,094 2,929 10.73 39.6%
OA 120 30.5% 102 427 595 673 1,797 14.98
Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology 93 Paywalled 394 85.3% 1,241 2,946 3,189 3,393 10,769 27.33 17.2%
OA 68 14.7% 276 582 654 667 2,179 32.04
Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy 95 Paywalled 439 89.8% 612 1,878 2,326 2,393 7,209 16.42 47.6%
OA 50 10.2% 75 288 438 411 1,212 24.24
Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism 99 Paywalled 407 88.9% 438 1,987 2,582 2,746 7,753 19.05 -3.2%
OA 51 11.1% 40 249 324 328 941 18.45
Journal of Clinical Microbiology 86 Paywalled 269 81.0% 291 1,199 1,491 1,486 4,467 16.61 8.0%
OA 63 19.0% 94 342 371 323 1,130 17.94
Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 94 Paywalled 95 66.9% 58 239 355 402 1,054 11.09 49.4%
OA 47 33.1% 46 180 232 321 779 16.57
Journal of Infectious Diseases 95 Paywalled 369 76.9% 508 1,648 2,129 2,246 6,531 17.70 -20.1%
OA 111 23.1% 162 427 527 520 1,636 14.74
Journal of Investigative Dermatology 98 Paywalled 280 87.2% 418 1,043 1,319 1,479 4,259 15.21 11.6%
OA 41 12.8% 54 196 199 247 696 16.98
Journal of Neurology 84 Paywalled 204 82.6% 188 591 767 921 2,467 12.09 27.9%
OA 43 17.4% 45 155 216 249 665 15.47
Journal of the American College of Cardiology 99 Paywalled 235 85.1% 1,184 4,061 4,837 5,286 15,368 65.40 48.3%
OA 41 14.9% 292 1,045 1,159 1,479 3,975 96.95
Lancet 99 Paywalled 137 72.9% 1,904 6,006 7,701 8,435 24,046 175.52 96.0%
OA 51 27.1% 829 3,994 5,907 6,819 17,549 344.10
Leukemia 97 Paywalled 191 78.3% 602 1,305 1,346 1,473 4,726 24.74 47.5%
OA 53 21.7% 202 529 603 600 1,934 36.49
Magnetic Resonance In Medicine 92 Paywalled 419 88.4% 597 1,443 1,677 1,617 5,334 12.73 17.1%
OA 55 11.6% 104 228 243 245 820 14.91
Molecular Medicine Reports 39 Paywalled 904 49.7% 199 1,197 1,646 2,150 5,192 5.74 26.0%
OA 915 50.3% 250 1,508 2,232 2,634 6,624 7.24
Molecular Psychiatry 99 Paywalled 113 70.6% 397 862 1,041 1,136 3,436 30.41 63.9%
OA 47 29.4% 283 592 714 754 2,343 49.85
Oncology Reports 65 Paywalled 609 74.4% 431 1,595 2,104 2,555 6,685 10.98 21.0%
OA 210 25.6% 108 656 917 1,108 2,789 13.28
Pharmaceutical Biology 79 Paywalled 224 81.2% 161 549 718 879 2,307 10.30 -4.8%
OA 52 18.8% 56 134 157 164 511 9.83
Psychological Medicine 97 Paywalled 176 81.9% 204 664 938 1,166 2,972 16.89 26.6%
OA 39 18.1% 41 210 253 330 834 21.38
Quality of Life Research 86 Paywalled 240 85.1% 116 424 662 764 1,966 8.19 6.4%
OA 42 14.9% 16 64 118 168 366 8.71
Supportive Care in Cancer 61 Paywalled 333 88.6% 240 779 948 1189 3,156 9.48 9.4%
OA 43 11.4% 31 97 139 179 446 10.37
Surgical Endoscopy 91 Paywalled 604 92.9% 494 1,680 2,017 2,638 6,829 11.31 30.6%
OA 46 7.1% 51 170 185 273 679 14.76
Vaccine 99 Paywalled 631 73.4% 366 1,512 1,853 2,001 5,732 9.08 38.8%
OA 229 26.6% 198 811 937 942 2,888 12.61
Physics and Astronomy
2d Materials 95 Paywalled 244 82.4% 552 1,486 1,764 1,881 5,683 23.29 39.0%
OA 52 17.6% 155 463 548 517 1,683 32.37
ACS Nano 99 Paywalled 1228 95.1% 2,938 15,752 20,346 20,317 59,353 48.33 -42.5%
