DOCSLIB.ORG

Open-Access Mega-Journals

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Open-Access Mega-Journals Feature Open-access mega-journals As most major publishers have now launched a mega-journal with new approaches to scale, scope, and quality, a project team headed by Stephen Pinfield at Sheffield University is investigating the phenomenon which is causing some debate and controversy. ONE of the most important trends in ­scientific­publishing­over­the­past­­decade­ The authors: at Sheffield University, has­been­the­advent­of­the­so-called­ Peter Willett is Co-Investigator; Stephen Pinfield is the OAMJ project’s Principal open-access­(OA)­‘mega-journal’.­In­2015,­ Investigator; and Simon Wakeling is a­team­from­the­Universities­of­­Sheffield­ Research Associate ([email protected]). and­Loughborough,­led­by­Stephen­ ­Pinfield,­was­awarded­a­grant­by­the­ Arts­and­Humanities­Research­Council­ (AHRC)­to­analyse­the­characteristics­of­the­ ­phenomenon­and­evaluate­its­significance­ for­the­research­community­and­beyond.­ This­article­provides­a­brief­introduction­ to­mega-journals,­based­on­the­literature­ review­undertaken­in­the­first­phase­of­that­ project.1 Open-access mega-journals (OAMJs) several titles which can be grouped under now appear to be an established part of At Loughborough University, Valerie Spezi this broad heading. The first such journal, the scholarly communication landscape. ([email protected]) is Research PLOS ONE launched in 2006, has been Associate and Claire Creaser and Jenny Almost all major publishers have now followed by titles such as PeerJ, BMJ Open, Fry are Co-Investigators. launched their own mega-journal. Their and Scientific Reports (Nature Publishing), to combination of new approaches to scale, name only a few. Size is relative, however, scope, and quality – in conjunction with an with both PLOS ONE and Scientific Reports OA business model – mean that they have each publishing more than 10,000 citable given rise to debate and controversy, some articles in 2015, while others are, by com- of it heated. parison, somewhat smaller, albeit still much What is a ‘mega-journal’? larger than many academic journals, e.g. PeerJ published some 800 articles in 2015. The term ‘mega-journal’ was first used One key reason for such large numbers is specifically in relation to journal size, but having a broad subject scope: PLOS ONE is now used more widely, and there are Table­1:­Criteria­for­a­mega-journal Primary criteria Secondary criteria l Large publishing volume or aiming for it l Moderate APC l Broad subject area l High-prestige publisher l l Peer review of scientific soundness only Academic editors l Reusable graphics & data Open-access mega-journals l Full open access with APC (OAMJs) now appear to be l Altmetrics an established part of the l Commenting scholarly communication l Portable reviews landscape. l Rapid publication March 2017 CILIPUPDATE 31 Open Acess Mega Journals pp31-33.indd 1 23/02/2017 15:53 accepts articles from all science, technology and medicine (STM) disciplines and some social scienc- es. Articles are not assessed on their potential ‘interest’ to a nar- row subject community, nor on cri- teria of ‘novelty’ or ‘importance’, judgements which are traditional- ly central to the acceptance criteria of the majority of established peer-reviewed titles. Rather, PLOS ONE assesses articles based on the primary criterion of ‘scientific soundness’, and all articles which meet this quality threshold (within the very broad subject coverage) are accepted for publication. As a result, the term ‘mega-jour- nal’ has become associated not merely with large-scale publishing output, but also breadth of scope and peer-review criteria based spe- cifically on soundness, as well as the basic criterion of open access, normally with a business model of pre-publication article-processing charges Figure­1:­Article­numbers­in­the­11­largest­mega-journals,­2006-2015. (APCs). The key elements are summarised in table 1 together with several secondary Source:­Scopus. criteria, some or all of which are character- istic of many mega-journals. 