On the Open Access of SIGCHI

Paper Title

On the Open Access of SIGCHI

Publication Info

• Topic area: Open Access (OA) publishing in the SIGCHI community and its implications.
• Keywords: Open Access, SIGCHI, bibliometric analysis, ACM Open, citation advantage, APC, equity, HCI, scholarly publishing, OA transition.

Background and Problem

• Problem / challenge: The transition of ACM publications, including SIGCHI, to full Open Access (OA) by 2026 raises questions about its impact on publication practices, financial costs, and scholarly visibility. Existing studies on OA are inconclusive and lack specificity to the SIGCHI community.
• Significance: Understanding the implications of this transition is critical for fostering equitable access, maintaining inclusivity, and maximizing the scholarly and societal impact of SIGCHI research.
• Motivation and related work: Prior research has explored OA adoption, citation advantages, and financial models across disciplines but has not focused on SIGCHI. This paper addresses the gap by analyzing SIGCHI-specific data to inform community-specific policies and practices.

Solution

• Proposed approach: A large-scale bibliometric analysis of SIGCHI publications (2001–2024) to assess OA adoption, financial implications, and citation performance.
• Novelty:
  1. Comprehensive mapping of OA adoption trends in SIGCHI and CHI venues.
  2. Analysis of author characteristics (team size, experience) influencing OA publishing.
  3. Estimation of financial impacts of the OA transition, including APC burdens.
  4. Evaluation of OA's citation advantages, particularly cross-community citations.
• Procedure and key techniques:
  • Data collection from ACM Digital Library, OpenAlex, and Unpaywall.
  • Classification of OA types (official OA, green OA, closed-access).
  • Statistical analyses of author demographics, institutional participation, and citation metrics.
  • Estimation of additional APC payments under the OA mandate.

Results

• Concrete findings:
  • OA adoption has grown significantly, with 75.5% of SIGCHI and 80.4% of CHI papers being OA in 2024.
  • Official OA papers (via ACM) accounted for 64.7% of SIGCHI and 67.8% of CHI publications in 2024.
  • Larger and more experienced author teams are more likely to publish OA papers.
  • Fewer than 10.1% of SIGCHI papers and 8.4% of CHI papers are expected to incur additional APC payments.
  • OA papers show a citation advantage, with official OA papers receiving 35% more citations and being 79% more likely to achieve top 5% citation status at SIGCHI.
  • Cross-community citations are significantly higher for OA papers, particularly official OA.
• Advantage over baselines:
  • Official OA papers outperform closed-access papers in citation counts (35% higher) and cross-community visibility (35% more citations from non-SIGCHI venues).
  • Green OA papers show moderate citation advantages but are less consistent, especially at CHI.
• Experiments / evaluation:
  • Data from 32,091 SIGCHI papers (2001–2024), including 10,221 CHI papers.
  • Metrics include author team size, career age, APC eligibility, and 5-year citation counts.
  • Statistical models (e.g., Poisson regressions, logistic regressions) validate findings.
• Limitations and future work:
  • Retrospective analysis cannot establish causality.
  • Lack of qualitative insights into author attitudes toward OA.
  • Future work should explore broader impacts (e.g., societal, educational) and alternative publishing models (e.g., diamond OA).

Summary

This paper investigates the implications of ACM’s transition to full Open Access for the SIGCHI community. It finds that OA adoption has grown substantially, with official OA formats dominating recent publications. Larger, more experienced author teams and authors from high-income countries or ACM Open institutions are more likely to publish OA. The transition is expected to impose minimal additional APC burdens (<10% of papers) but risks marginalizing under-resourced authors, particularly from upper-middle-income countries. OA papers, especially official OA, exhibit significant citation advantages, including increased cross-community visibility. The study highlights the need for targeted support mechanisms, expanded ACM Open agreements, and alternative publishing models to ensure equity and inclusivity during the transition.