OA 63 4.9% 108 514 738 777 2,137 33.92
ACS Photonics 95 Paywalled 371 95.4% 525 2,393 2,864 2,797 8,579 23.12 3.1%
OA 18 4.6% 14 119 153 143 429 23.83
Advanced Functional Materials 97 Paywalled 779 96.9% 2,219 11,199 14,744 14,737 42,899 55.07 -46.3%
OA 25 3.1% 56 241 304 340 941 37.64
Advanced Optical Materials 95 Paywalled 288 94.7% 402 1,814 2,404 2,444 7,064 24.53 -7.8%
OA 16 5.3% 30 103 121 110 364 22.75
Applied Physics B Lasers and Optics 78 Paywalled 248 86.4% 131 444 519 435 1,529 6.17 71.8%
OA 39 13.6% 43 120 129 121 413 10.59
Applied Physics Express 92 Paywalled 310 89.6% 230 909 1,146 1,048 3,333 10.75 -15.5%
OA 36 10.4% 26 90 115 104 335 9.31
Astronomical Journal 78 Paywalled 516 96.8% 781 2,803 2,558 2,392 8,534 16.54 52.9%
OA 17 3.2% 23 103 143 161 430 25.29
Astrophysical Journal Letters 93 Paywalled 513 94.6% 1,167 4,133 4,504 3,953 13,757 26.82 307.5%
OA 29 5.4% 163 972 1,137 897 3,169 109.28
Chaos 86 Paywalled 349 94.3% 293 1,007 1,258 1,138 3,696 10.59 -18.3%
OA 21 5.7% 18 47 63 60 188 8.95
Chinese Physics C 98 Paywalled 163 74.1% 145 455 513 583 1,696 10.40 -31.2%
OA 57 25.9% 64 147 124 117 452 7.93
Communications in Mathematical Physics 99 Paywalled 235 89.4% 208 504 593 696 2,001 8.51 27.5%
OA 28 10.6% 28 84 88 104 304 10.86
European Physical Journal B 52 Paywalled 235 91.8% 64 290 312 310 976 4.15 44.5%
OA 21 8.2% 14 35 43 34 126 6.00
European Physical Journal D 47 Paywalled 301 91.8% 153 400 389 370 1,312 4.36 -9.0%
OA 27 8.2% 18 37 31 22 108 4.00
Experiments in Fluids 92 Paywalled 136 82.9% 50 283 431 419 1,183 8.70 33.8%
OA 28 17.1% 23 90 95 118 326 11.64
Japanese Journal of Applied Physics 76 Paywalled 681 96.3% 212 1,035 1,009 971 3,227 4.74 43.7%
OA 26 3.7% 13 47 60 57 177 6.81
Journal of Chemical Physics 88 Paywalled 1952 97.0% 1,490 5,331 5,794 5,381 17,996 9.22 35.4%
OA 60 3.0% 55 211 241 242 749 12.48
Journal of Computational Physics 85 Paywalled 684 95.3% 430 1,807 2,748 2,816 7,801 11.40 16.0%
OA 34 4.7% 29 110 152 159 450 13.24
Journal of Fluid Mechanics 89 Paywalled 736 93.3% 568 2,083 3,053 3,211 8,915 12.11 16.5%
OA 53 6.7% 53 201 261 233 748 14.11
Journal of Instrumentation 68 Paywalled 353 82.5% 124 483 542 492 1,641 4.65 327.6%
OA 75 17.5% 148 494 489 360 1,491 19.88
Journal of Magnetic Resonance 83 Paywalled 183 90.6% 135 462 508 411 1,516 8.28 72.2%
OA 19 9.4% 13 66 98 94 271 14.26
Journal of Nanoparticle Research 80 Paywalled 372 94.9% 119 593 812 733 2,257 6.07 157.1%
OA 20 5.1% 9 62 116 125 312 15.60
Journal of Nuclear Materials 87 Paywalled 531 96.4% 266 1,302 1,552 1,604 4,724 8.90 19.7%
OA 20 3.6% 13 49 76 75 213 10.65
Journal of Optics United Kingdom 70 Paywalled 336 91.8% 204 717 807 720 2,448 7.29 -1.7%
OA 30 8.2% 23 69 61 62 215 7.17
Journal of Physics A Mathematical and Theoretical 91 Paywalled 630 97.4% 546 1,199 1,203 1,153 4,101 6.51 28.3%
OA 17 2.6% 12 51 36 43 142 8.35
Journal of Physics Condensed Matter 80 Paywalled 770 96.4% 454 1,589 1,925 2,198 6,166 8.01 16.3%
OA 29 3.6% 28 81 90 71 270 9.31