2 prolific title, publishing 1,940 research ar- to debate whether some of the smaller me- These criteria (derived from Björk) are ticles compared to PLOS ONE’s 1,756. RSC ga-journal titles are large enough to justify somewhat subjective, so that providing an Advances, the third most productive title in the ‘mega’ prefix. exact classification is challenging – when 2015, published over 12,800 articles in 2015, can a journal be described as ‘mega’? We and is now, as of the beginning of 2017, 2­How­broad­is­‘broad’? discuss the primary criteria further in the Gold OA, but still has a traditional peer Large publication volumes are generally remainder of this section. review process.4 associated with broad disciplinary scope, Other mega-journal titles also grew the second of the Björk criteria. Broad 1­How­large­is­‘large’? during the period, but with much smaller scope is a major departure from scholarly Bibliometric work conducted by the re- numbers of articles, between 500-1,000 arti- publishing trends of the last 50 years, which search team reveals variations in mega-jour- cles a year. Bearing in mind that publication have been characterised by ever-increas- nal size.3 In 2015, the combined outputs volumes are strongly discipline-depend- ing levels of subject specialisation. Many of the 11 mega-journals that meet a strict ent, this places them at the same level as mega-journals cover an entire discipline interpretation of Björk’s primary criteria some large, well-established STM journals (e.g. all life sciences; all of physics) or a and that are also indexed in Scopus totalled based on conventional interest and signifi- range of disciplines (e.g. all science, tech- 44,820 articles (Figure 1). PLOS ONE clearly cance-based peer review; indeed, 15 other nology and medicine). Heliyon, launched in dominates this figure. However, 2013 was titles indexed in Web of Science published 2015, covers all academic disciplines. Again, a high point in PLOS ONE output, with a more than 3,000 articles in 2015, and more this is not unique to mega-journals – Nature decline to 27,488 in 2015, while Nature’s than 400 published over 500 articles in that and Science have long covered all scientific Scientific Reports grew from 2,494 in 2013 to year. While such titles are in the largest one disciplines, while RSC Advances covers ‘all 10,600 in 2015. In September 2016, Scientific per cent of all journals, the lack of a clearly of the chemical sciences, including multi- Reports overtook PLOS ONE as the most agreed definition means it remains open disciplinary and emerging areas’ detailing over 100 topics which are included. Notwithstanding their theoretically The OAMJ Project broad scope, mega-journals have been dominated by biomedical disciplines in We are conducting terms of the number of articles published. a two-year project One factor may be the wider acceptance of funded by AHRC to Gold OA publishing by these disciplines, explore the recent and the willingness of the cognate fund- phenomenon of open-access ing agencies to support the associated mega-journals and the future of costs. There is evidence, however, that scholarly communication. other disciplines, particularly the physical This is a collaboration between Lough- sciences, are now adopting mega-journals, borough University and Sheffield University. for example AIP Advances in physics, with The project is led by Stephen Pinfield a small number of OAMJ initiatives in the from SheffieldUniversity. Further details humanities and social sciences, notably can be found on our project website at http://oamj.org/ Follow us on twitter at SAGE Open, launched in 2011, and the @OAMJ_Project Open Library of the Humanities, launched in 2014. 32 CILIPUPDATE March 2017 Open Acess Mega Journals pp31-33.indd 2 23/02/2017 15:53 3­Approach­to­Peer­Review publishing volume is clearly facilitated mega-journals, interviewing publishers, This is perhaps the criterion which most by broad subject scope and objective peer conducting subject-based case studies, and closely defines the mega-journal and is review, but which of these criteria is the a broad survey of academics to analyse the certainly the most controversial. Me- driving aim? Alternatively, do publishers characteristics of the emergent open-access ga-journals’ approach to quality control of mega-journals simply wish to imple- ‘mega-journal’ phenomenon and evaluate – peer review based only on scientific ment a novel and more ‘democratic’ ap- its significance for the research community soundness – has been criticised as rep- proach to scholarly publishing? In practice, and beyond. resenting a decline in quality standards, the answer is likely to differ for the various labelled, for example, as ‘light peer OAMJ publishers, and one of the aims of Conclusion review’. By dispensing with traditional our project is to obtain the views of a range Mega-journals