Open access boosts downloads but not citations

Chronicle of Higher Education : Cornell University’s Philip Davis has just published a study that looked into the impact of making research papers freely available online. Seven academic publishers gave Davis the power to grant free access to 20% of articles in 36 different journals. The free articles, which Davis selected randomly, were downloaded more than twice as often as were the articles that remained behind access controls. The free articles didn’t, however, garner more citations than the unfree articles. In an interview with the Chronicle‘s Ben Wieder, Davis notes that a paper’s citations originate from a small group of specialists, who, like most researchers, already have what amounts to free access either through their institutions or informally through their collaborators. A paper’s readership is wider. Now that it can be quantified, readership should perhaps be included alongside citations when assessing a paper’s impact, said Davis.