Revisiting an open access monograph experiment: measuring citations and tweets 5years later.

Ronald Snijder

doi:10.1007/s11192-016-2160-6

Abstract

An experiment run in 2009 could not assess whether making monographs available in open access enhanced scholarly impact. This paper revisits the experiment, drawing on additional citation data and tweets. It attempts to answer the following research question: does open access have a positive influence on the number of citations and tweets a monograph receives, taking into account the influence of scholarly field and language? The correlation between monograph citations and tweets is also investigated. The number of citations and tweets measured in 2014 reveal a slight open access advantage, but the influence of language or subject should also be taken into account. However, Twitter usage and citation behaviour hardly overlap.

Highlights

While the question whether publishing in open access (OA) leads to a citation advantage has been studied numerous times for journal articles, much less work has been done in the realm of monographs
This paper revisits the experiment, drawing on additional citation data as well as developments in the altmetrics landscape. It attempts to answer the following research question: does open access have a positive influence on the number of citations and tweets a monograph receives, taking into account the influence of scholarly field and language? looking into the correlation between monograph citations and tweets helps to determine whether these measurements are related
This review focuses on monographs, starting with monograph citations before discussing alternative impact metrics as they relate to books

Summary

Introduction

While the question whether publishing in open access (OA) leads to a citation advantage has been studied numerous times for journal articles, much less work has been done in the realm of monographs. In 2009 it was not possible to assess whether making monographs freely available enhanced scholarly impact, nor could anything be said about influence on society at large. This paper revisits the experiment, drawing on additional citation data as well as developments in the altmetrics landscape It attempts to answer the following research question: does open access have a positive influence on the number of citations and tweets a monograph receives, taking into account the influence of scholarly field and language? It attempts to answer the following research question: does open access have a positive influence on the number of citations and tweets a monograph receives, taking into account the influence of scholarly field and language? looking into the correlation between monograph citations and tweets helps to determine whether these measurements are related

Background

Literature History Sociology Motion Pictures

Conclusions

Findings

Limitations