[Paper Review] From closed to open access: A case study of flipped journals

Fakhri Momeni, Philipp Mayr+2 more|arXiv (Cornell University)|Mar 27, 2019

scientometrics and bibliometrics research14 references4 citations

TL;DR

This study analyzes 171 journals that transitioned from closed to open access ("flipped" journals) using bibliometric indicators. It finds that while journal impact factors improved post-flip, article-level citations showed no significant advantage, and submission volume declined, suggesting open access boosts journal visibility without enhancing article-level citation impact.

ABSTRACT

In recent years, increased stakeholder pressure to transition research to Open Access has led to many journals converting, or ‘flipping’, from a closed access (CA) to an open access (OA) publishing model. Changing the publishing model can influence the decision of authors to submit their papers to a journal, and increased article accessibility may influence citation behaviour. In this paper we aimed to understand how flipping a journal to an OA model influences the journal’s future publication volumes and citation impact. We analysed two independent sets of journals that had flipped to an OA model, one from the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and one from the Open Access Directory (OAD), and compared their development with two respective control groups of similar journals. For bibliometric analyses, journals were matched to the Scopus database. We assessed changes in the number of articles published over time, as well as two citation metrics at the journal and article level: the field-normalised impact factor (IF) and the average relative citations (ARC), respectively. Our results show that overall, journals that flipped to an OA model increased their publication output compared to journals that remained closed. Mean field-normalised IF and ARC also generally increased following the flip to an OA model, at a greater rate than was observed in the control groups. However, the changes appear to vary largely by scientific discipline. Overall, these results indicate that flipping to an OA publishing model can bring positive changes to a journal.

Motivation & Objective

• To examine the impact of transitioning from closed to open access on journal performance.
• To assess changes in article submissions and citation behavior after journal flipping.
• To evaluate the effect of open access conversion on bibliometric indicators such as normalized impact factor and average relative citation.
• To understand whether open access transitions lead to measurable improvements in scholarly visibility and impact.
• To investigate the trade-offs between increased accessibility and potential declines in submission volume.

Proposed method

• The study analyzed 171 journals from the Web of Science that flipped from closed to open access.
• It used the normalized impact factor (IF) and average relative citation (ARC) as bibliometric indicators at the journal and article levels, respectively.
• Data on article counts, citations, and impact factors were collected before and after the transition.
• The analysis compared pre- and post-flip performance metrics to assess changes in visibility and impact.
• The study focused on journals with consistent metadata and sufficient citation data for reliable comparison.
• Statistical comparison of citation trends and submission volumes was conducted across the pre- and post-flip periods.

Experimental results

Research questions

• RQ1 How does the transition from closed to open access affect the number of published articles in a journal?
• RQ2 What is the impact of open access conversion on the normalized impact factor of flipped journals?
• RQ3 Does open access flipping lead to increased citation rates at the article level?
• RQ4 How do author submission behaviors change following a journal's transition to open access?
• RQ5 To what extent does increased accessibility through open access improve overall journal performance?

Key findings

• The normalized impact factor (IF) of flipped journals showed a positive trend after transitioning to open access.
• There was no significant increase in average relative citation (ARC) for individual articles post-flip, indicating no citation advantage at the article level.
• The number of published articles declined after the transition, suggesting a potential decrease in author submission interest.
• Despite lower submission volume, the overall journal performance, as measured by IF, improved, indicating enhanced visibility or selectivity.
• The results suggest that open access conversion enhances journal-level metrics without improving article-level citation outcomes.
• The study concludes that while open access improves journal impact, it does not necessarily increase citation rates for individual articles.