Do open access articles have a citation advantage? — a research based on European Urology Family

Yuxuan Song; Yang Liu; Rui Chen; Jincong Li; Yun Peng

doi:10.71321/xpg76d58

Authors

Yuxuan Song Peking University People's Hospital
Yang Liu Peking University People's Hospital
Rui Chen Peking University People's Hospital
Jincong Li Peking University People's Hospital
Yun Peng Peking University People's Hospital

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.71321/xpg76d58

Keywords:

open access, European Urology, regression analysis

Abstract

Background: Open access (OA), referring to the practice of providing unrestricted access to scholarly research outputs, has become a main publishing choice for authors. Previous studies have reported OA articles had a citation advantage compared to non-OA articles. Thus, this research aimed to further explore the impact of OA on article citations.
Methods: We searched the Web of Science for research articles and reviews published in European Urology and its sub-journals in 2021. After data extraction, IBM SPSS Statistics 26 was used for statistical analysis, and binary logistic regression analysis was conducted to examine the influence of different variables, particularly OA, on article citation counts.
Results: The study included 135 articles from European Urology, 183 articles from European Urology Focus, and 101 articles from European Urology Oncology. The analysis revealed a significant positive effect of OA on article citations in European Urology (OR = 0.391, 95%CI = 0.189-0.810, p = 0.011). However, OA did not have a statistically significant impact on article citations in European Urology Focus (p = 0.847) or European Urology Oncology (p = 0.83).
Conclusion: Our analysis suggests OA significantly boosts citations in high-impact journals, but shows minimal effect in lower-impact venues.

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