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. Conclusion: Some gold OA journals showed high competitiveness and even the possibility for development beyond traditional journals. The transition of subscription journals to hybrid jour- nals was found to be at the early stage. In light of these findings, librarians should continue moni- Received: October 15, 2020 toring the influence of OA journals. Accepted: December 18, 2020 Correspondence to Sang-Jun Kim Keywords [email protected] Gold open access journal; Hybrid journal; Journal Citation Reports indicator; Mega journal; Open access ORCID Sang-Jun Kim https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1833-2236 Kay Sook Park https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2771-4930 This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 32 Copyright © 2021 Korean Council of Science Editors https://www.escienceediting.org Influence of OA journals on the research community Introduction “Which are the most influential gold OA journals?”, “How many subscription journals have been converted to hybrid Background/rationale: As venues for scholarly communica- journals?”, and “Is there any difference in the influence of OA tion, academic journals have contributed to the development journals according to whether they are published by subscrip- of science and technology. In the traditional model, publish- tion or OA publishers?” To address these questions, this study ers sell journals to libraries for a subscription fee after acquir- conducted an in-depth analysis of OA journals in Journal Ci- ing the copyright of the article from the author, in exchange tation Reports (JCR) 2014 to 2019 based on JCR indicators for publishing it in their journal and distributing it worldwide. and APCs. We compared OA journals’ influence by OA type, Unlike traditional print journals, many e-journals have ad- whether they were published by large publishers, and whether opted the open access (OA) concept, allowing anyone free ac- they were top gold OA journals. Types of OA were defined in cess and reuse of articles on the internet. The OA movement, the same way as in the author’s previous study [2]. The results which aims to promote OA to research, has been developed of this study will provide useful information for librarians, re- in two major directions: one is publishing articles that are OA searchers, and publishers who are interested in the future of from the time of initial publication (gold OA) with the au- OA publishing. thor’s agreement, and the other is sharing the articles before or after publication through self-archiving or institutional re- Methods positories (green OA). From the user’s point of view, some arti- cles are inside the paywall and require subscription fees, while Ethics statement: This was not a study with human subjects, others are outside the paywall and freely open to anyone. so neither institutional review board approval nor informed Article processing charge (APC)-based gold OA journals consent was required. published by new OA publishers are springing up everywhere, Study design: This was a literature database-based observa- and even traditional subscription publishers are participating tional study. in this change with the new release of APC-based gold OA Data collection: In the author’s previous study [2], the journal journals or the conversion of subscription journals to hybrid list in JCR 2014 to 2019 and the OA articles searched from the journals. Institutional budgets are increasing due to the APCs Web of Science were combined, and 9,575,780 articles in added onto the subscription fees. Many publishers have an 12,449 journals were finally collected (Dataset 1). That is, the opportunity to obtain more profits by combining the APC total number of articles in each journal was defined as the business model with the subscription business model. In this number of citable items in JCR, but the number of hybrid OA situation, librarians who are dissatisfied with high journal articles was defined based on the search results in Web of Sci- subscription fees have pushed for off-set agreements deduct- ence. To further investigate the influence of OA journals on ing the share of APCs already paid by authors from the sub- the research community, this study added JCR indicators and scription fee. In recent years, attempts have even been made the APC of each journal to the collected data. The JCR indica- to implement read-and-publish agreement, which based sub- tors used for the in-depth analysis were citations, the average scription fees combining APCs to expedite OA publishing [1]. journal impact factor percentile (AJIFP), impact factor, Ei- Like this, authors, users, and publishers understand the OA genfactor score, and article influence score (AIS). However, movement from diverse aspects and put it into practice in the APC was collected for the top 10 subscription [3] and OA specific ways. publishers [2] from February to April 2020, so the findings of OA journals are rapidly growing to a degree that may be this study do not reflect the APC of all JCR journals. sufficient to change the traditional academic publishing eco- Statistilal methods: This study was based on gold and hybrid system. The OA movement is certainly a new change that li- OA journals and the articles therein; therefore, only descrip- brarians have experienced since the 2000s, when many print tive statistics were presented. Data were tabulated and the journals were converted to e-journals. Excellent gold OA proportions of the cells were calculated. The growth rate (%) journals are appearing despite controversies regarding the was calculated in terms of the compound annual growth rate formal peer review system and several examples of predatory (CAGR). journals. Librarians need to investigate the real influence of gold and hybrid OA journals on the research community in Results order to provide better library services. Objectives: After a previous study on the general status of OA Characteristics of OA journals by OA type at the journal and article level [2], we had several questions As shown in Table 1, distinct patterns were found for the JCR such as “How strong is the influence of gold OA journals?”, indicators of journals by OA type. The annual number of arti- https://www.escienceediting.org Sci Ed 2021;8(1):32-38 | 33 Sang-Jun Kim et al. Table 1. Comparison of JCR indicators across journals by OA type APCa) Average JCR indicator OA type Journal (USD) Articleb) Citationb) AJIFP (%) IF ES AIS Gold OA Without APC 317 - 68 363 31.9 1.365 0.00422 0.416 With APC 1,323 2,243 184 496 37.5 1.831 0.00821 0.521 Hybrid OA Largec) 4,462 3,093 201 1,647 59.1 2.944 0.01516 1.000 Smallc) 3,907 2,830 70 393 43.1 1.819 0.00359 0.667 Subscription only 2,440 - 66 247 28.7 1.288 0.00239 0.568 Totald) 12,449 2,886 128 820 45.0 2.102 0.00797 0.744 JCR, Journal Citation Reports; OA, open access; APC, article processing charge; USD, US dollar; AJIFP, average journal impact factor percentile; IF, impact factor; ES, Eigenfactor score; AIS, article influence score. a)APC per journal was based on the authors’ previous study [4] and some added journals; b)The data were calculated per journal in JCR 2014 to 2019; c)The large journals published more than 12 OA articles in JCR 2014 to 2019 and the small journals published fewer than 12 OA articles in 6 years; d)Total journals in JCR 2014 to 2019. Table 2. Comparison of the six major publishers of gold OA journals with JCR indicators APCa) Gold OA in 6 years Average JCR indicator Publisher (USD) Journal Article Citation Articleb) Citationb) AJIFP (%) IF ES AIS Elsevier 1,928 97 52,473 229,011 90 394 37.3 2.186 0.00552 0.574 Springer 2,380 104 172,335 526,598 276 844 38.8 2.478 0.01806 0.776 Wiley 2,420 65 44,254 143,655 114 368 48.2 2.852 0.00626 0.974 MDPI 1,509 71 210,910 257,865 495 605 36.2 1.566 0.00733 0.249 BMC 2,450 226 166,351 682,478 123 503 50.4 2.535 0.00760 0.782 PLoS 2,506 7 148,196 705,664 3,529 16,802 90.0 6.451 0.32631 3.304 Total of gold OA 2,118 1,640 1,587,002 4,631,496 264,500 771,916 36.5 1.744 0.00745 0.502 OA, open access; JCR, Journal Citation Reports; APC, article processing charge; USD, US dollar; AJIFP, average journal impact factor percentile; IF, impact factor; ES, Eigenfactor score; AIS, article influence score; BMC, BioMed Central; PLoS, Public Library of Science.