have the potential to peer review processes, mega-journals are of stakeholders on this and other aspects of fundamentally alter the scholarly com- seen as casting off the valuable filtering the OAMJ phenomenon. munication landscape and this may have function of journals that researchers Mega-journals themselves are hetero- direct implications for research support rely on, even if only to save them time. geneous in terms of their characteristics. librarians, serials librarians, and research Mega-journals, it is argued, simply have a Key components of OAMJs are being libraries as a whole. Librarians have a lower quality bar. implemented and combined in different key role to play in the evolving scholarly On the other hand, it is also argued ways. It remains to be seen whether this communication landscape, particularly as that peer review focused on soundness – will simply add to the range of choices for their role as curators of scholarly output is described more positively as ‘objective peer authors so that mega-journals find an ac- changing, moving from serials purchasing review’ – avoids the subjectivity associated commodation with conventional selective decisions to signposting resources in the with peer reviewers judging the novelty of journals, or whether mega-journals signal increasingly open access journal landscape.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Gold Open Access Publishing in Mega-Journals: Developing Countries Pay the Price of Western Premium Academic Output
    VU Research Portal Gold Open Access Publishing in Mega Journals: Developing Countries Pay the Price of Western Premium Academic Output Ellers, J.; Crowther, T.W.; Harvey, J.A. published in Journal of Scholarly Publishing 2017 DOI (link to publisher) 10.3138/jsp.49.1.89 Link to publication in VU Research Portal citation for published version (APA) Ellers, J., Crowther, T. W., & Harvey, J. A. (2017). Gold Open Access Publishing in Mega Journals: Developing Countries Pay the Price of Western Premium Academic Output. Journal of Scholarly Publishing , 49(1), 89-102. https://doi.org/10.3138/jsp.49.1.89 General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. E-mail address: [email protected] Download date: 27. Sep. 2021 Gold Open Access Publishing in Mega-Journals developing countries pay the price of western premium academic output jacintha ellers, thomas w.
    [Show full text]
  • Academic Communities: the Role of Journals and Open-Access Mega-Journals in Scholarly Communication
    This is a repository copy of Academic communities: the role of journals and open-access mega-journals in scholarly communication. White Rose Research Online URL for this paper: http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/134132/ Version: Published Version Article: Wakeling, S., Spezi, V., Fry, J. et al. (3 more authors) (2019) Academic communities: the role of journals and open-access mega-journals in scholarly communication. Journal of Documentation, 75 (1). pp. 120-139. ISSN 0022-0418 https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-05-2018-0067 Reuse This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence. This licence allows you to distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon the work, even commercially, as long as you credit the authors for the original work. More information and the full terms of the licence here: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ Takedown If you consider content in White Rose Research Online to be in breach of UK law, please notify us by emailing [email protected] including the URL of the record and the reason for the withdrawal request. [email protected] https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/ Journal of Documentation Academic communities: The role of j ournals and open-access mega-j ournals in scholarly communication Simon Wakeling, Valerie Spezi, Jenny Fry, Claire Creaser, Stephen Pinfield, Peter Willett, Article information: To cite this document: Simon Wakeling, Valerie Spezi, Jenny Fry, Claire Creaser, Stephen Pinfield, Peter Willett, (2018) "Academic communities: The role of journals and open-access mega-journals in scholarly communication", Journal of Documentation, https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-05-2018-0067 Permanent link to this document: https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-05-2018-0067 Downloaded on: 30 October 2018, At: 08:43 (PT) References: this document contains references to 51 other documents.
