Re: download counts and self-archiving

From: Ulrich Herb <u.herb_at_SULB.UNI-SAARLAND.DE>
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2010 15:56:56 +0200

and another here is another project focusing on usage data and statistics: Open
Access Statistics: http://www.dini.de/projekte/oa-statistik/english/
funded by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG).

Best regards


Ulrich Herb



Saarland University and State Library, Germany
Repository Manager, Specialist Electronic Publishing & Open Access
http://www.sulb.uni-saarland.de/de/service/publikationsangebote/
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ulrich_Herb
Address:    POB 15 11 41,
D-66041 Saarbruecken
Telephone:  +49-681-302-2798
Fax:        +49-681-302-2796



Am 23.08.2010 11:02, schrieb C.J.Smith:

Of relevance here is the JISC-funded PIRUS project (http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwe
do/programmes/pals3/pirus.aspx), which is developing publisher-repository-combin
ed COUNTER-compliant usage stats, as I understand it.


Colin Smith
Research Repository Manager
Open Research Online (ORO)
Open University Library
Walton Hall
Milton Keynes
MK7 6AA

Tel: +44(0)1908 332971

Email: c.j.smith_at_open.ac.uk
Web: http://oro.open.ac.uk
Blog: http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/ORO
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/smithcolin
-----Original Message-----
From: Stevan Harnad [mailto:amsciforum_at_GMAIL.COM]
Sent: 23 August 2010 04:27
To: AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG
Subject: Re: download counts and self-archiving

On Sun, Aug 22, 2010 at 5:59 PM, Michael Smith
<Michael.E.Smith.2_at_asu.edu> wrote:

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.

Here are just a few reasons (each one of them a no-brainer):

(1) More accessibility does not decrease total downloads, it increases them.

(2) OA self-archiving, while increasing total downloads, may shift
some of the download traffic from the publisher's website to the
institutional repository.

(3) Download counts from the institutional repository can be added to
download counts from the publisher's websites.

(4) Open Access self-archiving also increases citations -- another,
more venerable target of the bean-counters.

(5) Increased downloads lead to increased citations.

How many more reasons do the bean-counters need, to mandate OA self-archiving?

Michael E. Smith, Professor
School of Human Evolution & Social Change
Arizona State University
www.public.asu.edu/~mesmith9
Received on Mon Aug 23 2010 - 15:06:11 BST

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