Evidence regarding whether open access academic papers receive a larger readership or higher citation impact is mixed across different disciplines. While multiple large-scale studies report a clear open-access advantage in metrics such as readership, attention scores, and citations, other studies in specific fields like neurotechnology or biological and physical sciences find contrary results or a negative correlation between open access and citation impact.
The evidence we hold leans leans supported
official record 3x · fact-check 2x · hedged 1x · crowd & reference 1x
Papers [0, 8, 10, 11] provide direct empirical evidence supporting the claim that open access papers achieve higher attention, readership, and citation metrics in fields such as medicine, orthopaedics, and medical education. Conversely, papers [2, 6] present empirical evidence where toll-access or closed-access papers outperformed open-access papers in citations within biological, physical, and neurotechnology sciences. Because there is direct contradictory evidence within the retrieved literature, the balance verdict is CONTESTED.