Re: download counts and self-archiving

From: Vanessa Barrett <vanessa.barrett_at_adelaide.edu.au>
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2010 13:15:21 +0930

The answer would be to encourage the ‘bean counters’ to also count downloads
from the archive site.

Cheers,

Vanessa Barrett
Digital Services Librarian
The University of Adelaide, AUSTRALIA 5005
Ph    : +61 8 8303 4625
e-mail: vanessa.barrett_at_adelaide.edu.au

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Think green: read on the screen

 

From: American Scientist Open Access Forum
[mailto:AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG] On Behalf
Of Michael Smith
Sent: Monday, 23 August 2010 7:29 AM
To: AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG
Subject: download counts and self-archiving

 

When I was pitching self-archiving to some colleagues last week, two of them
mentioned the following argument AGAINST self-archiving. University
bean-counters have started using the number of times articles are downloaded
(from publishers sites, I guess) as a measure of faculty productivity or impact.
If one self-archives, then people will be less likely to download from the
publishers site, thereby lowering one’s download score. I can think of various
reasons why this is NOT a good reason to avoid self-archiving, but I wonder if
there are any data on this, or if any bibliometric researchers have addressed
this topic explicitly.

 

Mike Smith

 

Michael E. Smith, Professor

School of Human Evolution & Social Change

Arizona State University

www.public.asu.edu/~mesmith9

 
Received on Mon Aug 23 2010 - 14:47:28 BST