The Impact of Open Access Status on Journal Indexes of Radiology Journals : American Journal of Roentgenology : Ahead of Print (AJR)

ABSTRACT :

OBJECTIVE. The impact of open access (OA) journals is still understudied in the field of radiology. In this study, we compared the measures of impact (e.g., CiteScore, citation count, SCImago Journal Rank) between OA and subscription radiology journals.

MATERIALS AND METHODS. We collected data on journals included in the Scopus Source List on November 1, 2018. We filtered the list for radiology journals for the years from 2011 to 2017. OA journals covered by Scopus (Elsevier) are indicated as OA if the journal is listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals, the Directory of Open Access Scholarly Resources, or both. We also compared citation metrics between OA and subscription radiology journals.

RESULTS. The 2017 Scopus report included 265 radiology journals. The percentage of OA journals increased from 14.7% in 2011 to 21.9% in 2017 (49% increase). The median scholarly output and the citation count were both significantly lower in OA radiology journals compared with subscription journals (p < 0.001 and p = 0.016, respectively). The proportion of documents that received at least one citation was higher in OA (50.2%) compared with subscription journals (44.4%), but the difference was not statistically significant.

CONCLUSION. This study found that the trend toward OA publishing in the fields of radiology and nuclear medicine has slowed in recent years, although the percent cited (i.e., the proportion of documents that receive at least one citation) is higher for OA journals. We believe the radiology field should be more supportive of OA publishing.