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Open access versus subscription journals: a comparison of scientific impact

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Medicine, July 2012
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (99th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (97th percentile)

Citations

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302 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
561 Mendeley
citeulike
27 CiteULike
Title
Open access versus subscription journals: a comparison of scientific impact
Published in
BMC Medicine, July 2012
DOI 10.1186/1741-7015-10-73
Pubmed ID
Authors

Bo-Christer Björk, David Solomon

Abstract

In the past few years there has been an ongoing debate as to whether the proliferation of open access (OA) publishing would damage the peer review system and put the quality of scientific journal publishing at risk. Our aim was to inform this debate by comparing the scientific impact of OA journals with subscription journals, controlling for journal age, the country of the publisher, discipline and (for OA publishers) their business model.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 292 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 561 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
United States 15 3%
Spain 9 2%
United Kingdom 6 1%
Sweden 5 <1%
Nigeria 4 <1%
Switzerland 4 <1%
Netherlands 3 <1%
Italy 3 <1%
Portugal 3 <1%
Other 38 7%
Unknown 471 84%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Librarian 101 18%
Researcher 76 14%
Student > Master 74 13%
Student > Ph. D. Student 53 9%
Student > Bachelor 40 7%
Other 144 26%
Unknown 73 13%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Social Sciences 134 24%
Computer Science 77 14%
Medicine and Dentistry 57 10%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 49 9%
Arts and Humanities 36 6%
Other 125 22%
Unknown 83 15%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 305. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 12 January 2024.
All research outputs
#114,726
of 25,727,480 outputs
Outputs from BMC Medicine
#111
of 4,068 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#446
of 165,062 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Medicine
#1
of 43 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,727,480 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 99th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 4,068 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 45.6. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 97% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 165,062 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 43 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 97% of its contemporaries.