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. 2022 Aug 9;17(8):e0272730.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0272730. eCollection 2022.

National differences in dissemination and use of open access literature

Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 École de bibliothéconomie et des sciences de l'information, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada.
  • 2 School of Information Management, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
  • 3 École de bibliothéconomie et des sciences de l'information and Observatoire des sciences et des technologies, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada.

National differences in dissemination and use of open access literature

Marc-André Simard et al. PLoS One. .
. 2022 Aug 9;17(8):e0272730.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0272730. eCollection 2022.

Affiliations

  • 1 École de bibliothéconomie et des sciences de l'information, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada.
  • 2 School of Information Management, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
  • 3 École de bibliothéconomie et des sciences de l'information and Observatoire des sciences et des technologies, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada.

Abstract

Open Access (OA) dissemination has been gaining a lot of momentum over the last decade, thanks to the implementation of several OA policies by funders and institutions, as well as the development of several new platforms that facilitate the publication of OA content at low or no cost. Studies have shown that nearly half of the contemporary scientific literature could be available online for free. However, few studies have compared the use of OA literature across countries. This study aims to provide a global picture of OA adoption by countries, using two indicators: publications in OA and references made to articles in OA. We find that, on average, low-income countries are publishing and citing OA at the highest rate, while upper middle-income countries and higher-income countries publish and cite OA articles at below world-average rates. These results highlight national differences in OA uptake and suggest that more OA initiatives at the institutional, national, and international levels are needed to support wider adoption of open scholarship.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1

Fig 1. Weighted z-score and normalized map…

Fig 1. Weighted z-score and normalized map of the number of OA publications by country.

Fig 1. Weighted z-score and normalized map of the number of OA publications by country.
Red indicates that a country is above the world average, blue indicates it is below the world average. White represents the world average. Contains information from OpenStreetMap and OpenStreetMap Foundation, which is made available under the Open Database License.
Fig 2

Fig 2. Weighted z-score and normalized map…

Fig 2. Weighted z-score and normalized map of references made to OA publications by country.

Fig 2. Weighted z-score and normalized map of references made to OA publications by country.
Red indicates that a country above the world average, blue indicates it is below the world average. White represents the world average. Contains information from OpenStreetMap and OpenStreetMap Foundation, which is made available under the Open Database License.
Fig 3

Fig 3. Correlation between normalized OA publications…

Fig 3. Correlation between normalized OA publications and normalized cited references by country.

Fig 3. Correlation between normalized OA publications and normalized cited references by country.
Fig 4

Fig 4. OA publication vs. references per…

Fig 4. OA publication vs. references per country income (red dots; average for all the…

Fig 4. OA publication vs. references per country income (red dots; average for all the countries of the same income category).
Fig 5

Fig 5. Average weighted z-score for green…

Fig 5. Average weighted z-score for green and gold OA publications (left) and references to…

Fig 5. Average weighted z-score for green and gold OA publications (left) and references to green and gold OA publications (right) by income category.

References

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    1. Archambault E, Amyot D, Deschamps P, Nicol A, Provencher F, Rebout L, et al. Proportion of Open Access Papers Published in Peer-Reviewed Journals at the European and World Level—1996–2013. European Commission; Science-Metrix; 2014. Report No.: RTD-B6-PP-2011-2. https://science-metrix.com/sites/default/files/science-metrix/publicatio...
    1. Piwowar H, Priem J, Larivière V, Alperin JP, Matthias L, Norlander B, et al. The state of OA: a large-scale analysis of the prevalence and impact of Open Access articles. PeerJ. 2018;6: e4375. doi: 10.7717/peerj.4375 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. European Commission. Trends for open access to publications. 2019. https://ec.europa.eu/info/research-and-innovation/strategy/goals-researc...

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