    [Show full text]
  • Motivations, Understandings, and Experiences of Open‐Access Mega
    Motivations, Understandings, and Experiences of Open-Access Mega-Journal Authors: Results of a Large-Scale Survey Simon Wakeling Information School, University of Sheffield, Regent Court, 211 Portobello, Sheffield, S1 4DP, UK. E-mail: s.wakeling@sheffield.ac.uk Claire Creaser LISU, Centre for Information Management, School of Business and Economics, Loughborough University, Loughborough, LE11 3TU, UK. E-mail: [email protected] Stephen Pinfield Information School, University of Sheffield, Regent Court, 211 Portobello, Sheffield, S1 4DP, UK. E-mail: s.pinfield@sheffield.ac.uk Jenny Fry School of the Arts, English and Drama, Loughborough University, Loughborough, LE11 3TU, UK. E-mail: j. [email protected] Valérie Spezi LISU, Centre for Information Management, School of Business and Economics, Loughborough University, Loughborough, LE11 3TU, UK. E-mail: [email protected] Peter Willett Information School, University of Sheffield, Regent Court, 211 Portobello, Sheffield, S1 4DP, UK. E-mail: p.willett@sheffield.ac.uk Monica Paramita Information School, University of Sheffield, Regent Court, 211 Portobello, Sheffield, S1 4DP, UK. E-mail: m.paramita@sheffield.ac.uk Open-access mega-journals (OAMJs) are characterized by their large scale, wide scope, open-access (OA) busi- ness model, and “soundness-only” peer review. The last Additional Supporting Information may be found in the online version of of these controversially discounts the novelty, signifi- this article. cance, and relevance of submitted articles and assesses only their “soundness.” This article reports the results of Received January 9, 2018; revised June 21, 2018; accepted September an international survey of authors (n=11,883), compar- 25, 2018 ing the responses of OAMJ authors with those of other OA and subscription journals, and drawing comparisons © 2019 The Authors.
    [Show full text]
  • Mega-Journals” Reached the Limits to Growth?
    Have the “mega-journals” reached the limits to growth? Bo-Christer Bjo¨rk Hanken School of Economics, Department of Management and Organisation, Helsinki, Finland ABSTRACT A “mega-journal” is a new type of scientific journal that publishes freely accessible articles, which have been peer reviewed for scientific trustworthiness, but leaves it to the readers to decide which articles are of interest and importance to them. In the wake of the phenomenal success of PLOS ONE, several other publishers have recently started mega-journals. This article presents the evolution of mega-journals since 2010 in terms of article publication rates. The fastest growth seems to have ebbed out at around 35,000 annual articles for the 14 journals combined. Acceptance rates are in the range of 50–70%, and speed of publication is around 3–5 months. Common features in mega-journals are alternative impact metrics, easy reusability of figures and data, post-publication discussions and portable reviews from other journals. Subjects Science and Medical Education, Science Policy Keywords Open access, Open access journal INTRODUCTION The scientific scholarly journal emerged in the 17th century and evolved as an institution into its current form in the mid 20th century. A traditional scientific journal appears with a number of regular issues, the format of the articles is more or less standardized depending on the subject field, and the way articles are accepted and edited follows peer review Submitted 7 April 2015 Accepted 7 May 2015 routines which most academics become intimately familiar with during their careers Published 26 May 2015 as authors, reviewers and editors.
