Read This! How to Boost the Interest towards Research Articles -A Study on SSRN Research Impact

摘要

With the advent of websites like the Social Science Research Network (SSRN), researchers have the possibility to share their research articles with peers before they are finally accepted at a journal. In previous studies, the number of article downloads has been shown to be an early indicator for research impact. With the increasing amount of research articles available, authors have to catch other researchers' attention so that their research is noticed. Based on signaling theory, information diagnosticity theory and analyzing a sample of more than 15,000 research articles posted on SSRN, we investigate which meta-information influences the attention towards research articles. We find that especially content level information given in the title and has an influence. Furthermore, we observe that the download decision is a two-stage process, whereas in each stage, different meta-information is important. Finally, it is shown that open access influences the impact of the meta-information provided.