[GOAL] DOAJ APC information as of January 31, 2018

[Heather Morrison]

Highlights of a recent brief research analysis that may be of interest:

71% of journals listed in DOAJ DO NOT charge APCs*. DOAJ staff have verified the vast majority of these journals, so I think we can be quite confident of this number
28% of journals listed in DOAJ do have APCs; a few have no information on this point

Of the journals listed with APCs, there are 37 different currencies listed. However, a few dominate, particularly USD which accounts for nearly half of the total; USD, EUR and GBP account for 80% of the total.

The average and range of APC by currency are listed in the blogpost. The most remarkable finding is a very wide range of pricing by currency. This tends to support the conclusion of our 2014 study of a volatile market for APCs.

Strengths of DOAJ with respect to the APC question: identifying which journals charge and which do not; URL for further information. One limitation of DOAJ data is that it necessarily simplifies a variety of complex models. Many journals with APCs do not charge a flat per-article rate. Another is that it is not clear when and/or how often this data is updated. If accurate information on the amount of an APC is needed, I recommend following the URL for further information on this point.

Details (method, results, limitations) are posted on the Sustaining the Knowledge Commons blog:
https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2018/02/06/doaj-apc-information-as-of-jan-31-2018/

* Emphasis added as OA and APC are often conflated, to avoid adding to the problem.

As an example of open research it might be worth noting that by publishing as soon as the analysis was complete on my blog rather than retaining the knowledge for peer-reviewed, I am able to share this information within 6 calendar days of release of the data that is being analyzed. If I or others find errors later on, the blogpost will be updated, noting the correction and retaining the original information in case anyone has cited on relied on it.

Disclaimer: my study of APCs does not imply endorsement of the method.

best,

--
Dr. Heather Morrison
Associate Professor | Professeure agrégé
École des sciences de l'information / School of Information Studies
University of Ottawa
http://www.sis.uottawa.ca/faculty/hmorrison.html
Sustaining the Knowledge Commons http://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/
Heather.Morrison at uottawa.ca


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/pipermail/goal/attachments/20180206/bffd8e57/attachment.html