The development and drivers of the impact advantages of open access research

Introduction: The tendency for Open Access (OA) research to attract more citations and online attention than non-OA research is widely referred to as the Open Access Advantage (OAA). While numerous hypotheses attempt to explain this phenomenon, existing research lacks comprehensive analyses of how OAAs have evolved, differ by OA type and journal status, and how they change over time. A lack of consistent methodologies, overly narrow studies and lack of longitudinal research hampers understanding. This thesis addresses these gaps and attempts to understand the underlying phenomena. Methods: Using a dataset of approximately 45M journal articles published between 2010–23, the study examines OAAs across multiple metrics. These include journal citations, and six altmetric data sources, being citations from patents, Wikipedia, policy documents, and mentions on Twitter, in news, and in blogs. Analyses are segmented by publication year, time since publication, discipline, OA type, and journal status. Metrics are presented and analysed by proportions and means, the Open Access Advantages as OA:non-OA ratios. Results: Findings reveal that while OAAs are present for most metrics, they are highly variable: the scale of OAAs are not universal. Differences emerge between metrics, showing distinct patterns: medical and life science OA citation rates are 1.25–2× higher; engineering, technology and maths OA papers are approximately 3× more likely to be covered by blogs; OA research gets approximately 3× the volume of attention on Twitter. Citation-based OAAs tend to decline in recent years, with the citation means advantage disappearing for the social sciences and technical–mathematical fields. Open Access research is between 1.2–1.5× more likely to be cited in the year of publication, an effect that drops slightly in the second year, before recovering in subsequent years, growing its advantage. OA research is more likely to be featured in news and blog sources by a factor of over 2, although this benefit is not universal. OAAs are generally stronger for higher-status journals, often changing as articles age. Green OA – the least common form – tends to outperform Gold OA. Disciplinary variation is significant: medical and life sciences show accelerated levels of impact associated with OA adoption, humanities mirror this trend, while social sciences diverge. Conclusion: OAAs are not a single phenomenon, no single explanation can be used to understand them. These mechanisms appear to change over time, as OA is adopted by different disciplines. The presence of significant OAAs for the year of publication, suggest that early access is a significant driver of OAAs, although the persistence of these phenomena suggest other mechanisms, mostly likely being a form of ‘rich get richer’ effect related to the visibility and discoverability of OA. Increased rates of OA research impact different stakeholder groups in different ways, public interest and social impact, and individual disciplines show significant differences in how impactful their move towards OA has been. OA may accelerate research and impact in some fields. The benefits of Open Access publishing can not be assumed to apply universally: these findings have implications for funders, academics, publishers and research evaluators.

Citation

Taylor, M. (2026) The development and drivers of the impact advantages of open access research. University of Wolverhampton. https://wlv.openrepository.com/handle/2436/626239

Publisher

University of Wolverhampton

URI

https://wlv.openrepository.com/handle/2436/626239

Type

Thesis or dissertation

Language

en

Description

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Wolverhampton for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Collections

Theses and Dissertations