    [Show full text]
  • A Study of SCI, SSCI, CSCD, and CSSCI Journals
    publications Article Scholarly Journals’ Publication Frequency and Number of Articles in 2018–2019: A Study of SCI, SSCI, CSCD, and CSSCI Journals Xiaotian Chen Cullom-Davis Library, Bradley University, Peoria, IL 61625, USA; [email protected] Received: 12 August 2019; Accepted: 4 September 2019; Published: 8 September 2019 Abstract: This study used all-journal data and systematic random sampling data to primarily determine the average number of issues per year and the average number of articles per issue among the Science Citation Index (SCI), Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Chinese Science Citation Database (CSCD) (China), and Chinese Social Sciences Citation Index (CSSCI) (China) journals. The random sampling data were based on 5% SCI and SSCI samples and 10% CSCD and CSSCI samples. The objectives were to have a 2018–2019 record of the journal publication frequency detailing the number of articles per issue and the number of issues per year for the journals on the lists, as well as to compare Chinese journals’ data with those of international journals, in the perspective of scholarly publishing transformations in the world as well as in China during the past two decades. The study found that the average number of issues per year for SCI, SSCI, CSCD, and CSSCI journals was 10.95, 5.18, 9.17, and 7.87, respectively, and that CSCD/CSSCI journals publish more articles than SCI/SSCI, with CSSCI journals publishing significantly more articles per year than SSCI journals. The author fees for non-OA journals in China could play a role in the higher number of articles.
    [Show full text]
  • 'Mega' Journal: a Bibliometric Case Study of the Journal Medicine
    publications Article Transitioning from a Conventional to a ‘Mega’ Journal: A Bibliometric Case Study of the Journal Medicine Simon Wakeling 1,*, Peter Willett 1, Claire Creaser 2, Jenny Fry 3, Stephen Pinfield 1 and Valerie Spezi 2 1 Information School, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S1 4DP, UK; p.willett@sheffield.ac.uk (P.W.); s.pinfield@sheffield.ac.uk (S.P.) 2 Library and Information Statistics Unit, Loughborough University, Loughborough LE11 3TU, UK; [email protected] (C.C.); [email protected] (V.S.) 3 School of the Arts, English and Drama, Loughborough University, Loughborough LE11 3TU, UK; [email protected] * Correspondence: s.wakeling@sheffield.ac.uk; Tel.: +44-(0)114-222-2666 Academic Editor: Barbara Meyers Ford Received: 17 February 2017; Accepted: 29 March 2017; Published: 6 April 2017 Abstract: Open-Access Mega-Journals (OAMJs) are a relatively new and increasingly important publishing phenomenon. The journal Medicine is in the unique position of having transitioned in 2014 from being a ‘traditional’ highly-selective journal to the OAMJ model. This study compares the bibliometric profile of the journal Medicine before and after its transition to the OAMJ model. Three standard modes of bibliometric analysis are employed, based on data from Web of Science: journal output volume, author characteristics, and citation analysis. The journal’s article output is seen to have grown hugely since its conversion to an OAMJ, a rise driven in large part by authors from China. Articles published since 2015 have fewer citations, and are cited by lower impact journals than articles published before the OAMJ transition.
    [Show full text]
  • Choosing the Right Journal for Your Research a Comprehensive Guide for Researchers
    Choosing the right journal for your research A comprehensive guide for researchers Guidance, developments, news, and ideas for Taylor & Francis authors @tandfonline TaylorandFrancisGroup authorservices.taylorandfrancis.com AUTHOR SERVICES /// Choosing the right journal for your research / 03 CONTENTS / INTRODUCTION 4 / UNDERSTANDING JOURNAL METRICS 18 Types of journal metric 18 / BEFORE YOU START 4 Impact Factor 18 5-year Impact Factor 18 / CHOOSING A JOURNAL CHECKLIST 5 SNIP (Source Normalized Impact Per Paper) 19 SJR (Scimago Journal Rank) 19 / WHERE TO START WHEN CHOOSING A JOURNAL 6 CiteScore 19 Do some desk research 6 Eigenfactor 19 Speak to colleagues, supervisors and your librarians 7 Cited Half-Life 19 Explore journal suggester tools 7 Altmetric Attention Score 19 Search calls for papers 7 How much should you rely on metrics when choosing a journal? 