Impact evaluation of open access in science information journals: an analysis of bibliometrics and altmetrics indicators

• Grant number: 15/16872-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: December 01, 2015
• End date: January 31, 2017
• Field of knowledge: Interdisciplinary Subjects
• Principal Investigator: Ariadne Chloe Mary Furnival
• Grantee: Paulo Roberto Cintra
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The transfer of scientific knowledge among researchers occurs largely through scientific journals. It is noted, however, there are several barriers in access that information, which induced the researchers to a movement in favor of open access. Thus, returns in visibility, accessibility and ease in obtaining articles, enabled by open access, made arise the hypothesis of Open Access Citation Advantage (OACA). By this theory, there is an advantage in number of citations received by articles published in open access, once compared to articles in the same journal, but which access is restricted to the magazine signature. Nonetheless, evaluating the impact of a scientific publication goes beyond the citation analysis. It is necessary to consider that scientists do not quote all the references that influenced them during a research and there are other actors who also belong to the scientific community. For these reasons, the use of alternative metrics to assist on evaluation of science is being discussed in a new subfield of the Information Science, known as altmetrics. Nevertheless, there is an incipiency of further studies evaluating the OACA in the area of Information Science and a great need in the researches that make use of altmetrics as a complementary measure to such analysis; facts that justify the interest in fulfill this research proposal. In this way, the aim of this study is investigating the influence of open access articles to the scientific advancement for the Information Science field, by development, analysis and verification of correlation between bibliometric and altmetrics indicators. (AU)