The Open Access Policy Citation Advantage for a Medical School

Abstract

The open access citation advantage has been studied across several disciplinary and in large, multidisciplinary analyses. The potential citation advantage of making an article open access (OA) may be a contributing factor to the increasing number of universities where faculty have adopted OA policies. If authors participate in these policies, one might expect an increase in citations to works authored at OA policy institutions. Do OA policies increase citation rates for a medical school? This study seeks to answer that question by measuring the comparative citation impact of articles made OA by Indiana University School of Medicine (IUSM) authors in the implementation of an OA policy (OAP). Methods: We use a random selection of articles by IUSM faculty from 2016 to compare the citation profiles of OA policy articles to paywalled articles. We used two sources to count citations received from 2016 to the present, Web of Science (WoS) and Google Scholar (GS). Results: IUSM OA Policy 2016 articles receive 63% (GS) - 72% (WoS) more citations than do paywalled articles across nearly five years of citations. The citation advantage of OAP articles is also reflected in an 18% (GS) - 33% (WoS) increase in the median citation rate. Conclusion: The Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) OA Policy was adopted in October 2014 and fully implemented beginning with the year 2016. Annually, a majority of the articles authored by IUPUI faculty (inclusive of the School of Medicine) are made openly available in the institutional repository. The benefits of this policy to the public include free access to scholarly information. If the benefits to the authors and to the institution include an increase in citation rates, other institutions may wish to explore OA policy adoption.