How to avoid predatory and hijacking publishers?

GOAJ3: GOLD OPEN ACCESS JOURNALS 2012-2017 Walt Crawford Cites & Insights Books Livermore, California, 2018 1 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Copyright © 2018 by Walt Crawford ORCID 0000-0002-4815-1997 Some Rights Reserved: Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) You are free to make any use of this text, so long as you provide appropriate attribution: Crawford, Walt (ORCID 0000-0002-4815-1997), GOAJ2: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017, Livermore, CA: 2018. While you’re legally free to redistribute this PDF to others, it’s a kindness to the author to distribute links instead, so that it’s possible to count the number of downloads. This book was prepared entirely in Word 2013, using the licensed typefaces Berkeley Book and Berkeley (bold) for text and Calibri for headings and subheadings. Excel 2013 was used for data gathering and to prepare tables and graphs. The template is a customized version of bk6pv.dotx (modified for different typefaces and slightly different heading practices), a template developed by the author, modified and improved with the cooperation Information Today, Inc. and freely available at waltcrawford.name/bk6pv.dotx. (The template named uses Palatino Linotype for body text and Verdana for headings.) For more about the template and using no-cost methods to produce professionalquality books, read The Librarian’s Guide to Micropublishing. Contents Preface ......................................................................................... iv 1. The Big Picture ..........................................................................1 2. APCLand and OAWorld...........................................................11 3. Exclusions and Special Cases ...................................................20 4. Journals by Article Volume ......................................................24 5. Fees and Maximum Revenue ...................................................31 6. Publisher Category ..................................................................39 7. Country of Publication ............................................................58 8. Subject Segments.....................................................................76 9. Biology and Medicine ..............................................................77 10. Science, Technology, Engineering and Math ...........................85 11. Humanities and Social Sciences ...........................................102 12. Regions and APCLand .........................................................123 13. Africa ..................................................................................128 14. Asia .....................................................................................134 15. Eastern Europe ....................................................................140 16. Latin America ......................................................................147 17. Middle East .........................................................................154 18. Pacific/English .....................................................................160 19. Western Europe...................................................................166 Appendix A. Methods, Changes and Caveats .............................173 Index.........................................................................................176 iii iv GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Preface This book is the third full study of gold open access journals in the Directory of Open Access Journals. This and previous editions are available as free PDF ebooks or paperbacks priced to cover production costs. Thanks to SPARC’s continued support, I was able to update the database to include all journals in the Directory of Open Access Journals as of very early January 1, 2018 and to add 2017 counts and earlier counts as needed (and sometimes refine subject assignments). As noted in “The Biggest Numbers” in Chapter 1, I also added 2017 article counts to most journals dropped from DOAJ in the past two years. This book follows the pattern of the previous version, omitting Chapter 20 (since I’ve been unable to establish useful measures of viability) and adding one new metric: visibility of fee presence and amount. Early chapters now end with boxed highlights. Gold Open Access by Country 2012-2017 will appear some weeks or months after this book appears. It differs in key ways from last year’s the Countries of OAWorld and the region chapters in this book. A subject supplement, providing additional tables and commentary, will appear as an issue of Cites & Insights. Acknowledgments Thanks first and foremost to SPARC. Without SPARC’s sponsorship, this project would not have happened—and good advice and feedback from Raym Crow and Shawn Daugherty improved the project. Special thanks to Subramaniam Janakiraman, another Wednesday Ambler, who tackled the one “untranslatable” journal from the first two editions, recognized the script as Hindi, and passed it on to his friend Yogesh Nivas. Yogesh Nivas (a native Hindi speaker) provided me with the required information on the journal. Preface v Thanks also to Patrick Hogan for publishing Open-Access Journals: Idealism and Opportunism, the August/September 2015 Library Technology Reports covering some two-thirds of DOAJ journals from 2011 through June 2014, which served as a precursor to this project. Thanks to the good people at DOAJ for answering questions and improving the directory—and to Heather Morrison for pointing me to a way to get DOAJ metadata into Excel in full Unicode form. Thanks to Linda Driver for tolerating and encouraging my ongoing obsession with getting the facts right about real-world open access. Thanks to loads of LSW folks—John Dupuis, Dorothea Salo, Barbara Fister and many others—for encouraging this work, and to a fair number of people involved with OA who have helped along the way. The work is my responsibility, as are errors that may have crept in. (See Appendix A for notes on why attempts to replicate this will probably yield different results.) Links The data used for this report will be made freely available, always with a Creative Commons BY (attribution) license: you can do what you want with it as long as you properly credit the source. So, too, the PDF version of this book and of planned supplemental books are issued with CC BY licenses. Links will be found at http://waltcrawford.name/goaj.html. Availability will also be announced on Walt at Random, on my Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Mokum accounts (I’m waltcrawford pretty much everywhere), and sooner or later in Cites & Insights. 