scholarly journals Article processing charges for open access publication—the situation for research intensive universities in the USA and Canada

PeerJ ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. e2264 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Solomon ◽  
Bo-Christer Björk
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
European Universities ◽  
Lack Of Information ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Western European ◽  
Article Processing Charges ◽  
The Cost

Background.Open access (OA) publishing via article processing charges (APCs) is growing as an alternative to subscription publishing. The Pay It Forward (PIF) Project is exploring the feasibility of transitioning from paying subscriptions to funding APCs for faculty at research intensive universities. Estimating of the cost of APCs for the journals authors at research intensive universities tend to publish is essential for the PIF project and similar initiatives. This paper presents our research into this question.Methods.We identified APC prices for publications by authors at the 4 research intensive United States (US) and Canadian universities involved in the study. We also obtained APC payment records from several Western European universities and funding agencies. Both data sets were merged with Web of Science (WoS) metadata. We calculated the average APCs for articles and proceedings in 13 discipline categories published by researchers at research intensive universities. We also identified 41 journals published by traditionally subscription publishers which have recently converted to APC funded OA and recorded the APCs they charge.Results.We identified 7,629 payment records from the 4 European APC payment databases and 14,356 OA articles authored by PIF partner university faculty for which we had listed APC prices. APCs for full OA journals published by PIF authors averaged 1,775 USD; full OA journal APCs paid by Western European funders averaged 1,865 USD; hybrid APCs paid by Western European funders averaged 2,887 USD. The APC for converted journals published by major subscription publishers averaged 1,825 USD. APC funded OA is concentrated in the life and basic sciences. APCs funded articles in the social sciences and humanities are often multidisciplinary and published in journals such as PLOS ONE that largely publish in the life sciences.Conclusions.Full OA journal APCs average a little under 2,000 USD while hybrid articles average about 3,000 USD for publications by researchers at research intensive universities. There is a lack of information on discipline differences in APCs due to the concentration of APC funded publications in a few fields and the multidisciplinary nature of research.

scholarly journals How to fill the information gap: Open Access for the social sciences and humanities

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Ernst ◽  
Judith Schulte
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Open Access ◽  
Interest Group ◽  
Scholarly Communication ◽  
European Research ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
Lack Of Information ◽  
Information Gap ◽  
Research Organizations ◽  
The Social

Researchers not actively seeking information about Open Access and scholars who are not actively informed by their institutions might be concerned about publishing Open Access due to lack of information. Questions such as “Why is Open Access necessary and what do I gain?”, “What happens to my rights as an author?”, and “Why was I not told about this discount before I paid the full APC from my project fund?” might come up. This workshop is directed at representatives of research organizations and universities (e.g. Open Access offices, project coordinators, and interested researchers) on the topic of helping researchers finding answers to these questions and advocating for Open Access in the humanities and social sciences. The workshop seeks to discuss aspects that have been identified by participants priorly as most pressing to discuss. We therefore invite all registered participants to fill in a short survey by 12 October 2020. For any questions, please don’t hesitate contacting Elisabeth Ernst and Judith Schulte ([email protected]) OPERAS is the European Research Infrastructure for open scholarly communication in the social sciences and humanities. Its Special Interest Group on “Advocacy” works on topics related to the communication and advocating of Open Access in the social sciences and humanities and of those disciplines.

scholarly journals The insoluble problems of books: what does Altmetric.com have to offer?

2018 ◽  
Vol 70 (6) ◽  
pp. 691-707 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Torres-Salinas ◽  
Juan Gorraiz ◽  
Nicolas Robinson-Garcia
Keyword(s):  
Special Focus ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
Promising Tool ◽  
The Social ◽  
Google Books ◽  
Data Source ◽  
Alternative Sources ◽  
The One

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze the capabilities, functionalities and appropriateness of Altmetric.com as a data source for the bibliometric analysis of books in comparison to PlumX. Design/methodology/approach The authors perform an exploratory analysis on the metrics the Altmetric Explorer for Institutions, platform offers for books. The authors use two distinct data sets of books. On the one hand, the authors analyze the Book Collection included in Altmetric.com. On the other hand, the authors use Clarivate’s Master Book List, to analyze Altmetric.com’s capabilities to download and merge data with external databases. Finally, the authors compare the findings with those obtained in a previous study performed in PlumX. Findings Altmetric.com combines and orderly tracks a set of data sources combined by DOI identifiers to retrieve metadata from books, being Google Books its main provider. It also retrieves information from commercial publishers and from some Open Access initiatives, including those led by university libraries, such as Harvard Library. We find issues with linkages between records and mentions or ISBN discrepancies. Furthermore, the authors find that automatic bots affect greatly Wikipedia mentions to books. The comparison with PlumX suggests that none of these tools provide a complete picture of the social attention generated by books and are rather complementary than comparable tools. Practical implications This study targets different audience which can benefit from the findings. First, bibliometricians and researchers who seek for alternative sources to develop bibliometric analyses of books, with a special focus on the Social Sciences and Humanities fields. Second, librarians and research managers who are the main clients to which these tools are directed. Third, Altmetric.com itself as well as other altmetric providers who might get a better understanding of the limitations users encounter and improve this promising tool. Originality/value This is the first study to analyze Altmetric.com’s functionalities and capabilities for providing metric data for books and to compare results from this platform, with those obtained via PlumX.

