ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND/AIMS

Scientific medical publishing has undergone significant changes in the last few decades, enabled by advances in technology. Together with these technological innovations, the development of alternative methods has become inevitable. Most authors have had difficulty in making decision between open access and the traditional subscription-based journals. In this study we aimed to compare the changes in citation numbers of open access vs. subscription-based journals in Otorhinolaryngology publishing among Turkish authors and institutions.

MATERIAL and METHODS

In this study we reviewed 28 Otorhinolaryngology (ORL) journals which have matched SCImago journal rank (SJR) values and included a total of 2,000 scientific papers published by Turkish authors between 2010 and 2015. All data extracted from SJR website and Google Scholar system.

RESULTS

There was statistically significant difference found between the subscription based (SB) and Open access (OA) according to the types of articles (p=0.000). The difference between the mean total cite number per article of SB and OA journals is not statistically significant but close to level of significance (p=0.061).

CONCLUSION

When choosing between open access and subscription based journals to publish, it is important to consider the journal’s visibility, the cost of publication. Open access publishing trend is on the rise among Turkish researchers, though they still mostly prefer the subscription based journals in otorhinolaryngology category.