OAPEN-NL builds on the European OAPEN-project which was set up to gain experience with Open Access publishing of academic books. In total 50 academic books were published in Open Access with subsidy from NWO. For every Open Access title, the publishers provided a similar title that was published in the conventional way for comparison. Research showed that publishing in Open Access had no effect whatever on the sale of books. The publisher’s fear that book sales would decline if publications would be available in Open Access, was unfounded. However, online usage of books in Open Access increased considerably as did online discovery of these books. Although online usage increased, this did not (yet) lead to an increase of citations in the research timeframe.

1. OAPEN-NL
Sales and scholarly impact
OAPEN-NL Final Seminar
22 October 2013
Ronald Snijder

2. Contents
• Research setup
• Results
• Conclusion

3. Research setup
• Two groups:
– Experimental group: 50 OA titles
– Control group: 36 titles
• What to measure:
–
–
–
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Sales
Discovery
Online consultation
Citation rate
• Period: 2011 – August 2013
• Statistical procedure: ANOVA

4. Control group
Criteria for control group:
• Subject
• In print, but not in OA
• In Google Books: 10% available for viewing
• Publishing year: no more than 1 year before
OA title
• Print run: difference should not exceed 15%
• Price: difference should not exceed 15%

5. Sales
Sales data:
• Measured in copies sold per month
• Data from first month of sales and onwards 
front list vs. back list sales
• Turnover is not taken into account

6. Sales: results
• No evidence of effect:
– F (1,1366) = 0.084, p = .771
• Mean sales OA: 8.67
• Mean sales closed access: 8.35

7. Discovery
Discovery data:
• One platform for all titles
• Measured using Google Books: “Book Visits”
• OA titles: 100% visible in Google Books
• Control titles: 10% visible in Google Books

8. Discovery results
• Open Access has significant effect on
discovery:
– F (1,681) = 13.783, p < .001
• Mean Book visits OA: 755.70
• Mean Book visits closed access: 530.45

9. Online consultation
Consultation data:
• Measured using Google Books: “Page views”
• OA titles: 100% visible in Google Books
• Control titles: 10% visible in Google Books

10. Online consulation results
• Open Access has significant effect on online
consultation:
– F (1,681) = 25.8, p < .001
• Mean Page views OA: 863.84
• Mean Page views closed access: 561.19

11. Citation rates
Citation data:
• Be aware of problems:
– Time frame is short – citations in other books?
– Few books per subject – differences in citations
per academic discipline
• Measured in Google Scholar

12. Citation rates: results
• No evidence of effect:
– F (1,67) = 0.13, p = .909
• Mean citations OA: 3.08
• Mean citations closed access: 2.89

13. More results: OAPEN downloads

14. Conclusion
Publishing in Open Access has positive effect on:
• Discovery
• Online consultation
No effect could be found for:
• Sales
• Citation rates
Expectations of authors and publishers:
• Divided opinions on sales
• Positive expectations:
– Citations  not found
– Discovery  found
– Online consultation  found

15. Thank you!
More on OAPEN:
• www.oapen.org
• www.oapen.nl
• www.oapen-uk.jiscebooks.org
• Twitter:@Oapenbooks
Directory of Open Access Books:
• www.doabooks.org
• Twitter: @Doabooks
Contact me:
• r.snijder@oapen.org
• Twitter: @Ronaldsnijder