Publication modalities 'article in press' and 'open access' in relation to journal average citation

TL;DR

This study investigates how 'article in press' and 'open access' publication practices influence journal impact, finding positive correlations that increase over time, using citation data from 2011 to 2016.

Contribution

It provides empirical evidence on the separate effects of early view and open access on journal impact, quantifying their influence over time.

Findings

Both publication practices positively correlate with higher journal impact.

The correlation with impact increases over the years studied.

Open access also shows a positive association with impact in a controlled analysis.

Abstract

There has been a generalization in the use of two publication practices by scientific journals during the past decade: 1. 'article in press' or early view, which allows access to the accepted paper before its formal publication in an issue; 2. 'open access', which allows readers to obtain it freely and free of charge. This paper studies the influence of both publication modalities on the average impact of the journal and its evolution over time. It tries to identify the separate effect of access on citation into two major parts: early view and selection effect, managing to provide some evidence of the positive effect of both. Scopus is used as the database and CiteScore as the measure of journal impact. The prevalence of both publication modalities is quantified. Differences in the average impact factor of group of journals, according to their publication modalities, are tested. The evolution over time of the citation influence, from 2011 to 2016, is also analysed. Finally, a linear regression to explain the correlation of these publication practices with the CiteScore in 2016, in a ceteris paribus context, is estimated. Our main findings show evidence of a positive correlation between average journal impact and advancing the publication of accepted articles, moreover this correlation increases over time. The open access modality, in a ceteris paribus context, also correlates positively with average journal impact.