Study Finds Open Access Increases Citation in Legal Scholarship By Over 50%
March 30, 2011
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Not surprising
Not surprising at all…after all, making it easier/cheaper gets more people reading it in general, and if you can get the full text of one paper for free, and have to pay for another paper on a similar topic, people will tend to gravitate towards the free content.
The only problem with that is that the effect doesn’t often discriminate for quality, just price. So a crappy, but free, paper might get cited more than a well-done, but pricey, alternative…which is a shame.
Bibliography of Open Access Impact Advantage
The effect of open access and downloads (‘hits’) on citation impact: a bibliography of studies
http://opcit.eprints.org/oacitation-biblio.html
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