IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jinfst/v73y2022i12p1793-1805.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Change and growth in open access journal publishing and charging trends 2011–2021

Author

Listed:
  • Heather Morrison
  • Luan Borges
  • Xuan Zhao
  • Tanoh Laurent Kakou
  • Amit Nataraj Shanbhoug

Abstract

This study examines trends in open access article processing charges (APCs) from 2011 to 2021, building on a 2011 study by Solomon and Björk. Two methods are employed, a modified replica and a status update of the 2011 journals. Data are drawn from multiple sources and datasets are available as open data. Most journals do not charge APCs; this has not changed. The global average per‐journal APC increased slightly, from 906 to 958 USD, while the per‐article average increased from 904 to 1,626 USD, indicating that authors choose to publish in more expensive journals. Publisher size, type, impact metrics and subject affect charging tendencies, average APC, and pricing trends. Half the journals from the 2011 sample are no longer listed in DOAJ in 2021, due to ceased publication or publisher de‐listing. Conclusions include a caution about the potential of the APC model to increase costs beyond inflation. The university sector may be the most promising approach to economically sustainable no‐fee OA journals. Universities publish many OA journals, nearly half of OA articles, tend not to charge APCs and when APCs are charged, the prices are very low on average.

Suggested Citation

  • Heather Morrison & Luan Borges & Xuan Zhao & Tanoh Laurent Kakou & Amit Nataraj Shanbhoug, 2022. "Change and growth in open access journal publishing and charging trends 2011–2021," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 73(12), pages 1793-1805, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jinfst:v:73:y:2022:i:12:p:1793-1805
    DOI: 10.1002/asi.24717
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24717
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/asi.24717?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David J. Solomon & Bo‐Christer Björk, 2012. "A study of open access journals using article processing charges," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 63(8), pages 1485-1495, August.
    2. Diana Hicks & Paul Wouters & Ludo Waltman & Sarah de Rijcke & Ismael Rafols, 2015. "Bibliometrics: The Leiden Manifesto for research metrics," Nature, Nature, vol. 520(7548), pages 429-431, April.
    3. David J. Solomon & Bo-Christer Björk, 2012. "A study of open access journals using article processing charges," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 63(8), pages 1485-1495, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Stephan Puehringer & Johanna Rath & Teresa Griesebner, 2021. "The political economy of academic publishing: On the commodification of a public good," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(6), pages 1-21, June.
    2. Cleusa Pavan & Marcia C. Barbosa, 2018. "Article processing charge (APC) for publishing open access articles: the Brazilian scenario," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 117(2), pages 805-823, November.
    3. Stuart Lawson, 2015. "Fee Waivers for Open Access Journals," Publications, MDPI, vol. 3(3), pages 1-13, August.
    4. Melissa H. Cantrell & Juleah A. Swanson, 2020. "Funding Sources for Open Access Article Processing Charges in the Social Sciences, Arts, and Humanities in the United States," Publications, MDPI, vol. 8(1), pages 1-13, February.
    5. Pan, Raj K. & Petersen, Alexander M. & Pammolli, Fabio & Fortunato, Santo, 2018. "The memory of science: Inflation, myopia, and the knowledge network," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 656-678.
    6. Petersen, Alexander M., 2019. "Megajournal mismanagement: Manuscript decision bias and anomalous editor activity at PLOS ONE," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 13(4).
    7. Abdelghani Maddi & David Sapinho, 2022. "Article processing charges, altmetrics and citation impact: Is there an economic rationale?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(12), pages 7351-7368, December.
    8. Andre Bruns & Niels Taubert, 2021. "Investigating the Blind Spot of a Monitoring System for Article Processing Charges," Publications, MDPI, vol. 9(3), pages 1-9, September.
    9. María Bordons & Borja González-Albo & Luz Moreno-Solano, 2023. "Improving our understanding of open access: how it relates to funding, internationality of research and scientific leadership," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(8), pages 4651-4676, August.
    10. Oliver Budzinski & Thomas Grebel & Jens Wolling & Xijie Zhang, 2020. "Drivers of article processing charges in open access," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(3), pages 2185-2206, September.
    11. Abdelghani Maddi & David Sapinho, 2021. "Article Processing Charges based publications: to which extent the price explains scientific impact?," Papers 2107.07348, arXiv.org.
    12. Wei Ming & Zhenyue Zhao, 2022. "Rethinking the open access citation advantage: Evidence from the “reverse‐flipping” journals," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 73(11), pages 1608-1620, November.
    13. Erin C McKiernan, 2017. "Imagining the “open” university: Sharing scholarship to improve research and education," PLOS Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(10), pages 1-25, October.
    14. Sumiko Asai, 2020. "Market power of publishers in setting article processing charges for open access journals," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 123(2), pages 1037-1049, May.
    15. Jørgen Burchardt, 2014. "Researchers Outside APC-Financed Open Access," SAGE Open, , vol. 4(4), pages 21582440145, September.
    16. Claudio Vitari & Zakaria Laala, 2024. "Open access for degrowth: a literature review on the economic, social, and environmental impact of journal models," Post-Print hal-04633659, HAL.
    17. Abdelghani Maddi & David / Sapinho, 2022. "Article Processing Charges, Altmetrics and Citation Impact: Is there an economic rationale?," Post-Print hal-03552377, HAL.
    18. Doyle, Cathal, 2020. "How Can I Share My Work? A Review of the Open Access Policies of IS Journals," OSF Preprints xr8mv, Center for Open Science.
    19. Petersen, Alexander M. & Pan, Raj K. & Pammolli, Fabio & Fortunato, Santo, 2019. "Methods to account for citation inflation in research evaluation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(7), pages 1855-1865.
    20. Minhyeok Lee, 2023. "Game-Theoretical Analysis of Reviewer Rewards in Peer-Review Journal Systems: Analysis and Experimental Evaluation using Deep Reinforcement Learning," Papers 2305.12088, arXiv.org.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:jinfst:v:73:y:2022:i:12:p:1793-1805. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.asis.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.