Still no new evidence: Author-Pay Open Access in the social sciences and humanities

Abstract

I argue that Polonioli (Scientometrics, 2016, this issue) provides no new evidence to show that Open Access is beneficial for the social sciences and the humanities. He raises three criticisms against my recent paper (Wray in Scientometrics 106(3): 1031–1035, 2016). Two of these criticisms fail to take account of the data I was working with. On the basis of those data, I could not draw conclusions about (1) the societal impact of research or (2) other publication models besides the traditional model and the Author-Pay Open Access model. He also claims that I do not take account of the costs associated with the status quo. I argue that he fails to take account of the value added by publishers of academic journals. Further, contrary to what he suggests, there is no evidence that Open Access publishing is making it easier for scholars in developing countries to contribute to scholarship.