scholarly journals Discipline-specific open access publishing practices and barriers to change: an evidence-based review

F1000Research ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 1925 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Severin ◽  
Matthias Egger ◽  
Martin Paul Eve ◽  
Daniel Hürlimann
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Open Access Publishing ◽  
Social Shaping Of Technology ◽  
Barriers To Change ◽  
Social Shaping ◽  
Bibliometric Studies ◽  
Specific Barriers ◽  
Publishing Practices

Background: Many of the discussions surrounding Open Access (OA) revolve around how it affects publishing practices across different academic disciplines. It was a long-held view that it would be only a matter of time before all disciplines fully and relatively homogeneously implemented OA. Recent large-scale bibliometric studies show, however, that the uptake of OA differs substantially across disciplines. We aimed to answer two questions: First, how do different disciplines adopt and shape OA publishing practices? Second, what discipline-specific barriers to and potentials for OA can be identified? Methods: In a first step, we identified and synthesized relevant bibliometric studies that assessed OA prevalence and publishing patterns across disciplines. In a second step, and adopting a social shaping of technology perspective, we studied evidence on the socio-technical forces that shape OA publishing practices. We examined a variety of data sources, including, but not limited to, publisher policies and guidelines, OA mandates and policies and author surveys. Results: Over the last three decades, scholarly publishing has experienced a shift from “closed” access to OA as the proportion of scholarly literature that is openly accessible has increased continuously. Estimated OA levels for publication years after 2010 varied between 29.4% and 66%. The shift towards OA is uneven across disciplines in two respects: first, the growth of OA has been uneven across disciplines, which manifests itself in varying OA prevalence levels. Second, disciplines use different OA publishing channels to make research outputs OA. Conclusions: We conclude that historically rooted publishing practices differ in terms of their compatibility with OA, which is the reason why OA can be assumed to be a natural continuation of publishing cultures in some disciplines, whereas in other disciplines, the implementation of OA faces major barriers and would require a change of research culture.

scholarly journals Discipline-specific open access publishing practices and barriers to change: an evidence-based review

F1000Research ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 1925 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Severin ◽  
Matthias Egger ◽  
Martin Paul Eve ◽  
Daniel Hürlimann
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Open Access Publishing ◽  
Social Shaping Of Technology ◽  
Barriers To Change ◽  
Social Shaping ◽  
Underlying Mechanisms ◽  
Bibliometric Studies ◽  
Publishing Practices

Background: Many of the discussions surrounding Open Access (OA) revolve around how it affects publishing practices across different academic disciplines. It was a long-held view that it would be only a matter of time for all disciplines to fully and relatively homogeneously implement OA. Recent large-scale bibliometric studies show however that the uptake of OA differs substantially across disciplines. This study investigates the underlying mechanisms that cause disciplines to vary in their OA publishing practices. We aimed to answer two questions: First, how do different disciplines adopt and shape OA publishing practices? Second, what discipline-specific barriers to and potentials for OA can be identified? Methods: In a first step, we identified and synthesized relevant bibliometric studies that assessed OA prevalence and publishing patterns across disciplines. In a second step, and adopting a social shaping of technology perspective, we studied evidence on the socio-technical forces that shape OA publishing practices. We examined a variety of data sources, including, but not limited to, publisher policies and guidelines, OA mandates and policies and author surveys. Results: Over the last three decades, scholarly publishing has experienced a shift from “closed” access to OA as the proportion of scholarly literature that is openly accessible has increased continuously. The shift towards OA is however uneven across disciplines in two respects: first, the growth of OA has been uneven across disciplines, which manifests itself in varying OA prevalence levels. Second, disciplines use different OA publishing channels to make research outputs OA. Conclusions: We conclude that historically grown publishing practices differ in terms of their compatibility with OA, which is the reason why OA can be assumed to be a natural continuation of publishing cultures in some disciplines, whereas in other disciplines, the implementation of OA faces major barriers and would require a change of research culture.

