Open Access Makes Research More Widely Cited, Helping Spread Knowledge
from the share-the-knowledge dept
Open access has been discussed many times here on Techdirt. There are several strands to its story. It’s about allowing the public to access research they have paid for through tax-funded grants, without needing to take out often expensive subscriptions to academic titles. It’s about saving educational institutions money that they are currently spending on over-priced academic journals, and which could be better spent elsewhere. It’s about helping to spread knowledge without the friction that traditional publishing introduces, ideally moving to licenses that allow academic research papers to be distributed freely and without restrictions.
But there’s another aspect that receives less attention, revealed here by a new paper that looks at how open access articles are used in a particular and important context – that of Wikipedia. There is a natural synergy between the two, which both aim to make access to knowledge easier. The paper seeks to quantify that:
we analyze a large dataset of citations from Wikipedia and model the role of open access in Wikipedia’s citation patterns. We find that open-access articles are extensively and increasingly more cited in Wikipedia. What is more, they show a 15% higher likelihood of being cited in Wikipedia when compared to closed-access articles, after controlling for confounding factors. This open-access citation effect is particularly strong for articles with low citation counts, including recently published ones. Our results show that open access plays a key role in the dissemination of scientific knowledge, including by providing Wikipedia editors timely access to novel results. These findings have important implications for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners in the field of information science and technology.
What this means in practice is that for the general public open access articles are even more beneficial than those published in traditional titles, since they frequently turn up as Wikipedia sources that can be consulted directly. They are also advantageous for the researchers who write them, since their work is more likely to be cited on the widely-read and influential Wikipedia than if the papers were not open access. As the research notes, this effect is even more pronounced for “articles with low citation counts” – basically, academic work that may be important but is rather obscure. This new paper provides yet another compelling reason why researchers should be publishing their work as open access as a matter of course: out of pure self interest.
Follow me @glynmoody on Mastodon. Originally posted to the Walled Culture blog.
Filed Under: access to information, open access, research, sharing knowledge, studies
Companies: wikipedia
Comments on “Open Access Makes Research More Widely Cited, Helping Spread Knowledge”
The publishing industry
The publishing industry was once, generally, beneficial. Knowledge was spread via paper: newspapers, books, journals, magazines, etc.
Publishers controlled the printing presses, what was allowed to be printed on them, and the price of the products.
Since the advance of digital technologies, they have become an unnecessary hindrance to the availability of all kinds of information.
They are destroying public libraries, and controlling access – even to digital books.
Publishers price digital books beyond the ability of the libraries to pay. They limit the time a library can have a book, and how long a reader may use a book.
They remain the gatekeeper for authors, even those who would like to be digital only.
Now, the publishing industry is, in large part, a detriment.
Re: An Alliteratively Courteous Counterpoint
The publishing industry was and is precisely that — an industry: a commercial, for-profit endeavor. Publishers did not control the printing presses (the pressmen did that and were represented by a union), but used offset lithography because that was the technology available at the time, regardless of distribution challenges and lack of broader interactivity.
The publishing industry is not destroying public libraries. In fact, the government is doing a far better job of that than the publishing industry ever could. Legislative paralysis, suckled by septuagenarians who do not fully comprehend new technologies, is the culprit of your complaints (and maybe capitalism). The Internet disintermediates the need for most old-world distribution systems. Gatekeepers are slowly dissolving, but any beast of burden (like the publishing industry) is going to kick and claw to remain relevant and maintain power. That’s just the way the world works so add mercantilism to your complaint, too. So less of a detriment, and more of an eclectic pet you shouldn’t water or feed after midnight.
(SIDE NOTE: That said, let’s not forget that any current arguments against censorship are mostly silly distractions. The right to free speech is not equivalent to the right to publish. Very different dynamics.)
As technology changes the nature of how we communicate (since, technically, language is technology, only phonetically fuzzier), human lives are upended by these changes. I wonder when we’re going to start having conversations about solving those kinds of issues.
Re: Re: Replying to Craig Michael Patrick’s comments on my anonymous post
“Publishers did not control the printing presses (the pressmen did that and were represented by a union).”
My reply to Craig:
The pressmen only ran the equipment. They had no control over content. Why would you bring the pressmen into it? Why leave out the janitors in the press rooms?
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“The publishing industry is not destroying public libraries. In fact, the government is doing a far better job of that than the publishing industry ever could.”
My reply to Craig:
Elected government officials, to a large degree, are bought by business interests. The publishing industry, the energy industries, cable TV, and every other kind of corporation buy influence. That is not because of septuagenarians. It is because of greedy politicians of all ages, in case you haven’t noticed.
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“the culprit of your complaints (and maybe capitalism)”
My reply to Craig:
My complaint is not about capitalism. I started several successful businesses, with my own savings and with no other investors.
——
“any beast of burden (like the publishing industry) is going to kick and claw to remain relevant and maintain power. “
My reply to Craig:
I hope I’m wrong, but you seem to be recommending that we should lay back and let whatever is happening continue because we are helpless. Some give that kind of advice to victims of rape.
I believe we can and should – actively – push back.
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“…let’s not forget that any current arguments against censorship are mostly silly distractions.”
My reply to Craig:
The implications of that revealing sentence leave me breathless.
Censorship has no place in a free society. Full stop!
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Do you believe mercantilism is benign – like an “eclectic pet”?
My reply to Craig:
Mercantilism is much worse than an eclectic pet, and certainly not benign.
Here’s an interesting excerpt from Wikipedia that explains mercantilism:
“Mercantilism is a nationalist economic policy that is designed to maximize the exports and minimize the imports for an economy. In other words, it seeks to maximize the accumulation of resources within the country and use those resources for one-sided trade. It promotes imperialism, colonialism, protectionism, currency manipulation, and tariffs and subsidies on traded goods to achieve that goal.”
I’ve often suspected that some Wikipedia editors intentionally use inaccessible sources so they can’t be questioned. A subtly false statement with an out-of-print ISBN could work pretty well. Someone might read the statement and wonder enough to follow the “source” link… but what are the chances they’ll care enough to follow through and deal with inter-library loans?
Re:
If you find such an article, the way to deal with it is to find an up to date source and correct the article, with the up to date citation, after all that is why Wikipedia exists.