scholarly journals Who’s writing Open Access (OA) articles? Characteristics of OA authors at Ph.D. granting institutions in the USA

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony J. Olejniczak ◽  
Molly J. Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
Career Stage ◽  
Access To Resources ◽  
Federal Research ◽  
Study Results ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Prestigious Institution ◽  
Primary Focus ◽  
Article Processing Charges

The open access (OA) publication movement aims to present research literature to the public at no cost and with no restrictions. While the democratization of access to scholarly literature is a primary focus of the movement, it remains unclear whether OA has uniformly democratized the corpus of freely available research, or whether authors who choose to publish in OA venues represent a particular subset of scholars - those with access to resources enabling them to afford article processing charges (APCs). We investigated the number of OA articles with article processing charges (APC OA) authored by 182,320 scholars with known demographic and institutional characteristics at American research universities across 11 broad fields of study. Results show, in general, that the likelihood for a scholar to author an APC OA article increases with male gender, employment at a prestigious institution (AAU member universities), association with a STEM discipline, greater federal research funding, and more advanced career stage (i.e., higher professorial rank). Participation in APC OA publishing appears to be skewed toward scholars with greater access to resources and job security.

The Cost of Publishing

2019 ◽  
pp. 164-171
Author(s):  
Michael Hochberg
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Paradigm Shift ◽  
Scientific Publication ◽  
Academic Society ◽  
Major Shift ◽  
Article Processing Charges ◽  
The Cost

The cost of publishing is hotly debated. Until the 1990s, publication was either free of charge, paid per page or per article, or covered partially or completely if subscribing to a journal or if a member of the academic society overseeing a journal. A major shift occurred in the early 2000s when new “Open Access” publishers made articles freely available for all to read and reuse, with article processing charges being covered by the author. This chapter discusses the paradigm shift and how it has changed the landscape of who pays for scientific publication.

scholarly journals Adopting open access in the social sciences and humanities: evidence from a developing nation

Heliyon ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (7) ◽  
pp. e04522
Author(s):  
Thu-Trang Vuong ◽  
Manh-Toan Ho ◽  
Minh-Hoang Nguyen ◽  
Thanh-Huyen T. Nguyen ◽  
Thanh-Dung Nguyen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Open Access ◽  
Developing Nation ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
The Social

scholarly journals The cost-effectiveness of the article-processing-charge-funded model across countries in different scientific blocks: the case of Elsevier's hybrid open access journals

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zohreh Estakhr ◽  
Hajar Sotudeh ◽  
Javad Abbaspour ◽  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cost Effectiveness ◽  
Open Access ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Scientific Development ◽  
Article Processing Charge ◽  
Publishing Article ◽  
Open Access Journals ◽  
Article Processing Charges ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Citation Advantage

Introduction. The present study investigated the cost-effectiveness of article-processing-charge-funded model across the world countries in terms of its citation value proportional to the article processing charges. Method. Using a comparative citation analysis method at the macro level, it explored a sample of articles in forty-seven Elsevier hybrid open access journals that had been following the model since 2007. Analysis. The contributing countries' open access citation advantages were calculated based on the percentage of their open access citation surplus proportional to that of their non-open access articles. Their relative open access citation cost-effectiveness was obtained based on their open access citation counts proportional to the article processing charges, normalised by those of non-open access papers. The countries were categorised into four scientific blocks using Rand's categorization of countries' scientific development. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the data in SPSS. Results. The results supported the citation advantage of the article-processing-charge-funded papers, encompassing the majority of the contributing countries in the four scientific development blocks. The articles showed relative cost-effectiveness over the years and for most countries in all the scientific development blocks. Conclusions. Publishing article-processing-charge-funded papers is relatively cost-effective, implying higher visibility and influence in exchange for the money paid.

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