Citation advantage of Open Access articles likely explained by quality differential and media effects

TL;DR

Open Access articles in PNAS tend to receive more citations, media coverage, and publicity, likely due to inherent quality differences and media amplification effects, rather than OA status alone.

Contribution

This study suggests that the citation advantage of Open Access articles may be driven by quality and media effects, not just accessibility.

Findings

OA articles are more likely to be featured on journal covers

OA articles receive more media attention

OA articles are cited more frequently

Abstract

In a study of articles published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Gunther Eysenbach discovered a significant citation advantage for those articles made freely-available upon publication (Eysenbach 2006). While the author attempted to control for confounding factors that may have explained the citation differential, the study was unable to control for characteristics of the article that may have led some authors to pay the additional page charges ($1,000) for immediate OA status. OA articles published in PNAS were more than twice as likely to be featured on the front cover of the journal (3.3% vs. 1.4%), nearly twice as likely to be picked up by the media (15% vs. 8%) and when cited reached, on average, nearly twice as many news outlets as subscription-based articles (4.2 vs. 2.6). The citation advantage of Open Access articles in PNAS may likely be explained by a quality differential and the amplification of media effects.