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Enhancing the visibility and accessibility of academic work in the digital era

Abstract Introduction: Technology-driven changes alongside a continual increase in online availability and accessibility of journals and papers are rapidly changing the patterns of academic communication and publishing. The dissemination of important research findings through the medical community begins with publication in peer-reviewed journals. Aim: The aim of this article is to identify, critically evaluate and integrate the findings of relevant, high-quality individual studies addressing the trends of enhancing the visibility and accessibility of academic publishing in the digital era. Results and discussion: The number of citations that a paper receives is often used as a measure of its impact and by extension, also of its quality. Many aberrations of citation practices have been reported in an attempt to increase the impact of a paper through manipulation using self-citation, inter- citation and citation cartels. Authors’ revenues to legally extend the visibility, awareness and accessibility of their research outputs through an increase in the number of citations and amplifying a scientist’s measurable personal impact has been greatly enhanced by online communication tools such as networking (LinkedIn, Research Gate, Academia.edu, Google Scholar), sharing (Facebook, Blogs, Twitter, Google Plus) media sharing (Slide Share), data sharing (Dryad Digital Repository, Mandalay data, PubMed, PubChem), code sharing, impact tracking and publishing in open access journals. Many studies and review articles in the last decade have examined whether open access articles receive more citations than equivalent subscription toll access articles. Most of them have come to the conclusion that it is highly likely that open access articles have the open access citation advantage over generally equivalent pay-for-access articles in many, if not most disciplines. Conclusion: “Publish or perish”, which is a phrase that is usually used to describe the pressure in academia to rapidly and continually publish academic work to sustain or further one's career, can now be reformulated into “Publish and be cited, not to Perish”.

citation, self-citation, citation cartels, open access, accessibility, visibility, new technologies

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