scholarly journals The International Development of Open Access Publishing: A Comparative Empirical Analysis Over Seven World Regions and Nine Academic Disciplines

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marton Demeter ◽  
Agnes Jele ◽  
Zsolt Balázs Major
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
International Development ◽  
Empirical Analysis ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Open Access Publishing ◽  
World Regions ◽  
Open Access Journals ◽  
General Field ◽  
Cross Country

AbstractThis paper offers a cross-country and cross-disciplinary analysis of the development of open access publishing from 2000 to 2019. Through an analysis of seven world regions and nine scholarly fields, we found that, while the overall share of open access journals has increased significantly over the last two decades, there are important differences across both the analyzed world regions and disciplines. We also found that, with the exception of neuroscience, the proportion of open access journals is considerably lower among the journals ranked in the Q1 quartile of Scopus than in the general field. We also offer a model that explains the development of open access publishing trends on different disciplinary and geographical levels.

scholarly journals Current market rates for scholarly publishing services

F1000Research ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 20
Author(s):  
Alexander Grossmann ◽  
Björn Brembs
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Peer Review ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Open Access Publishing ◽  
Scholarly Journals ◽  
The Public ◽  
Scholarly Article ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Publishing Services ◽  
Rejection Rates

For decades, the supra-inflation increase of subscription prices for scholarly journals has concerned scholarly institutions. After years of fruitless efforts to solve this “serials crisis”, open access has been proposed as the latest potential solution. However, also the prices for open access publishing are high and are rising well beyond inflation. What has been missing from the public discussion so far is a quantitative approach to determine the actual costs of efficiently publishing a scholarly article using state-of-the-art technologies, such that informed decisions can be made as to appropriate price levels. Here we provide a granular, step-by-step calculation of the costs associated with publishing primary research articles, from submission, through peer-review, to publication, indexing and archiving. We find that these costs range from less than US$200 per article in modern, large scale publishing platforms using post-publication peer-review, to about US$1,000 per article in prestigious journals with rejection rates exceeding 90%. The publication costs for a representative scholarly article today come to lie at around US$400. These results appear uncontroversial as they not only match previous data using different methodologies, but also conform to the costs that many publishers have openly or privately shared. We discuss the numerous additional non-publication items that make up the difference between these publication costs and final price at the more expensive, legacy publishers.

scholarly journals Disrupting the subscription journals’ business model for the necessary large-scale transformation to open access

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kai Geschuhn ◽  
Andreas Vogler
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Business Model ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Open Access Publishing ◽  
Scale Transformation ◽  
Service Levels ◽  
Research Organizations ◽  
The Future ◽  
Publishing Services

Abstract This paper makes the strong, fact-based case for a large-scale transformation of the current corpus of scientific subscription journals to an open access business model. The existing journals, with their well-tested functionalities, should be retained and developed to meet the demands of 21st-century research, while the underlying payment streams undergo a major restructuring. There is sufficient momentum for this decisive push toward open access publishing. The diverse existing initiatives must be coordinated so as to converge on this clear goal. The international nature of research implies that this transformation will be achieved on a truly global scale only through a consensus of the world’s most eminent research organizations. All the indications are that the money already invested in the research publishing system is sufficient to enable a transformation that will be sustainable for the future. There needs to be a shared understanding that the money currently locked in the journal subscription system must be withdrawn and re-purposed for open access publishing services. The current library acquisition budgets are the ultimate reservoir for enabling the transformation without financial or other risks. The goal is to preserve the established service levels provided by publishers that are still requested by researchers, while redefining and reorganizing the necessary payment streams. By disrupting the underlying business model, the viability of journal publishing can be preserved and put on a solid footing for the scholarly developments of the future.

scholarly journals Behavioral Reluctance in Adopting Open Access Publishing: Insights From a Goal-Directed Perspective

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Massimo Köster ◽  
Agnes Moors ◽  
Jan De Houwer ◽  
Tony Ross-Hellauer ◽  
Inge Van Nieuwerburgh ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Intervention Strategies ◽  
Open Access Publishing ◽  
Scientific Culture ◽  
Slowing Down ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Selection Of

