"...Each publisher could track the links that arrive at its own site, and would thus know which publications were linking to its own" CrossRef after three years Amy Brand, Director of Business Development (http://www.icsti.org/forum/44/)
Couldn't this citation tracking-functionality be used to allow high profile journals to build a business model based on usage and research impact (i.e. the number of citations) rather than on plain, flat-rate subscription access (that OA considerably increases research impact and increases the number of citations has already been shown (e.g. http://www.neci.nec.com/~lawrence/papers/online-nature01/ )? Wouldn't such a citation based remuneration system (perhaps in addition to some minor author-input-fees) be an incentive for high profile journals to make the OA switch since those journals are generating a lot of this potential currency? (Given the bundling strategy of elsevier perhaps not the biggest ones, but at least smaller, not-for-profit high profile journals??? they are already under some pressure due to the big deals between the elsevier's and libraries) Such a citation based remuneration model would link the economic value to the research value. plus, it would provide the OAI network with very needed and valuable quality articles (nodes) against the sciencedirects and springerlinks. Hoping to hear many objections... Cheers, Markus