Open@VT
Open Access, Open Data, and Open Educational Resources
Virginia Tech and Open Access, 2023 update
As Open Access Week approaches, it’s time to check in on the percentage of open access scholarship at Virginia Tech, and compare it to last year’s data. Our OA percentage improved from about 50% to 55%, and although our peers are improving too, the increase was enough to move up slightly in comparison to our SCHEV peers as well as Virginia universities. However, in the global rankings, Virginia Tech fell further behind.
The four data sources used for OA percentage are CWTS Leiden Ranking, COKI (both openly available), SciVal/Scopus, and Dimensions (both proprietary). All cover the years 2018-2021, except for COKI, which is 2021 only. Virginia Tech’s percentage of open access articles was highest in COKI (59%) and lowest in SciVal (50%). Results from the four data sources were entered into a spreadsheet to show how Virginia Tech compares to its 25 SCHEV peers, as well as to other Virginia universities.
Out of the 26 universities (SCHEV peers plus VT), the average ranking for Virginia Tech is 21st, slightly higher than last year, when the rankings varied between 23rd and 25th. Within Virginia, Virginia Tech ranks third behind UVA and VCU. While this is one place above last year, it’s worth noting that VT still trails William and Mary in three of the four data sources (COKI is the outlier, placing VT 7 percentage points ahead of W&M).
In the CWTS global ranking by percentage of OA , Virginia Tech is ranked #639, slipping about 60 spots from last year’s #576 (to get this ranking, change the indicator to open access and order by PP(OA)). See the CWTS open access page for Virginia Tech and the COKI open access page for Virginia Tech for more information.
In 2021, Virginia Tech approved an open access policy that allows all researchers to deposit accepted versions of scholarly articles in the university’s repository, VTechWorks. Deposit data for accepted versions shows a gradual increase in policy usage:
2021-2022: 196 items
2022-2023: 246 items
It’s the only open access policy among Virginia universities, and one of 12 among our SCHEV peers. We hope researchers will take advantage of this opportunity to provide free and legal access to their scholarship, and continue the trend of increasing deposits.
