Is the Future of Scientific Journals Electronic? Some Considerations about Downloads and Citations

Since Thieme Publishers introduced the online publication of IJSM articles in “Ahead of Print” (eFirst), this service has received increasing attention. Also, according to internal data, the number of subscribers to the printed version has slightly decreased, while the number of electronic subscriptions is inevitably increasing. The electronic subscription allows one to browse and to download the full versions of all papers, and if institutions subscribe to this service, all their members have full access to the journal. Therefore, one might argue that some scientific journals will eventually disappear in printed form and will preferentially be read online in the future.

Both, the editors and our publisher were curious to find out whether the online service simply is used as a tool at first glance or whether it has an impact on how much the articles are recognised so resulting in citations. We have, therefore, listed the top 25 articles out of the volumes of 2005 and 2006 that had been viewed online in abstract form, using an internal Thieme database on September 20, 2007. These data have been compared with the number of full text downloads (in both, PDF and HTML versions), and with the number of citations that had appeared until the above mentioned deadline using the Science Citation Index Expanded, ISI Web of Knowledge^SM.

Sixteen of the top 25 manuscripts had been published in printed form in 2005. A further 9 of the top 25 were published in 2006. The manuscripts represent a fairly good cross section through the thematic sections of the journal: Ten belong to the Physiology & Biochemistry section, for which a total of 112 papers had been published in the last two years; the corresponding data for Training & Testing is 8/113, for Orthopedics & Biomechanics 3/22, Clinical Sciences 3/14, and Nutrition 1/9, while none of the papers belonging to the Immunology section (a total of 5 papers) and to the Behavioral Sciences (a total of 10 papers) had appeared in the top 25 list [[15], [16]].

Among the top 25 viewed abstracts, the number of hits ranges from 2506 to 632, and full paper downloads range from 786 to 66 ([Table 1]). The numbers of viewed abstracts and of downloaded full papers correlate well to each other ([Fig. 1]). When the citation frequency of these papers is scrutinised ([Table 1]), no systematic relationship can be detected with respect, for example, to the date of publication. The number of citations of a paper does not correlate with the frequency it has been browsed as an abstract ([Fig. 2]), but shows some modest correlation with the number of full paper downloads ([Fig. 3]). Surprisingly, some papers that received much attention online have not been cited at all so far [[9], [17], [19], [20], [21], [26]], while one publication [[5]] that is ranked 14th with regard to most viewed abstracts, has been cited 18 times.

Fig. 1 Correlation between number of viewed abstracts and number of downloaded full papers (PDF and HTML); r = 0.61, p = 0.06 %.

Fig. 2 Correlation between number of viewed abstracts and number of citations; r = 0.15, p = 23.67 %.

Fig. 3 Correlation between number of downloaded full papers (PDF and HTML) and number of citations; r = 0.29, p = 8.34 %.

Table 1 The 25 most viewed papers from 2005 - 2006 in descending order of viewed abstracts, in comparison with full paper downloads (PDF and HTML versions) and with citations until Sept. 20, 2007 Reference No. Abstracts PDF/HTML Citations [18] 2506 786 7 [27] 1647 267 2 [11] 1546 261 4 [4] 1157 342 2 [23] 1150 473 5 [12] 1137 373 3 [24] 1106 418 2 [25] 966 298 4 [17] 924 89 0 [19] 907 201 0 [13] 883 190 7 [20] 832 80 0 [6] 832 152 3 [5] 805 188 18 [21] 789 66 0 [2] 782 191 1 [22] 770 165 3 [7] 709 58 1 [1] 698 162 3 [9] 670 154 0 [8] 663 312 1 [3] 662 92 1 [26] 646 112 0 [10] 641 144 5 [14] 632 163 2

It is obviously impossible to compare these data with the subscribers' behavior concerning the printed version of the journal. We also do not have access to any information about whether the online readers of abstracts and of full papers are identical. The picture emerges that Thieme eFirst is a good tool to browse over what might be new, and that an interesting title of a paper attracts the interest online to have a first view. The citation of individual papers, as would be expected, seems rather to be based on its quality and on its novelty or whether it fits into some current trends.

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