Fully agree that comparisons must be relevant. Let's audit the download
claims of all publishers. And only those that concern articles younger than
2 years, say, in order to avoid comparing new material with ancient articles
that are hardly ever downloaded.
One particular characteristic of open access articles is that any audited
downloads form the publisher's site will always be understating reality.
This is in the nature or open access: the articles can be -- and are --
stored at and downloaded from multiple repositories, large and small.
BioMed Central does not count "every ornament associated with a file" and I
can't quite believe that Elsevier does that, either.
Jan Velterop
BioMed Central
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Albert Henderson [mailto:chessNIC_at_COMPUSERVE.COM]
> Sent: 08 September 2003 23:21
> To: AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG
> Subject: Re: How to compare research impact of toll- vs. open-access
> research
>
>
> on Sat, 6 Sep 2003 Stevan Harnad <harnad_at_ECS.SOTON.AC.UK> wrote
>
> > The following data posted by Peter Suber in
> > http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/fosblog.html
> > indicate that open-access articles (from BioMedCentral)
> average at least
> > 89 times as many downloads as toll-access articles (from
> Elsevier). (The
> > 89 is probably an undercount, because it does not include
> PubMedCentral
> > downloads.)
> >
> > PETER SUBER:
> > "Elsevier has put some PowerPoint slides on the web summarizing
> > its interim results for 2003. Slide #16 shows that
> there were 4.5
> > million full-text articles in ScienceDirect on June 30,
> 2003, and
> > slide #15 shows that there were 124 million article downloads in
> > the 12 months preceding that date. This means that its articles
> > were downloaded an average of 28 times each during the
> past year.
> > http://www.investis.com/reedelsevierplc/data/interims2003b.ppt
> >
> > "For comparison I asked Jan Velterop of BioMed Central what the
> > download figure was for BMC articles during the same
> time period. He
> > reports that the average is about 2500 per year, which doesn't
> > count downloads of the same articles from PubMed
> Central. This is
> > 89 times the Elsevier number. "
>
> I don't believe this 'data' can be taken
> seriously. There is no standard for
> counting 'downloads.' One party will
> count every ornament associated with a
> file while the next may count only files.
> Comparisons must be relevant. BioMedCentral's
> list of journals bears only a faint
> resemblance to Elsevier's. The Sigmetric
> community went through considerable agony
> over 'fairness' when the only source was
> ISI. Now you want to compare data from two
> unrelated sources?
>
> Let's examine the data more closely
> before jumping to wishful conclusions.
> This is supposed to be about science.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Albert Henderson
> Pres., Chess Combination Inc.
> POB 2423 Bridgeport CT 06608-0423
> <alh_at_chessNIC.com>
>
> Former Editor, PUBLISHING RESEARCH QUARTERLY.
>
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Received on Tue Sep 09 2003 - 09:22:53 BST