A recent blog by Altmetric entitled “Open access publications get more media coverage” describes a paper written by McKiernan et al on the potential positive impact of open research on an investigator’s career.

Open access publishing is gaining in popularity and there are some associated advantages that researchers may be unaware of. McKiernan et al suggest that some scientists wrongly assume that open research will be detrimental to their future career prospects. However, in actual fact, the added interest from social media and news outlets that may accompany an open access publication can be linked with a number of benefits.

The paper by McKiernan et al describes the social media effect – open access articles are more likely to be shared via Twitter and Facebook, for example, than non-open access papers – resulting in increased attention and publicity. As most of our lives revolve around such applications this may result in work getting noticed by a wider audience. This has the potential to lead to media attention for publicly available research, collaborative possibilities, and special funding opportunities. The paper also highlights evidence that articles covered by the media garner higher citation rates, which can only be a positive factor to a striving researcher. You can read the full article here.