Mapping the Intellectual Structure of Open Access Field Through Co-Citation Analysis

Abstract

Open access has been one of the major research trends and hottest topics in electronic publishing. This paper aims to assess the evolution of open access as a research field using bibliometric and scientific visualization techniques. It maps the intellectual structure of open access based on 281 articles that appeared in professional literature on the topic between 2000 and 2010. Using bibliometric and co-citation analyses, co-citation patterns of papers are visualized through a number of co-citation maps. CiteSpace was used to analyze and visualize co-citation maps. Maps show major areas of research, prominent articles, major knowledge producers and journals in the field of open access. The letter written by Steven Lawrence (“Free online availability substantially increases a paper’s impact”, 2001) appears to be the most prominent source as it was cited the most. The journal article by Kristin Antelman (“Do open Access articles have a greater research impact”, 2004) and the report by Alma Swan and Sheridan Brown (“Open access self-archiving: An author study”, 2005) are the second most highly cited papers in the network. JASIS / JASIST is the most frequently cited journal by the authors writing on open access. The most recent research topics appear to be institutional repositories, open access publishing/open access journals and scientific communication. Stevan Harnad is most frequently co-cited author, followed by Alma Swan, Steven Lawrence and Peter Suber. The preliminary findings show that open access is an emerging research field. Findings of this study can be used to identify landmark papers along with their impact in terms of providing different perspectives and engendering new research areas.