Despite growing awareness of the benefits of large-scale open access publishing, individual researchers seem reluctant to adopt this behavior, thereby slowing down the evolution toward a new scientific culture. We outline and apply a goal-directed framework of behavior causation to shed light on this type of behavioral reluctance and to organize and suggest possible intervention strategies. The framework explains behavior as the result of a cycle of events starting with the detection of a discrepancy between a goal and a status quo and the selection of behavior to reduce this discrepancy. We list various factors that may hinder this cycle and thus contribute to behavioral reluctance. After that, we highlight potential remedies to address each of the identified barriers. We thereby hope to point out new ways to think about behavioral reluctances in general, and in relation to open access publishing in particular.

scholarly journals Current market rates for scholarly publishing services

F1000Research ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 20
Author(s):  
Alexander Grossmann ◽  
Björn Brembs
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Peer Review ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Open Access Publishing ◽  
Scholarly Journals ◽  
The Public ◽  
Scholarly Article ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Publishing Services ◽  
Rejection Rates

For decades, the supra-inflation increase of subscription prices for scholarly journals has concerned scholarly institutions. After years of fruitless efforts to solve this “serials crisis”, open access has been proposed as the latest potential solution. However, the prices for open access publishing are also high and are rising well beyond inflation. What has been missing from the public discussion so far is a quantitative approach to determine the actual costs of efficiently publishing a scholarly article using state-of-the-art technologies, such that informed decisions can be made as to appropriate price levels. Here we provide a granular, step-by-step calculation of the costs associated with publishing primary research articles, from submission, through peer-review, to publication, indexing and archiving. We find that these costs range from less than US$200 per article in modern, large-scale publishing platforms using post-publication peer-review, to about US$1,000 per article in prestigious journals with rejection rates exceeding 90%. The publication costs for a representative scholarly article today come to lie at around US$400. We discuss the additional non-publication items that make up the difference between publication costs and final price.

scholarly journals Open Access 2020 – The final road to Open Access

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kai Geschuhn ◽  
Michael Schlachter
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Business Model ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Scholarly Publishing ◽  
Open Access Publishing ◽  
Scholarly Journals ◽  
International Initiative

Open Access 2020 is an international initiative that aims to induce the swift, smooth and scholarly-oriented transformation of today’s scholarly journals from subscription to open access publishing on a large scale. The last decades of the open access movement have made open access become strong as a principal- but weak in practice. With OA2020 we aim to move the focus to a new concrete goal: converting the default business model of scholarly publishing from subscription to open access. The poster outlines backgrounds as well as a roadmap of the initiative.

scholarly journals Making Open Access work

2015 ◽  
Vol 39 (5) ◽  
pp. 604-636 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Pinfield
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Policy Development ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Grey Literature ◽  
Scholarly Communication ◽  
Evidence Base ◽  
Open Access Publishing ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Dissemination Of Research

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of one of the most important and controversial areas of scholarly communication: Open Access publishing and dissemination of research outputs. It identifies and discusses recent trends and future challenges for various stakeholders in delivering Open Access (OA) to the scholarly literature. Design/methodology/approach – The study is based on a number of interrelated strands of evidence which make up the current discourse on OA, comprising the peer-reviewed literature, grey literature and other forms of communication (including blogs and e-mail discussion lists). It uses a large-scale textual analysis of the peer-reviewed literature since 2010 (carried out using the VOSviewer tool) as a basis for discussion of issues raised in the OA discourse. Findings – A number of key themes are identified, including the relationship between “Green” OA (deposit in repositories) and “Gold” OA (OA journal publication), the developing evidence base associated with OA, researcher attitudes and behaviours, policy directions, management of repositories, development of journals, institutional responses and issues around impact and scholarly communication futures. It suggests that current challenges now focus on how OA can be made to work in practice, having moved on from the discussion of whether it should happen at all. Originality/value – The paper provides a structured evidence-based review of major issues in the OA field, and suggests key areas for future research and policy development.

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