COVID-19 Pandemic and Self-isolation: Impact on Bibliometrics and Use. Part I. Numbers and Structure of Publication Datasets

Abstract

Introduction . The COVID-19 pandemic is a global challenge but at the same time it creates a unique situation for the advancement of science, scholarly communication and open access (OA). We studied impact of the pandemic and self-isolation on bibliometric indicators: the number and structure of publications in terms of fields of research and OA models. Materials and methods. The study employs original keyword searches and services of WoS CC database and InCites platfom of Clarivate Analytics. It studies the dataset of WoS CC and the COVID-publications retrieved with the keyword searches. Results and discussion . In 2020, we see a dramatic increase in the overall number of COVID-publications and a two-time increase in the number of publications in Social Sciences. The structure of the 2020 publications in terms of OA models indicate the 36 % of WoS CC articles and 87 % of COVID articles in OA. The OA journal articles in a single copy make 20 % of WoS CC publications, the OA articles in multiple copies on the journal platform and in repositories make 60 % of COVID-publications. In 2006, the OA repositories were mainly populated through self-archiving of paywall journal articles, whereas in 2020, the OA journals make the main self-archiving channel. They comprise, respectively, 92 % and 97 % of the input from the WoS CC and COVID datasets. The structure of COVID publications in hybrid and paywall journals has been modified: in 2020, 38 % of articles in those journals were published in hybrid OA. In 2018, that number was 12 %. The proportion of “paywall” articles moved to repositories after the embargo period is low compared to the possibilities for self-archiving provided by publishers. Conclusion . The pandemic of the novel coronavirus changed the bibliometric indicators of COVID publications: the number and structure of the datasets broken by fields of research and OA models. In the next study, we analyse citation impact and usage of COVID-publications.