There's Nothing Good On the Internet(s)

According to a recent study at Cornell University, online research articles are read more and cited less.

Well, not significantly less, but their studies show that even though more people read research articles that were freely available online, those articles weren't cited any more frequently than other articles out there.

It's bad news for people who thought that increased exposure online would lead to increased distribution of their work. Having your work cited in other research can make or break academic careers. Unfortunately, having your writing freely available isn't enough, it actually has to be good, as well. (Sound familiar?)

It could be worse. When I saw the title of the research, I thought that the work was being used without getting cited (the study thinks that authors are just citing better work). It's bad enough that identity so much else can get stolen online, we don't need the intellectual property theft to get any worse.