White Paper on Electronic Journal Usage Statistics

Traditional journals, even those available electronically, are changing slowly. However, there is rapid evolution in scholarly communication. Usage is moving to electronic formats. In some areas, it appears that electronic versions of papers are being read about as often as the printed journal versions. Although there are serious difficulties in comparing figures from different media, the growth rates in usage of electronic scholarly information are sufficiently high that if they continue for a few years, there will be no doubt that print versions will be eclipsed. Further, much of the electronic information that is accessed is outside the formal scholarly publication process. There is also vigorous growth in forms of electronic communication that take advantage of the unique capabilities of the web, and which simply do not fit into the traditional journal publishing format. This paper presents some statistics on usage of print and electronic information. It also discusses some preliminary evidence about the changing patterns of usage. It appears that much of the online usage comes from new readers (esoteric research papers assigned in undergraduate classes, for example) and often from places that do not have access to print journals. Also, the reactions to even slight barriers to usage suggest that even high‐quality scholarly papers are not irreplaceable. Readers are faced with a ‘river of knowledge’ that allows them to select among a multitude of sources, and to find near substitutes when necessary. To stay relevant, scholars, publishers and librarians will have to make even greater efforts to make their material easily accessible.

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“…Some of the notable ones will be referenced later. 4,[7][8][9][10][11] In general, they do support most of the theses of this paper.…”

supporting

confidence: 53%

“…Much of the online usage appears to come from new readers (esoteric research papers assigned in undergraduate classes, for example) and often from places that do not have access to print journals. Evidence can be found in Guthrie 8 and Luther, 11 for example, and in later sections of this paper. 2.…”

mentioning

confidence: 54%

The rapid evolution of scholarly communication

Odlyzko

2002

Learned Publishing

113

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“…Additionally, in nearly all cases, the characteristics of the sample of the scholarly community for which usage data have been recorded is unknown in terms of its diversity and its span. The resulting usage data and its subsequent analysis therefore could be shaped by a set of sample characteristics that are not well understood (Franklin & Plum, 2004;Luther, 2006). For example, The CiteBase user community could in terms of its diversity be an unknown and highly biased mix of undergraduate students, professors, university staff, laypersons, and scholars.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Usage impact factor: The effects of sample characteristics on usage‐based impact metrics

Bollen

Sompel

2007

J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci.

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There exist ample demonstrations that indicators of scholarly impact analogous to the citation-based ISI Impact Factor can be derived from usage data; however, so far, usage can practically be recorded only at the level of distinct information services. This leads to communityspecific assessments of scholarly impact that are difficult to generalize to the global scholarly community. In contrast, the ISI Impact Factor is based on citation data and thereby represents the global community of scholarly authors. The objective of this study is to examine the effects of community characteristics on assessments of scholarly impact from usage. We define a journal Usage Impact Factor that mimics the definition of the Thomson Scientific ISI Impact Factor. Usage Impact Factor rankings are calculated on the basis of a large-scale usage dataset recorded by the linking servers of the California State University system from 2003 to 2005. The resulting journal rankings are then compared to the Thomson Scientific ISI Impact Factor that is used as a reference indicator of general impact. Our results indicate that the particular scientific and demographic characteristics of a discipline have a strong effect on resulting usagebased assessments of scholarly impact. In particular, we observed that as the number of graduate students and faculty increases in a particular discipline, Usage Impact Factor rankings will converge more strongly with the ISI Impact Factor.

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“…In bijzondere gevallen heeft het gebruik van een tijdschrift niets te maken met de behoeften van de gebruikers. Zo beschrijft Luther (2000) hoe de uitgever Emerald (toen nog MCB geheten) ontdekte dat de meest gevraagde titels bij sommige instellingen de eerste in het alfabet zijn. Dit duidt erop dat gebruikers bezig waren te leren met het systeem om te gaan.…”

Section: Gebruik Per Tijdschriftunclassified

Van gedrukte naar elektronische tijdschriften: gevolgen voor publicatiemodellen en evaluatiemethoden

Voorbij¹

2005

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White Paper on Electronic Journal Usage Statistics

Cited by 51 publications

References 4 publications

The rapid evolution of scholarly communication

The rapid evolution of scholarly communication

Usage impact factor: The effects of sample characteristics on usage‐based impact metrics

Van gedrukte naar elektronische tijdschriften: gevolgen voor publicatiemodellen en evaluatiemethoden

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