20 / NARROWING DOWN YOUR SHORTLIST 8 / GETTING TO GRIPS WITH JOURNAL INDEXING AND DISCOVERABILITY 22 Get familiar with the journal’s content 8 Abstracting and indexing 23 Review the journal aims and scope 8 Discovery Services 23 Understand the journal’s audience 10 Review journal affiliations, the editorial board, and previous authors 10 Get to know the journal’s policies and procedures 11 / IS THE JOURNAL TRUSTWORTHY? – HOW TO AVOID ‘PREDATORY PUBLISHERS’ 24 Check which article formats are accepted 12 Think. Check. Submit. 24 Understand your publishing options 12 Quality open access publishing 25 Ask about journal metrics and discoverability 12 / WHERE TO NEXT? 25 / CHOOSING OPEN ACCESS
    [Show full text]
  • The Oa-Jes Project
    THE MEGA JOURNALS ARE COMING! Jan Erik Frantsvåg Mega-journals were one of the major and hot topics at reason: Articles in PLoS ONE goes through peer the 3rd Conference on Open Access Scholarly review, but they only ask if this is sound science, i.e. is Publishing, held in Tallinn September 21st–23rd it scientifically rigorous and is it well written. No-one 2011. Videos are available from http://river- asks about importance (and possible benefits to the valley.tv/conferences/coasp-2011 journal’s IF) or the size of the audience, PLoS ONE The impression gained from the talks at the conference will publish anything that deserves to be published. is that Mega-journals are coming to stay, and they will This means that e.g. negative results can be published have a disruptive influence on STM publishing in the in PLoS ONE just as easily as ground-breaking coming years. scientific results. One thing this will achieve is that the average number What is a mega-journal, how is it different from of reviewers going through a manuscript before it other journals and how will it influence the finally is published somewhere, will go down. If you publishing industry? send a manuscript to PLoS ONE and it is accepted, it A mega journal is – as the name says – large, i.e. it will will be published there, is it rejected it probably should accept any number of articles. It also covers a broad not be published at all. Ranking of importance etc. is spectrum of scientific disciplines and sub-disciplines, done post-publication.
    [Show full text]
  • Working with Open Access Claire Sewell Research Support Librarian (Physical Sciences), Cambridge University Libraries
    Working with Open Access Claire Sewell Research Support Librarian (Physical Sciences), Cambridge University Libraries Rebecca Evans Senior Library Training Manager at SAGE Publishing Today’s agenda • Overview of core Open Access models • What skills are required to work with Open Access? • How can you develop these skills? • Further reading and resources • Questions Overview of Open Access models Rebecca Evans Senior Library Training Manager at SAGE Publishing Who am I? • Library Training Manager at SAGE (4 years) • Background in Sales and Training roles in educational publishing • Train internal colleagues; manage our Customer Training function • Committed to helping people learn as effectively as possible Hybrid Open Gold Open Green Open Access Access Access Mega journals Preprint servers The Hybrid publishing model allows researchers to publish their article Hybrid Open Access open access in a traditional subscription journal. Advantages • Wide choice of OA venues This model offers researchers the opportunity to publish Open Access • ‘Prestige’ titles but without limiting themselves to • Compliance with funder requirements for OA publication Gold journals. For example, SAGE • Article is free to read for everyone offers hybrid publishing in >98% of its subscription titles (with only 12 titles Disadvantages excluded from the SAGE Choice • Potential cost to author for publication if they programme). are unfunded, as many journals offering Hybrid model charge APCs (although there are exceptions where APCs are not applied)* • Can be highly selective and competitive • Long turnaround times *Point edited after webinar for clarification Gold Open Access refers to pure Gold Open Access Open Access journals: these journals have no subscription costs, and every article in the journal is free to read for Advantages everyone.
