Toward transparency of hybrid open access through publisher‐provided metadata: An article‐level study of Elsevier

Does it pay to pay? A comparison of the benefits of open-access publishing across various sub-fields in biology

Authors are often faced with the decision of whether to maximize traditional impact metrics or minimize costs when choosing where to publish the results of their research. Many subscription-based journals now offer the option of paying an article processing charge (APC) to make their work open. Though such "hybrid" journals make research more accessible to readers, their APCs often come with high price tags and can exclude authors who lack the capacity to pay to make their research accessible. Here, we tested if paying to publish open access in a subscription-based journal benefited authors by conferring more citations relative to closed access articles. We identified 146,415 articles published in 152 hybrid journals in the field of biology from 2013-2018 to compare the number of citations between various types of open access and closed access articles. In a simple generalized linear model analysis of our full dataset, we found that publishing open access in hybrid journals that offer the option confers an average citation advantage to authors of 17.8 citations compared to closed access articles in similar journals. After taking into account the number of authors, Journal Citation Reports 2020 Quartile, year of publication, and Web of Science category, we still found that open access generated significantly more citations than closed access (p < 0.0001). However, results were complex, with exact differences in citation rates among access types impacted by these other variables. This citation advantage based on access type was even similar when comparing open and closed access articles published in the same issue of a journal (p < 0.0001). However, by examining articles where the authors paid an article processing charge, we found that cost itself was not predictive of citation rates (p = 0.14). Based on our findings of access type and other model parameters, we suggest that, in the case of the 152 journals we analyzed, paying for open access does confer a citation advantage. For authors with limited budgets, we recommend pursuing open access alternatives that do not require paying a fee as they still yielded more citations than closed access. For authors who are considering where to submit their next article, we offer additional suggestions on how to balance exposure via citations with publishing costs.

Choices of immediate open access and the relationship to journal ranking and publish-and-read deals

The role of academic journals is significant in the reward system of science, which makes their rank important for the researcher's choice in deciding where to submit. The study asks how choices of immediate gold and hybrid open access are related to journal ranking and how the uptake of immediate open access is affected by transformative publish-and-read deals, pushed by recent science policy. Data consists of 186,621 articles published with a Norwegian affiliation in the period 2013–2021, all of which were published in journals ranked in a National specific ranking, on one of two levels according to their importance, prestige, and perceived quality within a discipline. The results are that researchers chose to have their articles published as hybrid two times as often in journals on the most prestigious level compared with journals on the normal level. The opposite effect was found with gold open access where publishing on the normal level was chosen three times more than on the high level. This can be explained by the absence of highly ranked gold open access journals in many disciplines. With the introduction of publish-and-read deals, hybrid open access has boosted and become a popular choice enabling the researcher to publish open access in legacy journals. The results confirm the position of journals in the reward system of science and should inform policymakers about the effects of transformative arrangements and their costs against the overall level of open access.

Scientific Mapping of Coastal Governance: Global Benchmarks and Trends

This research panoramically and empirically reviews the scientific production on coastal governance studies, mapping global networks of countries, organizations, authors, themes, and journals as referents for this topic. The articles were examined through a bibliometric/scientometric approach based on 2043 articles corpus stored in the Web of Science (JCR), applying the bibliometric laws of Price, Lotka, and Zipf to add further validity to the use of VOSviewer for data and metadata processing. The results highlight an uninterrupted exponential increase in publications since 1991, with a high concentration in 29 countries (21%), 461 organizations (18%), 99 authors (1.45%), and 4 growing journals (1%). The emerging topics observed in the literature are related to coastal sustainability and coastal management. Complementing previous studies on coastal zone management and marine territorial planning, we add coastal systems governance as a topic.

Neurosurgical publication - Should we publish at any cost? An in-depth analysis of costs incurred in publication

OBJECTIVES

With the recent paradigm shift in neurosurgical publications, open access (OA) publishing is burgeoning along with traditional publishing methods. We aimed to explore costs of publication across 53 journals.

METHODS

We identified 53 journals publishing neurosurgical work. Journal type, submission and open access charges, colour print fees, impact indicators, publisher, and subscription prices were obtained from journal and publisher websites. Costs were unified in American Dollars. Mean prices per journal were used to equilibrate membership and subscription discounts. Correlations were performed using Spearman Rho (ρ), p<0.05.

RESULTS

Of the 53 journals, 12 are OA-only, 40 are hybrid, and 1 is traditional. 22 and 43 journals provide their submission costs by end of phase 1 and 2, respectively (prices always for phase 2; 26 free of charge, 4 under $500, and 1 under $1000). Median OA charge is $3286 (49 journals; range $0-$7827). 36 of the 53 journals did not list print fees for colour figures (29 in phase 2). Median fee estimate per figure is $422 (range $25-$1060). Median personal subscription for 1 year is $344 (range $60-$1158; 48 journals). Median institutional subscription for 1 year is $2082 (Range $38-$5510; 34 journals). There is mild positive correlation between journal impact factor and OA fees (ρ=0.287, p=0.046).

CONCLUSIONS

The lack of easily accessible information about Neurosurgical publications, such as submission costs, or OA charges create unnecessary hurdle and should be remedied. Publishing in Neurosurgery should be a pleasant learning experience for the cost anxiety should not be a limiting factor.

Diretrizes para celebrar acordos Read and Publish no Brasil a partir da análise dos acordos transformativos da Alemanha e Colômbia

Resumo A democratização no acesso à ciência almejada com o Acesso Aberto vem acompanhada do pagamento de Article Processing Charges. Em um contexto de escassez de recursos financeiros, “pagar para publicar” se torna um desafio para países em desenvolvimento como o Brasil. Dada a inexistência de uma política sobre financiamento dessa despesa para as agências de fomento brasileiras e a proliferação de acordos transformativos ao redor do mundo, este artigo apresenta diretrizes para implantar acordos Read and Publish na Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior, a partir da análise dos acordos firmados na Alemanha e Colômbia. Entre as diretrizes propostas, sugere-se que os acordos alcancem periódicos de Acesso Aberto e híbridos, considerem o histórico de publicações dos programas de pós-graduação para distribuição de recursos com vistas a financiar Article Processing Charges e funcionem como uma política de qualificação que auxilie os pesquisadores brasileiros a publicar em revistas de alto impacto.