I concur with Stevan's comments, and would like to add the following:
1. From our perspective, OA is as much about the flow of knowledge from
the South to the North as much as the traditional concern with access to
literature from the North. So the question to ask is whether with OA,
authors from the North are starting to cite authors from the South. This
is a study we are planning. We already have good evidence that more
authors from the North are publishing in OA journals in the South (already
an interesting reversal) but we need a more careful analysis of the
citation data.
2. The more critical issue regarding OA and developing country scientists
is that most of them who publish in "international" journals could not
access their own publications. This is where open repositories is crucial,
to provide access to research from the South that are otherwise
inaccessible.
3. The Frandsen study focuses on biology journals and I am not sure what
percentage of them are available to DC researchers through HINARI/AGORA.
This would explain why researchers in this area would not need to rely on
OA materials as much. But HINARI etc. are not OA programs, and local
researchers will be left with nothing when the programs are terminated. OA
is the only sustainable way to build local research capacity in the long
term.
4. Norris et. al's (2008) "Open access citation rates and developing
countries" focuses instead on Mathematics, a field not covered by HINARI
and they conclude:
" that the majority of citations were given by Americans to Americans, but
the admittedly small number of citations from authors in developing
countries do seem to show a higher proportion of citations given to OA
articles than is the case for citations from developed countries. Some of
the evidence for this conclusion is, however, mixed, with some of the data
pointing toward a more complex picture of citation behaviour."
http://elpub.scix.net/cgi-bin/works/Show?_id=335_elpub2008
5. Citation behaviour is complex indeed and more studies on OA's impact in
the developing world are clearly needed. Davis' eagerness to pronounce
that there is "No Benefit for Poor Scientists" based on one study is
highly premature.
If there should be a study showing that people in developing countries
prefer imported bottled water over local drinking water, should efforts to
ensure clean water supply locally be questioned?
Leslie Chan
> Comparing OA/non-OA in Developing
> Countries<http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/509-Comparing-OAnon-OA-in-Developing-Countries.html>
>
> *"[A]n investigation of the use of open access by researchers from
> developing countries... show[s] that open access journals are not
> characterised by a different composition of authors than the traditional
> toll access journals... [A]uthors from developing countries do not
> citeopen
> access more than authors from developed countries... [A]uthors from
> developing countries are not more attracted to open access than authors
> from
> developed countries.*[*underscoring added*]*"*(Frandsen
> 2009<http://www.hprints.org/hprints-00328270/en/>
> , *J. Doc.* 65(1))
> (See also "Open Access: No Benefit for Poor
> Scientists<http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2009/01/14/oa-developing-nations/>
> ")
>
> Open Access is
> not<http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/485-Please-Dont-Conflate-Green-and-Gold-OA.html>
> the
> same thing as Open Access Journals.
>
> Articles published in conventional non-Open-Access journals can also be
> made
> Open Access (OA) by their authors -- by
> self-archiving<http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/> them
> in their own Institutional Repositories <http://roar.eprints.org/>.
>
> The Frandsen study <http://www.hprints.org/hprints-00328270/en/> focused
> on
> OA journals, not on OA articles. It is problematic to compare OA and
> non-OA
> journals, because journals differ in quality and content, and OA journals
> tend to be newer and fewer than non-OA journals (and often not at the top
> of
> the quality hierarchy).
>
> Some studies have reported that OA journals are cited more, but because of
> the problem of equating journals, these findings are limited. In contrast,
> most
> studies <http://opcit.eprints.org/oacitation-biblio.html> that have
> compared
> OA and non-OA *articles* within the same journal and year have found a
> significant citation advantage for OA. It is highly unlikely that this is
> only a developed-world effect; indeed it is almost certain that a goodly
> portion of OA's enhanced access, usage and impact comes from
> developing-world users.
>
> It is unsurprising that developing world authors are hesitant about
> publishing in OA journals, as they are the least able to pay
> author/institution publishing fees (if any). It is also unsurprising that
> there is no significant shift in citations toward OA journals in
> preference
> to non-OA journals (whether in the developing or developed world):
> Accessibility is a *necessary* -- not a *sufficient* -- condition for
> usage
> and citation: The other necessary condition is*quality*. Hence it was to
> be
> expected that the OA Advantage would affect the top quality research most.
> That's where the proportion of OA journals is lowest.
>
> The
> Seglen<http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=%2522skewness%20of%20science%2522&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=ws>
> effect <http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/474-guid.html>
> ("skewness
> of science") is that the top 20% of articles tend to receive 80% of the
> citations. This is why the OA Advantage is more detectable by comparing OA
> and non-OA articles within the same journal, rather than by comparing OA
> and
> non-OA journals.
>
> We will soon be reporting results showing that the within-journal OA
> Advantage is higher in "higher-impact" (i.e., more cited) journals.
> Although
> citations are not identical with quality, they do correlate with quality
> (when comparing like with like). So an easy way to understand the OA
> Advantage is as a quality
> advantage<http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/281-guid.html>
> --
> with OA "levelling the playing field" by allowing authors to select which
> papers to cite on the basis of their quality, unconstrained by their
> accessibility. This effect should be especially strong in the developing
> world, where access-deprivation is greatest.
>
> *Stevan Harnad <http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/>*
> American Scientist Open Access
> Forum<http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html>
>
Received on Wed Jan 14 2009 - 19:47:43 GMT