    [Show full text]
  • Open Access in Sweden – Going from Why to How
    OPEN ACCESS IN SWEDEN – GOING FROM WHY TO HOW Ulf Kronman The year things turned our way going from a stage when we had to argue for the virtues of open access into a phase where open access The year 2012 has been a year of remarkable seems as being an inevitable technological and societal advancement for the open access (OA) movement imperative. We now have to start thinking about how worldwide. The research ministers of Great Britain to handle the transition from toll access journals to and Denmark have declared that all research funded open access of scholarly publications, rather than why. by the government is to be published open access and Even if everyone agrees that open access is the final the research councils of respective country have goal of our journey, we still might have quite different coordinated their policies for OA mandates.1 2 The opinions on how to get there and how to tackle the European Commission has declared that open access obstacles in our way during the transition from the old publishing is set to be the norm for results from subscription-based publishing model to the new open research financed by the upcoming research access model. programme Horizon 2020 as from 2014 and urges the Some of the challenges that we need to address during EU member states to adopt national policies for open the upcoming transition are among others: How open access.3 The big SCOAP3 project of CERN that aims and free do we want the publications to be, and at at converting the 7500 yearly publications of 10'000 what cost? Which route should we take, and when - high-energy physicists to full open access is finally green or gold, now or later? How to deal with non- about to launch, after six years of preparations.
    [Show full text]
  • The Story of the Mega Journal Open Access | 2
    Open Access | 1 The story of the mega journal Open Access | 2 A quick bio Started my career in consumer goods – Holden, Kraft Foods, JnJ, English National Lottery 2008, moved to Nature Publishing Group Publishing Manager, Scientific Reports 2013, started at Elsevier Publishing & Product Director, Heliyon Open Access | 3 Open access: In general, open access stands for the free and permanent access to published research, combined with clear guidelines for readers to share and use the content. *Source: https://www.elsevier.com/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/181433/openaccessbooklet_May.pdf Open Access | 4 The mega journal: ‘Very, very large Open access (Preferably) without any artificial constraints on its ability to grow1’ 1Pete Binfield, 31/10/14, http://www.slideshare.net/ssprca/367-peter-binfield Open Access | 5 1991 A timeline 2008 2014 And others… 1991 2000 2006 2011 2013 2015 2012 Open Access | 6 2006 Open Access | 7 What do mega journals aim to deliver? • A home for all research that is technically sound, without making objective decisions on novelty/impact • Letting the community decide the merit of the work post-publication • No constraints on size – therefore everything sound can be published • Asking ‘should this be published?’ rather than ‘should this be published in this journal’? • Broad coverage of subject areas – removing subject-led scope constraints • Rapid (but still rigorous!) peer review • Fast publication post review • Web-based platforms for publication • Mega journals are online-only! Open Access | 8 Key features –
    [Show full text]
  • Influence of Open Access Journals on the Research Community in Journal Citation Reports
    pISSN 2288-8063 Sci Ed 2021;8(1):32-38 eISSN 2288-7474 https://doi.org/10.6087/kcse.227 Original Article Influence of open access journals on the research community in Journal Citation Reports Sang-Jun Kim1, Kay Sook Park2 Library, 1Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology, 2Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute, Daejeon, Korea Abstract Purpose: The number of open access (OA) journals is rapidly increasing, and it is very important for librarians to understand the influence of OA journals on the research com- munity. This study investigated the influence of the OA journals listed in Journal Citation Reports (JCR) based on various indicators. Methods: The data for this study were prepared by combining the JCR 2014 to 2019 journal list with the number of hybrid OA articles obtained by searching the Web of Science. Each journal’s JCR indicators and article processing charge were added. The influence of OA jour- nals was compared according to OA type, whether they were published by large publishers, and whether they were top gold OA journals. Results: Gold OA journals remained weaker in terms of JCR indicators than hybrid journals. However, the top 20 gold OA journals, accounting for 27.0% of all OA articles in JCR 2014 to 2019, were superior in all JCR indicators. The top three OA publishers (MDPI, BioMed Central, and Public Library of Science) showed potential for development despite concerns regarding poor journals. The top three subscription publishers were very active in OA publishing, but their actual share of hybrid OA articles (Elsevier, 5.1%; Springer, 10.1%; and Wiley, 12.4% in JCR 2019) was still insufficient.
    [Show full text]