  In this study we analyse the key driving factors of preprints in enhancing
scholarly communication. To this end we use four groups of metrics, one
referring to scholarly communication and based on bibliometric indicators (Web
of Science and Scopus citations), while the others reflect usage (usage counts
in Web of Science), capture (Mendeley readers) and social media attention
(Tweets). Hereby we measure two effects associated with preprint publishing:
publication delay and impact. We define and use several indicators to assess
the impact of journal articles with previous preprint versions in arXiv. In
particular, the indicators measure several times characterizing the process of
arXiv preprints publishing and the reviewing process of the journal versions,
and the ageing patterns of citations to preprints. In addition, we compare the
observed patterns between preprints and non-OA articles without any previous
preprint versions in arXiv. We could observe that the "early-view" and
"open-access" effects of preprints contribute to a measurable citation and
readership advantage of preprints. Articles with preprint versions are more
likely to be mentioned in social media and have shorter Altmetric attention
delay. Usage and capture prove to have only moderate but stronger correlation
with citations than Tweets. The different slopes of the regression lines
between the different indicators reflect different order of magnitude of usage,
capture and citation data.
