The OA Effect - Value of Gold Open Access

At Springer Nature, we see full (Gold) OA as the best, most complete and most sustainable route to achieving the goal of having all primary research immediately available. It is why, over the past twenty years, we have put transitioning to full OA for all of the primary research we publish at the heart of our business.

This poster will address the findings from our series of white papers which, over the past few years, have built and added to the growing body of evidence demonstrating the value of Gold OA and its identification as the version of the research researchers prefer to use.

Drawing on the analysis from those white papers, the poster will look at the analysis that shows a clear advantage in reach and impact for articles published OA in hybrid journals compared to non-OA articles in the same journals, as well as an advantage for full (Gold) OA articles compared to subscription articles where an earlier article version (such as an accepted manuscript or preprint) has been self-archived in an OA repository. It will also explore the evidence provided that researchers prefer to read and cite the article version of record (VOR) with the VOR being considered the most authoritative and credible source by the majority of researchers.