The Impact of Open and Closed Access Publishing on Citation and Altmetric Attention: An Analysis of Articles on COVID-19

Abstract This study examines whether articles on the Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) published as open access have received more citations and altmetrics benefits than those published as closed access. For this study, 500 articles on COVID-19 with the highest Altmetric Attention Score were collected from the Dimensions database. It contains 472 open access articles and 28 closed access articles. Their citation data and altmetrics data were collected directly from the Dimensions database. From the analysis, it can be seen that the citation benefits of open access articles are significantly different from those of closed access articles, while the altmetrics benefits of open access articles are not significantly different from those of closed access articles. It also shows that among open access articles Bronze open access articles have the most citation benefits, while Hybrid open access articles have the most altmetrics benefits.