IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/scient/v103y2015i2d10.1007_s11192-015-1556-z.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Article processing charges in OA journals: relationship between price and quality

Author

Listed:
  • Bo-Christer Björk

    (Hanken School of Economics)

  • David Solomon

    (Michigan State University)

Abstract

The subscription prices of peer-reviewed journals have in the past not been closely related to the scientific quality. This relationship has been further obscured by bundled e-licenses. The situation is different for Open Access (OA) journals that finance their operations via article processing charges (APCs). Due to competition and the fact that authors are often directly involved in making APC payments from their own or other limited funds, APC pricing has so far been sensitive to the quality and services offered by journals. We conducted a systematic survey of prices charged by OA journals indexed in Scopus and this revealed a moderate (0.40) correlation between the APCs and Source Normalized Impact per Paper values, a measure of citation rates. When weighted by article volumes the correlations between the quality and the price were significantly higher (0.67). This would seem to indicate that while publishers to some extent take the quality into account when pricing their journals, authors are even more sensitive to the relationship between price and quality in their choices of where to submit their manuscripts.

Suggested Citation

  • Bo-Christer Björk & David Solomon, 2015. "Article processing charges in OA journals: relationship between price and quality," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 103(2), pages 373-385, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:103:y:2015:i:2:d:10.1007_s11192-015-1556-z
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-015-1556-z
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-015-1556-z
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11192-015-1556-z?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Theodore C. Bergstrom, 2001. "Free Labour for Costly Journals?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(4), pages 183-198, Fall.
    2. 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.
    3. Declan Butler, 2013. "Investigating journals: The dark side of publishing," Nature, Nature, vol. 495(7442), pages 433-435, March.
    4. Moed, Henk F., 2010. "Measuring contextual citation impact of scientific journals," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 4(3), pages 265-277.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. 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.
    2. Abdelghani Maddi & David Sapinho, 2021. "Article Processing Charges based publications: to which extent the price explains scientific impact?," Papers 2107.07348, arXiv.org.
    3. Sumiko Asai, 2019. "Changes in revenue structure of a leading open access journal publisher: the case of BMC," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 121(1), pages 53-63, October.
    4. Hajar Sotudeh & Zohreh Estakhr, 2018. "Sustainability of open access citation advantage: the case of Elsevier’s author-pays hybrid open access journals," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 115(1), pages 563-576, April.
    5. Jonathan P. Tennant & Harry Crane & Tom Crick & Jacinto Davila & Asura Enkhbayar & Johanna Havemann & Bianca Kramer & Ryan Martin & Paola Masuzzo & Andy Nobes & Curt Rice & Bárbara Rivera-López & Tony, 2019. "Ten Hot Topics around Scholarly Publishing," Publications, MDPI, vol. 7(2), pages 1-24, May.
    6. 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.
    7. Fernanda Morillo, 2020. "Is open access publication useful for all research fields? Presence of funding, collaboration and impact," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(1), pages 689-716, October.
    8. Patricia Alonso-Álvarez & Pablo Sastrón-Toledo & Jorge Mañana-Rodriguez, 2024. "The cost of open access: comparing public projects’ budgets and article processing charges expenditure," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 129(10), pages 6149-6166, October.
    9. Sumiko Asai, 2021. "Collaboration between research institutes and large and small publishers for publishing open access journals," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(6), pages 5245-5262, June.
    10. 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.
    11. Maja Jokić & Andrea Mervar & Stjepan Mateljan, 2018. "Scientific potential of European fully open access journals," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 114(3), pages 1373-1394, March.
    12. 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.
    13. Xinyi Chen, 2024. "Interactions of Publication Volume, Journal Impact, and Article Processing Charges: Comparative Study of China and Global Practices in Nature Portfolio," Publications, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-17, December.
    14. Sumiko Asai, 2023. "Does double dipping occur? The case of Wiley’s hybrid journals," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(9), pages 5159-5168, September.
    15. Christopher Carroll, 2016. "Measuring academic research impact: creating a citation profile using the conceptual framework for implementation fidelity as a case study," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(2), pages 1329-1340, November.
    16. Sergio Copiello, 2020. "Business as Usual with Article Processing Charges in the Transition towards OA Publishing: A Case Study Based on Elsevier," Publications, MDPI, vol. 8(1), pages 1-14, January.
    17. Bo-Christer Björk, 2017. "Scholarly journal publishing in transition- from restricted to open access," Electronic Markets, Springer;IIM University of St. Gallen, vol. 27(2), pages 101-109, May.
    18. Russell J. Gray, 2020. "Sorry, we’re open: Golden open-access and inequality in non-human biological sciences," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(2), pages 1663-1675, August.
    19. Abdelghani Maddi & David / Sapinho, 2022. "Article Processing Charges, Altmetrics and Citation Impact: Is there an economic rationale?," Post-Print hal-03552377, HAL.
    20. Cenyu Shen, 2017. "Open Access Scholarly Journal Publishing in Chinese," Publications, MDPI, vol. 5(4), pages 1-17, September.

