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This paper aims to answer this question through an observational study of usage and citation data collected about the multidisciplinary, open access mega-journal <jats:italic>Scientific Reports<\/jats:italic>. This observational study answers these questions using the following methods: an overlap analysis of most read and top-cited articles; Spearman correlation tests between total citation counts over two\u00a0years and usage over various timeframes; a comparison of first months of citation for most read and all articles; a Wilcoxon test on the distribution of total citations of early cited articles and the distribution of total citations of all other articles. All analyses were performed in using the programming language R. As Scientific Reports is a multidisciplinary journal covering all natural and clinical sciences, we also looked at the differences across subjects. We found a moderate correlation between usage in the first year and citations in the first two\u00a0years since publication (Spearman correlation coefficient of 0.49, <jats:italic>\u03b1<\/jats:italic>\u2009=\u20090.05), and that articles with high usage in the first six\u00a0months are more likely to have their first citation earlier (Wilcoxon\u2009=\u20091,811,500, <jats:italic>p<\/jats:italic>\u2009&lt;\u20090.0001), which is also related to higher citations in the first two\u00a0years (Wilcoxon\u2009=\u20098,071,200, <jats:italic>p<\/jats:italic>\u2009&lt;\u20090.0001). As this final assertion is inferred based on the results of the other elements of this paper, it would\u00a0require further analysis.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1007\/s11192-019-03228-3","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2019,9,14]],"date-time":"2019-09-14T07:02:46Z","timestamp":1568444566000},"page":"817-838","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/springer_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":19,"title":["The relationship between usage and citations in an open access mega-journal"],"prefix":"10.1007","volume":"121","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-3426-8200","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Barbara","family":"McGillivray","sequence":"first","affiliation":[]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-4277-494X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Mathias","family":"Astell","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]}],"member":"297","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2019,9,14]]},"reference":[{"key":"3228_CR1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"169","DOI":"10.1002\/asi.20262","volume":"57","author":"DW Aksnes","year":"2006","unstructured":"Aksnes, D. 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