Does open access foster interdisciplinary citations? Decomposing open access citation advantage

Bibliographic Data

ID21442773
AuthorsKai Nishikawa (0000-0001-5949-3610, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, corresponding author), Akiyoshi Murakami (0000-0001-6425-6708, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology)
Year2025
Volume130
Issue5
Pages2963-2986
Publication date2025-05-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueScientometrics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0138-9130 • E-ISSN: 1588-2861
PublisherSpringer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1007/s11192-025-05297-z
OpenAlexW4409438969
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited32

The existence of an open access (OA) citation advantage—that is, whether OA increases citations—has been a topic of interest for many years. Although numerous studies have focused on whether OA increases citations, expectations for OA go beyond that. One such expectation is the promotion of knowledge transfer across various fields. This study aimed to clarify what effects OA, particularly gold OA, has on knowledge transfer across fields. Specifically, we measure the effect of OA on interdisciplinary and within-discipline citation counts by decomposing an existing OA citation advantage metric. OA increased both interdisciplinary and within-discipline citations in many fields studied, and only interdisciplinary citations in chemistry, computer science, and clinical medicine. In these three fields, clinical medicine showed a tendency toward interdisciplinary citations, independent of journal or paper. These findings suggest that OA fosters knowledge transfer across disciplines

Bibliometrics · Citation · Data science · Library science · Sociology · World Wide Web · Academic Writing and Publishing · Computer Science · Meta-analysis and systematic reviews · scientometrics and bibliometrics research

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access