Hi Scott,
Really interesting question. I don’t have access to all the databases needed to answer your question, though---maybe
someone here with access can run a quick query? Using the free stuff, take a lot at the Scimago listings, for example. Only 11 of the top 100 journals are open access (using the SCImago Journal Rank indicator as a proxy for what constitutes “top”), which supports
your hypothesis that author choice isn’t being seriously impacted. But then look at the listings by field. There’s tons of variation here:
|
Field
|
Highest ranked open journal
|
|
Biochemistry
|
23
|
|
Chemistry
|
2, 5 (hybrid), 14 (hybrid), 17, 20 (hybrid)
|
|
Computer science
|
3, 12, 19
|
|
Earth and Planetary science
|
4, 8 (hybrid), 11, 16, 17, 19
|
|
Immunology
|
12 (hybrid), 14 (hybrid), 15
|
|
Physics
|
7, 13 (hybrid), 14, 18 (hybrid), 19
|
So the answer to your question is field dependent. Unfortunately, Scimago doesn’t show open vs. hybrid status to
get to that part of your question---it’s too labor intensive to dig deep this way---so I’ll just narrow my search using Elsevier’s web list instead. If I’m a life sciences research looking to publish in the highest impact factor journals in Elsevier’s portfolio
(say, a JIF between 5 and 10), regardless of whether these journals are OA, hybrid, or subscription, I have 31 choices. Of these, none are subscription, and 23 are hybrid, leaving only 8 that are OA (presumably APC-based but I don’t know). That’s roughly one-quarter
of the top choices. (See
Elsevier Journal Catalog: Browse Peer-Reviewed Journals List), which kind of aligns with the Scimago data for some fields (e.g., earth science, where five of the top 20 journals are non-hybrid OA).
Does this sort of distribution impact choice? Are earth scientists from some countries being muted because they can’t
afford to publish in top one quarter of journals in their field? I think you’d need to get even more granular here, though. That is, a study will only be a good fit for a handful of journals---and I don’t know if there’s data available to support this kind
of exploration (except in publisher databases).
So, there’s some data out there we can glean (paper idea for someone), but anecdotal evidence is also available.
Based on our researcher survey done a few years ago (yes, small N of 105---additional, more rigorous survey data is welcome), about half of researchers surveyed said there were high quality OA journals in their field they’d consider publishing in, and about
half said they had personally been unable to publish in an open journal because of high APC costs. There are plenty of other surveys and reports to draw on, but I agree it would be great to get a better analytical sense of exactly what’s actually happening
and where.
Best,
Glenn
Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)
Glenn,
Thanks, but I don’t think this quite gets at the situation I’m curious about. Footnote 5 says that about half of articles are published OA, but that most journals are subscription
based. So presumably, some of those OA articles are in hybrid journals and could have been published with no cost to the researcher. And while you say the specialty journals are the “best”, surely they’re not all of equal desirability on the part of the
researcher.
So to try to put my question differently (and the data to answer it may not exist) are there fields in which lack of ability to pay APCs prevents researchers from publishing in
the most desirable journals in their fields? The context here is that in any discipline people know which are the journals they’d most like to appear in. Impact factor is a part of that calculation, but not the whole thing. What I’m questioning is the
degree to which it is true that APCs prevent people from publishing in the journals they’d most like to publish in.
On the matter of Green as a solution to OA, I’ve never been a fan. Green is parasitic on subscription journals and while it helps with accessibility it has done little to advance
ideal OA — access to the VoR from the date of publication.
Please don’t take this as my suggesting that APCs are not a problem. But I think we need to be precise about what the problem is and be careful about making blanket statements
about APCs preventing people from publishing at all. That would only be the case if most of the best journals were APC only and I don’t think that’s the case yet — although, as I said in my previous message, I’d be happy to stand corrected on that.
Scott
Maybe? As this OSI infographic shows (OSI-Infographic-2.0:
Publishing STM Research), in STM research, about 75% of the world’s high-quality, peer-reviewed articles get published in so-called specialty journals. These are generally the “best” options you mention (excluding prestige journals, which is a bit like
winning the lottery). At last count, about half of these journals are open access---probably more today since this infographic is a few years old.
Twenty years ago, the challenge for researchers angling for these journals would have been to produce high quality
research that gets accepted by these journals. Today, their challenge is twofold: produce the high-quality research, and then, come up with enough money to get it published. The dampening effect of this compound challenge, I think, is what Sara is describing.
Why even do the research if it can’t get published? Where can you publish if not specialty journals (see also, preprints and “deceptive”—aka predatory---journals that don’t help researchers in terms of tenure of funder evaluation metrics). And as the publishing
volumes of these researchers declines, so too do their funding and career prospects, and their ability to contribute to scientific progress.
From: OpenCafe-l
<[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of T Scott Plutchak
Sent: Saturday, November 2, 2024 3:21 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [OPENCAFE-L] Bringing the goals of the OA movement back into forefront
I’m happy to stand corrected, but isn’t it still the case that the most desirable places to publish in many (most?) fields are still subscription journals that don’t require APCs?
The reliance on APCs is certainly a barrier to expanding OA into fields and geographical areas where individual authors don’t have easy access to funding for paying the APCs, but
don’t those authors still have the same opportunities/challenges for getting their papers published that they’ve always had?
I agree that relying on APCs to fund OA is problematic for the expansion of OA, but as a researcher, if my goal is to publish in the most desirable journals in my field, don’t I
currently have pretty much the same options as I did, say, a decade ago?
Unless I’m completely missing something here (quite possible) I think we should be careful to distinguish between APCs as a barrier to expanding OA and the notion that APCs are
preventing individual researchers from publishing in the best journals in their field. (Which is part of what makes changing the current paradigm challenging because it’s only the minority of researchers who are passionate about OA who feel themselves critically
disadvantaged by APCs).
Hi Thomas, in principle I agree but you're forgetting that the wildly warped research assessment paradigm -- built and paid for by wealthy global north institutions, funders, and
networks -- doesn't reward the behaviors you're a describing. Yet. Ignoring this is not a luxury most can afford.
Things like DORA, HELIOS open and CoARA are trying to move the needle here but the reality is that the rewards/recognition paradigm -- in most cases - doesn't reward preprints
and other open science best practice. So while yes I can write a paper and throw into into the void that is the internet, getting a preprint into arxiv doesn't usually help with tenure, promotion, grant funding etc. esp if it has no peer review.
Most prestige outlets are either paywalled or have very high APCs for publishing open and those are where most researchers are incentivized to publish bc of how they’re rewarded.
The irony of this whole discussion is that academics themselves - in many cases - are the most invested in the current paradigm bc it's how they came up in their careers and it's
how they're telling their students they must as well. The cycle of violence continues. Change is slow. And funders keep, mistakenly in my view, trying to accelerate change thru sticks rather than carrots. The sticks exact all these unintended consequences
without necessarily getting the behaviors funders want.
I'd like to see funders try rewarding the behaviors they want to see (more money?) to research grantees that demonstrate a commitment to open best practice - whatever that is in
their field.
Recognize those who ARE doing the work instead of mandating behaviors that aren't instantiated yet.
Anyway, slightly off track. TLDR - yes, you can publish "anywhere" if you have the luxury of being outside the current research assessment paradigm. Most researchers don't. Again,
ease is the luxury of the privileged.
LATAM escaped this and now even they're getting sucked into the vortex I described in my previous email.
Director, Open Science & Publishing Innovation
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