1.
Access to Freely Available
Journal Articles:
Gold, Green, and Rogue Open Access
Across the Disciplines
Charleston Conference
November 3, 2016
Michael Levine-Clark
University of Denver
John McDonald
University of Southern California
Jason Price
SCELC Library Consortium

2.
Single publisher referring Site URL data
U of
Denver

3.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/04/whos-downloading-pirated-papers-everyone

4.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/04/whos-downloading-pirated-papers-everyone

5.
A Science survey of 11,000 researchers . . .
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/05/survey-most-give-thumbs-pirated-papers
Yes
No
I don’t have
access
Convenience
Other
Object to profits
off academics 23%
88%
51%
17%
9%
12%

6.
Our Journal Article Sample
• 300 articles indexed in Scopus
• Published in 2015
• 100 from Arts & Humanities
• 100 from Social Sciences
• 100 from Life Sciences
• 100 journal articles randomly
selected from 2000-4000
English language records
matching each subject area
• extracted in August 2016

7.
Definitions
Availability
• Presence of full text in a “free”
version
Search Locations
• Google Scholar
• Google
• ResearchGate
• Sci-Hub
Access Type
• ‘Gold’ OA – open access on the
publisher’s website
• ‘Green’ OA – open access in a
repository or author website
• ‘Rogue’ OA – freely available via
an academic social network
(ResearchGate, academia.edu)
• Pirated – freely available via Sci-
Hub, a pirate site

8.
Methodology
• Searched each article title in:
• Google Scholar
• Google
• Counted:
• Access type (gold, green, rogue)
• Number of title match results
• Number of results w/ available
full text (from off campus)
• Searched each article title in:
• ResearchGate (if not already found
there via Google Scholar or Google)
• Sci-Hub.cc
• Measured title match vs.
freely available full-text results

9.
Access Type
Source of the full text article: Gold OA, Green OA, Rogue OA, Pirated

10.
• How many articles are Gold OA?
• How many articles are Green OA?
 In Institutional Repositories
 In Subject Repositories
 On author websites
• How many articles are available in
Rogue and Pirate systems
 ResearchGate & academia.edu
 Sci-Hub
Gold/Green/Rogue

11.
Articles available
via Gold OA
Discipline
Publisher
Websites
Arts & Humanities 23
Social Sciences 25
Life Sciences 32
Total 80/300 (26%)

12.
Articles Available via Green OA
Discipline
Institutiona
l
Repository
Subject
Repositor
y
Author
Website
(Self-
Archived
)
Total
Articles
Arts &
Humanities
6 4 5 13
Social Sciences 14 10 3 19
Life Sciences 7 27 2 27
41 10

13.
Articles available in Rogue Systems
ResearchGate academia.edu
Total
Rogue
Arts & Humanities 11 20 26
Social Sciences 36 9 40
Life Sciences 44 5 45
ALL 91 (30%) 34 111 (37%)

14.
Discipline
All OA
Sources
Arts &
Humanities
49
Social
Sciences
60
Life
Sciences
57
Total
166/300
(55.3%)

15.
Discipline
Pirated Articles available
in Sci-Hub
Arts & Humanities 86
Social Sciences 87
Life Sciences 87
Total 260/300 (87%)

16.
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
ALL
AH
SS
LS
80
23
25
32
24
10
8
6
Additive availability by article source
Gold Green Not Gold
Additive from Left -> Right

17.
Additive from Left -> Right

18.
Search Location
Where do we find available full text? Google Scholar, Google, ResearchGate, Sci-Hub

19.
Google Scholar
ALL
versions
(average #)
# w/ Google
Scholar
(right-hand)
OA links
Arts & Humanities 2.55 35
Social Sciences 3.63 39
Life Sciences 5.03 48
Total 3.74 122/300 (41%)

20.
Google
# of title
matches
OA Articles
Available
Arts & Humanities 2.94 37
Social Sciences 2.99 40
Life Sciences 3.62 45
Total 3.18
122/300
(41.3%)

21.
Conclusions
It’s hard to follow the
rules:
• 26% Gold OA
• 20% Green OA
• 37% Rogue OA
• 87% Pirated
*Starting with Google Scholar, supplemented
by Google, is a slightly better strategy than
starting with ResearchGate
*Starting with Sci-Hub, and bypassing
legitimate search options entirely, gives the
best results for users willing to use pirated
papers
*Libraries and publishers should be concerned

22.
Next Steps
• Examine OA ‘discoverability’ and
availability in library Discovery
Systems
• How effective are library linking
tools in providing full-text access
to OA articles?

23.
1) Collar Google Scholar? 2) Emulate ResearchGate?
3) Don’t ignore the Sci-hub pirate club!
How should libraries respond?

24.
1) Collar Google Scholar?
• Link to Scholar results from
OpenUrl resolver results to
leverage more full text
OR
• Draw Scholar OA full text links
into the results menu when they
are available?

25.
1) Collar Google Scholar?
• Link to Scholar results from
OpenUrl resolver results to
leverage more full text
OR
• Draw Scholar OA full text links
into the results menu when they
are available?

26.
2) Emulate ResearchGate?
• Include metadata for ALL faculty
publications in Institutional
Repositories (even if the an OA
copy is not available)
• Allow users to request a copy
through the institutional
repository listing

27.
2) Emulate ResearchGate?
• Include metadata for ALL faculty
publications in Institutional
Repositories (even if the an OA
copy is not available)
• Allow users to request a copy
through the institutional
repository listing

28.
2) Emulate ResearchGate?
• Include metadata for ALL faculty
publications in Institutional
Repositories (even if the an OA
copy is not available)
• Allow users to request a copy
through the institutional
repository listing

29.
3) Don’t ignore the Sci-Hub (pirate) club!
Recall that:
• 88% of researchers
do NOT think it is
wrong to download
pirated papers
• 87% of papers are
available via Sci-Hub

30.
3) Don’t ignore the Sci-Hub (pirate) club!
Recall that:
• 88% of researchers
do NOT think it is
wrong to download
pirated papers
• 87% of papers are
available via Sci-Hub