Journal of Physics D Applied Physics 83 Paywalled 1095 94.4% 685 2,525 3,043 2,890 9,143 8.35 51.3%
OA 65 5.6% 80 229 250 262 821 12.63
Journal of Physics G Nuclear and Particle Physics 87 Paywalled 129 80.6% 115 336 281 317 1,049 8.13 15.4%
OA 31 19.4% 16 55 99 121 291 9.39
Journal of Quant Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer 84 Paywalled 391 95.6% 503 1,097 1,090 1,149 3,839 9.82 685.9%
OA 18 4.4% 54 309 472 554 1,389 77.17
Journal of Statistical Physics 73 Paywalled 229 92.3% 94 323 366 379 1,162 5.07 16.2%
OA 19 7.7% 18 32 25 37 112 5.89
Journal of Synchrotron Radiation 95 Paywalled 76 69.1% 36 124 121 156 437 5.75 74.4%
OA 34 30.9% 36 87 106 112 341 10.03
Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 71 Paywalled 805 93.2% 322 1,364 1,850 1,642 5,178 6.43 24.6%
OA 59 6.8% 28 120 167 158 473 8.02
Journal of the Physical Society of Japan 63 Paywalled 369 87.0% 152 481 508 390 1,531 4.15 89.3%
OA 55 13.0% 27 149 144 112 432 7.85
Journal of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry 70 Paywalled 793 93.3% 467 1,841 1,954 2,099 6,361 8.02 9.8%
OA 57 6.7% 40 145 161 156 502 8.81
Measurement Science and Technology 77 Paywalled 460 95.2% 227 803 967 937 2,934 6.38 29.5%
OA 23 4.8% 17 56 64 53 190 8.26
Nano Letters 99 Paywalled 1086 96.1% 2,637 12,267 14,875 14,776 44,555 41.03 -61.2%
OA 44 3.9% 64 337 367 352 1,120 25.45
Nuclear Fusion 87 Paywalled 467 91.4% 637 1,663 1,723 1,518 5,541 11.87 84.8%
OA 44 8.6% 87 270 295 313 965 21.93
Nuclear Physics A 75 Paywalled 144 41.9% 192 332 337 329 1,190 8.26 -119.2%
OA 200 58.1% 47 281 242 184 754 3.77
Optical and Quantum Electronics 52 Paywalled 397 94.1% 217 821 787 799 2,624 6.61 -53.0%
OA 25 5.9% 18 33 37 20 108 4.32
Optical Engineering 74 Paywalled 616 88.3% 165 650 830 721 2,366 3.84 105.4%
OA 82 11.7% 61 165 209 212 647 7.89
Physical Review Applied 91 Paywalled 402 95.7% 403 1,733 2,041 2,058 6,235 15.51 -71.3%
OA 18 4.3% 9 50 60 44 163 9.06
Physical Review C 89 Paywalled 1008 96.9% 983 3,151 3,145 3,109 10,388 10.31 33.7%
OA 32 3.1% 45 145 133 118 441 13.78
Physics of Fluids 74 Paywalled 600 97.2% 260 1,500 2,365 2,117 6,242 10.40 18.2%
OA 17 2.8% 9 46 88 66 209 12.29
Physics of Plasmas 69 Paywalled 1317 96.3% 720 2,414 2,491 2,375 8,000 6.07 97.2%
OA 51 3.7% 35 176 203 197 611 11.98
Quantum Information Processing 79 Paywalled 294 93.9% 154 593 921 813 2,481 8.44 -51.3%
OA 19 6.1% 10 22 34 40 106 5.58
Review of Scientific Instruments 68 Paywalled 832 94.2% 271 1,256 1,499 1,509 4,535 5.45 54.3%
OA 51 5.8% 35 101 143 150 429 8.41
Soft Matter 93 Paywalled 2335 95.6% 591 2,256 2,645 2,638 8,130 3.48 247.3%
OA 107 4.4% 105 379 408 402 1,294 12.09
Solar Physics 74 Paywalled 166 87.4% 131 370 406 412 1,319 7.95 41.1%
OA 24 12.6% 30 90 78 71 269 11.21
Superconductor Science and Technology 90 Paywalled 259 93.5% 215 590 806 738 2,349 9.07 18.8%
OA 18 6.5% 13 48 56 77 194 10.78
Ultramicroscopy 89 Paywalled 209 92.5% 156 453 492 451 1,552 7.43 172.5%
OA 17 7.5% 33 84 112 115 344 20.24
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