Finding open access articles using Google, Google Scholar, OAIster and OpenDOAR

Purpose – The paper seeks to demonstrate the relative effectiveness of a range of search tools in finding open access (OA) versions of peer reviewed academic articles on the WWW. Design/methodology/approach – Some background is given to why and how academics may make their articles OA and how they may be found by others searching for them. Google, Google Scholar, OAIster and OpenDOAR were used to try to locate OA versions of peer reviewed journal articles drawn from three subjects (ecology, economics, and sociology). Findings – Of the 2519 articles 967 were found to have OA versions on the WWW. Google and Google Scholar found 76.84% of them. The results from OpenDOAR and OAIster were disappointing, but some improvements are noted. Only in economics could OAIster and OpenDOAR be considered a relative success. Originality/value - The paper shows the relative effectiveness of the search tools in these three subjects. The results indicate that those wanting to find OA articles in these subjects, for the moment at least, should use the general search engines Google and Google Scholar first rather than OpenDOAR or OAIster

The citation advantage of open-access articles

Four subjects, ecology, applied mathematics, sociology and economics, were selected to assess whether there is a citation advantage between journal articles that have an open access (OA) version on the Internet compared to those articles that are exclusively toll access (TA). Citations were counted using the Web of Science and the OA status of articles was determined by searching OAIster, OpenDOAR, Google and Google Scholar. Of a sample of 4633 articles examined, 2280 (49%) were OA and had a mean citation count of 9.04, whereas the mean for TA articles was 5.76. There appears to be a clear citation advantage for those articles that are OA as opposed to those that are TA. This advantage, however, varies between disciplines, with sociology having the highest citation advantage but the lowest number of OA articles from the sample taken and ecology having the highest individual citation count for OA articles but the smallest citation advantage. Tests of correlation or association between OA status and a number of variables were generally found to be weak or inconsistent. The cause of this citation advantage has not been determined

OAIster on EBSCO Discovery Service, FirstSearch, and OAIster.worldcat.org

This review of OAIster investigated the utility of OAIster as a tool for library users to discover and access relevant information. Because the vision for OAIster is so large, one goal of this review was to describe OAIster based on reviewing search results. FirstSearch, OAIster.worldcat.org, and EBSCO Discovery Service interfaces were reviewed. Five searches were performed in each interface, and the material types and counts were recorded. Because OAIster is intended to link only to publicly accessible resources, links to resources were also tested. The review found large differences across interfaces in the number of results, classification of records into material types, and access to resources. Discovery tools do not always map OAIster metadata effectively, and public search engines do not seem to thoroughly index OAIster. Some OAIster records link to non-full–text or not publicly accessible resources. OAIster is a valuable tool for discovering resources in archives, special collections, and institutional repositories, but its place among Open Access search tools is still somewhat unclear

The current state of Open Access to research articles from the University of Helsinki

Ryhmämme kiinnostuksen kohteena oli Helsingin yliopiston julkaisujen näkyvyys verkossa. Kysymys kuului: kuinka moni tutkimusartikkeleista löytyy avoimesti kokotekstiversiona? Tutkimusotoksena käytimme Helsingin yliopiston JULKI-julkaisutietokannan viitteitä vuosilta 2007 ja 2008. Yritimme etsiä lehtiartikkelien kokotekstiversioita käyttäen kahta yleisesti käytössä olevaa hakukonetta sekä kahta avointen julkaisuarkistojen metatietoja haravoivaa hakukonetta. Avoimesti saatavilla oleva kokotekstiversio löytyi 49,1%:ssa otoksen artikkeleista. Google ja Google Scholar -hakukoneilla tehdyt haut olivat tuloksellisempia kuin avointen julkaisuarkistojen metatietoja haravoivilla hakukoneilla tehdyt haut. Hakujen onnistumisprosentit olivat: Google 42,5%, Google Scholar 38,1%, OpenDOAR 14,3% ja Scientific Commons 15,7%. Kaikkiaan 49,1% artikkeleista löytyi kokotekstiversiona. Englanninkielisten artikkelien saatavuusprosentti oli huomattavasti parempi kuin suomenkielisten. Vaikka Google ja Google Scholar ovat tällä hetkellä parhaita välineitä verkossa avoimesti saatavilla olevien tieteellisten tutkimusartikkelien etsimiseen, tutkimustuloksemme perusteella avointen julkaisuarkistojen metatietoja haravoivia hakukoneita ei kannata jättää huomiotta.Non peer reviewe

The citation advantage of open-access articles

This article published was published in the journal, Journal of the American Society for Information Science [© 2008 ASIS&T] and the definitive version is available at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)1532-2890Four subjects, ecology, applied mathematics, sociology and economics, were selected to assess whether there is a citation advantage between journal articles that have an open access (OA) version on the Internet compared to those articles that are exclusively toll access (TA). Citations were counted using the Web of Science and the OA status of articles was determined by searching OAIster, OpenDOAR, Google and Google Scholar. Of a sample of 4633 articles examined, 2280 (49%) were OA and had a mean citation count of 9.04, whereas the mean for TA articles was 5.76. There appears to be a clear citation advantage for those articles that are OA as opposed to those that are TA. This advantage, however, varies between disciplines, with sociology having the highest citation advantage but the lowest number of OA articles from the sample taken and ecology having the highest individual citation count for OA articles but the smallest citation advantage. Tests of correlation or association between OA status and a number of variables were generally found to be weak or inconsistent. The cause of this citation advantage has not been determined

Evaluating Zotero, SHERPA/RoMEO, and Unpaywall in an Institutional Repository Workflow

East Tennessee State University developed a workflow to add journal publications to their institutional repository and faculty profiles using three tools: Zotero for entering metadata, SHERPA/RoMEO for checking copyright permissions, and Unpaywall for locating full-text documents. This study evaluates availability and accuracy of the information and documents provided by Zotero, SHERPA/RoMEO, and Unpaywall for journal publications in four disciplines. The tools were less successful with works authored by arts and humanities and education faculty in comparison to works authored by medicine and health sciences and social and behavioral sciences faculty. The findings suggest that publisher practices contributed to the disciplinary differences

The citation advantage of open access articles

Doctoral Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of PhD of Loughborough University.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo