Monitoring Citation Rates of Open Access Russian Journals Indexed in the “White List”

The question of how much open access contributes to an increase in the number of references to academic publications and their dissemination among researchers is being actively discussed in the professional community. This study examines the relationship between citation indices of Russian journals included in the “White List” and their openness, in particular, indexing in the DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals). 274 journals were monitored. This allows us to obtain an extensive sample for the analysis of the issue considered by the author. The study monitored the number of citations of these journals over the past 10 years, as well as at the time of their inclusion in the DOAJ, which made it possible to assess the impact of this step on their visibility and relevance in the academic community. It is concluded that the mere fact of the openness of journals does not directly affect their visibility and citation rates; nevertheless, indexing in the DOAJ can be extremely useful for publications, as it ensures the inclusion of information about them in one of the world’s largest sources of open information, OpenAlex. This in turn will allow them to integrate into the global research infrastructure.