    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. Sergio Copiello, 2020. "Business as Usual with Article Processing Charges in the Transition towards OA Publishing: A Case Study Based on Elsevier," Publications, MDPI, vol. 8(1), pages 1-14, January.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. Sumiko Asai, 2019. "Changes in revenue structure of a leading open access journal publisher: the case of BMC," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 121(1), pages 53-63, October.
    5. Fiorenzo Franceschini & Maurizio Galetto & Domenico Maisano & Luca Mastrogiacomo, 2012. "The success-index: an alternative approach to the h-index for evaluating an individual’s research output," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 92(3), pages 621-641, September.
    6. Walters, William H., 2017. "Do subjective journal ratings represent whole journals or typical articles? Unweighted or weighted citation impact?," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 730-744.
    7. Mark J. McCabe & Christopher M. Snyder, 2015. "Does Online Availability Increase Citations? Theory and Evidence from a Panel of Economics and Business Journals," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 97(1), pages 144-165, March.
    8. Dejian Yu & Wanru Wang & Shuai Zhang & Wenyu Zhang & Rongyu Liu, 2017. "A multiple-link, mutually reinforced journal-ranking model to measure the prestige of journals," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 111(1), pages 521-542, April.
    9. Bornmann, Lutz & Leydesdorff, Loet, 2012. "Which are the best performing regions in information science in terms of highly cited papers? Some improvements of our previous mapping approaches," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 336-345.
    10. Antonio Fernández-Cano & Manuel Torralbo & Mónica Vallejo, 2012. "Time series of scientific growth in Spanish doctoral theses (1848–2009)," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 91(1), pages 15-36, April.
    11. Bruno Frey, 2005. "Problems with Publishing: Existing State and Solutions," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 19(2), pages 173-190, April.
    12. Stuart Lawson, 2015. "Fee Waivers for Open Access Journals," Publications, MDPI, vol. 3(3), pages 1-13, August.
    13. Nathan Berg, 2002. "Coping with journal-price inflation: leading policy proposals and the quality-spectrum," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 4(14), pages 1-7.
    14. Alona Zharova & Janine Tellinger-Rice & Wolfgang Karl Härdle, 2018. "How to measure the performance of a Collaborative Research Center," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 117(2), pages 1023-1040, November.
    15. Azar, Ofer H., 2008. "Evolution of social norms with heterogeneous preferences: A general model and an application to the academic review process," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 65(3-4), pages 420-435, March.
    16. Tian Yu & Guang Yu & Peng-Yu Li & Liang Wang, 2014. "Citation impact prediction for scientific papers using stepwise regression analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 101(2), pages 1233-1252, November.
    17. Dorta-González, P. & Dorta-González, M.I., 2013. "Impact maturity times and citation time windows: The 2-year maximum journal impact factor," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 593-602.
    18. Mutz, Rüdiger & Daniel, Hans-Dieter, 2012. "Skewed citation distributions and bias factors: Solutions to two core problems with the journal impact factor," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 169-176.
    19. Wolfgang Glänzel & Henk F. Moed, 2013. "Opinion paper: thoughts and facts on bibliometric indicators," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 96(1), pages 381-394, July.
    20. KRAPF, Matthias & SCHLÄPFER, Jörg, 2012. "How Nobel Laureates Would Perform In The Handelsblatt Ranking," Regional and Sectoral Economic Studies, Euro-American Association of Economic Development, vol. 12(3).

    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:spr:scient:v:103:y:2015:i:2:d:10.1007_s11192-015-1556-z. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.