IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-04633659.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Open access for degrowth: a literature review on the economic, social, and environmental impact of journal models

Author

Listed:
  • Claudio Vitari

    (CERGAM - Centre d'Études et de Recherche en Gestion d'Aix-Marseille - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - UTLN - Université de Toulon)

  • Zakaria Laala

    (CERGAM - Centre d'Études et de Recherche en Gestion d'Aix-Marseille - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - UTLN - Université de Toulon)

Abstract

The traditional model of academic publishing, characterized by paid subscriptions, has historically restricted access to research findings, posing barriers for researchers and institutions with limited resources (Suber, 2012). In response, the open access (OA) movement has gained momentum, advocating for free and unrestricted access to scholarly literature online, thereby promoting transparency and equitable knowledge dissemination (Suber, 2012). This literature review examines the economic, social, and environmental impacts of various OA journal models, encompassing gold, green, hybrid, and emerging diamond routes. The economic impact of OA models, including cost structures and funding mechanisms such as Article Processing Charges (APCs), is analyzed to understand their implications for publishers, authors, and institutions (Björk et al., 2017; Morrison, 2017). Socially, OA fosters inclusivity by removing financial barriers and enhancing global scientific collaboration, thus democratizing access to knowledge (Houghton & Swan, 2011; Hilton III, 2016). However, the environmental footprint of OA remains underexplored, with emerging concerns over digital sustainability and carbon emissions associated with online publishing (Bouffard et al., 2022). Methodologically, this review synthesizes findings from 20 selected articles using systematic search queries and inclusion criteria based on economic, social, and ecological dimensions (Van Ooijen et al., 2023). By employing a comprehensive framework, we assess the state of knowledge regarding OA impacts and propose future research directions to optimize its benefits while mitigating potential drawbacks. Ultimately, this review underscores the transformative potential of OA in reshaping scholarly communication and calls for continued empirical research to inform evidence-based policy and practice in academic publishing.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04633659
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-04633659
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hal.science/hal-04633659/document
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    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. 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.
    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. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. Stuart Lawson, 2015. "Fee Waivers for Open Access Journals," Publications, MDPI, vol. 3(3), pages 1-13, August.
    4. Jørgen Burchardt, 2014. "Researchers Outside APC-Financed Open Access," SAGE Open, , vol. 4(4), pages 21582440145, September.
    5. Abdelghani Maddi & David / Sapinho, 2022. "Article Processing Charges, Altmetrics and Citation Impact: Is there an economic rationale?," Post-Print hal-03552377, HAL.
    6. 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.
    7. 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.
    8. 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.
    9. 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.
    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. Abdelghani Maddi & David Sapinho, 2021. "Article Processing Charges based publications: to which extent the price explains scientific impact?," Papers 2107.07348, arXiv.org.
    12. 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.
    13. 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.
    14. 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.
    15. Heather Morrison & Jihane Salhab & Alexis Calvé-Genest & Tony Horava, 2015. "Open Access Article Processing Charges: DOAJ Survey May 2014," Publications, MDPI, vol. 3(1), pages 1-16, February.
    16. 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.
    17. 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.
    18. 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.
    19. Li Yan & Wang Zhiping, 2023. "Mapping the Literature on Academic Publishing: A Bibliometric Analysis on WOS," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(1), pages 21582440231, March.
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Open access peer-reviewed articles publishing models degrowth; Open access; peer-reviewed articles; publishing models; degrowth;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:hal:journl:hal-04633659. 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: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.