Open Access to Scientific Literature - Increasing Citations as an Incentive for Authors to Make Their Publications Freely Accessible

In recent years the scientific journal market faces significant evolutions that may cause major changes in the way of publishing research results. In this connection, open access is the prime alternative to publishing in traditional journals, whose subscription-based business model inhibits the distribution of scientific knowledge. But despite strong support for open access among researchers, today this new paradigm is realized only in a few disciplines. A main reason for this lies in the lack of individual incentives for authors to make their publications freely accessible. In this paper we focus on the argument that open access articles are cited more often than articles in traditional journals. Based on a simulation of the citation network, which emerges on the scientific publishing market, we demonstrate how an individual author can increase her citations, and thus her standing in the community, when switching to open access. Especially first movers may benefit from the change of their publication behavior.