Usage and diffusion of Quebec scholarly journals in the social sciences and humanities: Analysis of downloads from the Érudit platform
This exploratory study focuses on the usage of Quebec scholarly journals in social sciences and humanities disseminated by the Érudit platform. Based on the analysis of 39,437,659 downloads from 2010 to 2015, the study aims to provide an overview of the usage of scholarly journal articles disseminated by Érudit according to the discipline and source of the downloads and to, subsequently, evaluate the effect of open access policies on downloads. The results demonstrate the importance of national journals for the social sciences and humanities, as well as the positive impact of open access on the diffusion of knowledge, both in Canada and abroad.