This study investigates whether open knowledge infrastructures exhibit systematic temporal bias in knowledge ingestion, focusing on differences in indexing speed between high-income and low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
We propose the Critical Temporal Observability Framework (CTOF) and apply an accelerated failure time (AFT) survival model to measure cross-platform temporal lag – days between Crossref metadata deposit and OpenAlex record creation – across 11 countries, four disciplines, and Gold OA status, using a model-eligible sample of 9,645 article records.
Articles from LMICs require 18.1% longer cross-platform temporal lag than those from high-income countries (time ratio = 1.181; median gap = 323 days). Gold OA articles exhibit longer lags (time ratio = 1.377) irrespective of country. High temporal observability reveals bias rather than eliminating it.
CTOF introduces temporal observability as an analytical lens for detecting infrastructural inequalities. Findings challenge the assumption that openness guarantees fairness and offer a practical evaluation tool for librarians and repository managers.
