Special Report


The impact of the open-access status on journal indices: oncology journals

Saif Aldeen AlRyalat, Anas Abu Nassar, Faris Tamimi, Esraa Al-Fraihat, Lama Assaf, Razan Ghareeb, Mahmoud Masoudi, Mohammad Al-Essa

Abstract

Background: The field of oncology is among the highest productive fields in medicine, with the highest impact journals. The impact of open access (OA) journals is still understudied in the field of oncology. In this study, we aim to study the open-access status of oncology journals and the impact of the open-access status on journal indices.
Methods: We collected data on the included journals from Scopus Source List on 1st of November 2018. We filtered the list for oncology journals for the years from 2011 to 2017. OA journals covered by Scopus are indicated as OA if the journal is listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and/or the Directory of Open Access Scholarly Resources (ROAD).
Results: There were 318 oncology journals compared to 260 in 2011, an increase by about 24.2%, and the percentage of OA journals has increased from 19.6% to 23.9%. Although non-OA journals have significantly higher scholarly output (P=0.001), percent cited and source normalized impact per paper (SNIP) were higher for OA journals.
Conclusions: Publishing in oncology OA journals will yield more impact, in term of citations, and will reach boarder audience.

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