In recent weeks the preliminary results from a study carried out at Cornell University has shown that while research made freely available online by its author is accessed more, the Open Access material is not actually cited in greater numbers.
In case you didn't see this first time around, the study (Author-choice open access publishing in the biological and medical literature ) of 11 scientific and medical journals examined 11,000 articles published through the open access model. The abstract says (in part) it wanted to "analyse the positive and significant open access effects".
The findings have received some criticism not least because the study still has a number of years left to run. OA proponent, Peter Suber highlights some of these criticisms about the study's initial results here.
The next issue of IWR will examine the issues surrounding the findings a bit further. Tracey Caldwell has been busy speaking to both sides of the debate, including one of the study's authors Phil Davis. In the Scholarly Kitchen site this week, Davis said that he hoped readers didn't think he was "advocating against an author-choice program', going on to say 'scientists should understand that open access may not buy them more citations". The whole post is here.
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