1. The Big Picture This study attempts to answer factual questions about the state of serious gold OA publishing—its extent, the extent of fee-based and otherwise-funded (“free”) publishing, and the complexities of the picture. I define serious gold OA based on the contents of the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). The overall picture of serious gold OA in 2017:  563,146 articles in 2017, up from 533,496 in 2016; 487,469 in 2015; 450,222 in 2014; 383,125 in 2013; and 327,766 in 2012. Direct comparisons with previous editions are difficult because of changes in DOAJ: in this case, 2,538 journals added and more than 1,300 removed during the year.  10,293 fully-analyzed journals, of which 9,668 published articles in 2017 for an average of 58 articles per journal.  69.7% of those journals do not charge author-side fees (APCs). Free-to-publish journals published 43.7% of the 2017 articles—up slightly from the 2016 figure from last year’s study and down slightly from the 2016 figure (45.1%) for the current universe.  The average cost per article was no more than $876 in 2017 and probably less, but that’s up from 2016. Gold OA isn’t one homogeneous field. The rest of this book provides more detail and ways of looking at gold OA and how it’s done. The book is deliberately patterned after the previous edition for comparability, with one chapter eliminated as useless and one new measure added. Three key numbers for number of journals:  10,706: Journals downloaded from DOAJ. 1 2 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017  10,293: Journals fully analyzed (excluding unreachable journals, malware, and some other cases: see Chapter 3).  9,668: Journals with at least one 2017 article. While some discussions and tables involve the full 10,293, others— where 2017 article counts are fundamental—address only the 9,668, ignoring 625 journals with no 2017 articles when checked (twice). Key Defini ons Gold Open Access A gold OA journal is one that makes all peer-reviewed articles freely available for anonymous online reading as soon as they’re published— excluding “hybrid” journals and those with embargoes. Other Terms and Data Sources Journal names, publisher names, starting year and country of publication all come directly from the Directory of Open Access Journals as of 12:30 a.m. (UMT) January 1, 2018. Subjects were assigned based on DOAJ subject and keyword fields, and in some cases refined based on scanning article titles. Subject segments were assigned based on subjects. Regions were assigned based on country of publication, except for the special “region” APCLand, assigned based on publisher characteristics (see Chapter 2). Publisher categories were assigned based on publisher names and available online information. APCs include normally-mandatory submission or publishing fees (including required society membership), as they would be applied for a U.S. author in the most expensive author category, for a 10-page article in the most expensive article category, in U.S. dollars in early 2018. For journals that only charge fees for in-country authors, that fee is used: most such journals appear to be predominantly local. Articles per year were determined by direct observation, using shortcuts where available and Find counts when feasible (e.g., when each article has “PDF” as a text tag). 1. The Big Picture 3 Revenue is simply the current fee times the 2017 article count and is always the maximum potential revenue, ignoring waivers, discounts and lower charges for some article or review types. Actual revenue may well be at least 15% lower. The Big Numbers You’ve already seen the biggest numbers: 563,146 articles in 9,668 journals in 20176, with 69.7% of the journals free, those no-fee journals publishing 43.7% of the articles. There are, to be sure, other article and journal counts, discussed in “The Biggest Numbers” near the end of this chapter. Except for Chapter 3, this book is almost entirely about the biggest group, those coded A or B (discussed below). Table 1.1 shows the key figures for those journals, including the fact that some journals don’t publish articles every year. Journals Active 2017 Articles Art/Jrnl Free 7,171 6,791 246,310 36 Pay 3,122 2,877 316,836 110 Total 10,293 9,668 563,146 58 Free% 69.7% 70.2% 43.7% Table 1.1. Journals and ar cles, overall Table 1.2 shows article counts for each of the past six years and also shows codes for some special categories of journals within the overall serious OA universe. Count 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 A 9,799 551,611 522,060 475,530 438,394 372,025 317,277 BI 234 0 0 1,779 3,470 3,595 3,076 BM 30 772 744 738 623 525 501 BR 26 4,985 4,546 3,576 2,750 2,763 2,714 BX 204 5,778 6,146 5,846 4,985 4,217 4,198 10,293 563,146 533,496 487,469 450,222 383,125 327,766 Tot. Table 1.2. Ar cles per year and special codes “A” is for journals active in 2016 or 2017 with no special codes. 4 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 “B” codes are as follows:  BI (inactive) journals have at least one article during this period but none since 2015.  BM (malware) journals have outbound calls trapped by Malwarebytes Pro as malware, but could be analyzed while preventing those calls from executing. Be wary about visiting these journals without active strong security software.  BR (reports) journals consist of reviewed conference papers. Note that the largest conference-reports journals, with some 19,000 papers in 2016, are no longer in DOAJ (and are not included in “The Biggest Numbers” below).  BX journals could not be reached (or were defective) using the URL downloaded from DOAJ but could be reached using a title search. The URL in the GOAJ3 spreadsheet is the one used to reach the journal, not the one downloaded from DOAJ. These codes are not used in the remainder of this book since—other than BM—they do not imply anything negative about the journals. Overall Growth As you can see in Table 1.1 (and Figure 1.3 below), serious gold OA is growing, but not all that rapidly: 16.9% in 2013; 17.5% in 2014; 8.3% in 2015; 9.4% in 2016; and 5.6% in 2017. Revenue and Costs Revenue Pay art. $/art Tot.art. $/art Free% 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 $493,242K $435,848K $394,960K $353,660K $278,526K 316,836 293,035 266,783 248,629 206,847 $1,557 $1,487 $1,480 $1,422 $1,347 563,146 533,496 487,469 450,222 383,125 $876 $817 $810 $786 $727 43.7% 45.1% 45.3% 44.8% 46.0% Table 1.3. Revenue* and cost per ar cle by year, 2012-2017 1. The Big Picture 5 Table 1.3 shows overall revenue-related figures for each year in this report (with revenue in thousands of dollars and 2012 omitted to avoid very small type), but the asterisk in the table caption relates to caveats in this data:  Revenue (Rev.) assumes no waivers, discounts or less-expensive categories. It’s based on the APC as of early 2018 (or late 2017 if that’s stated) and the fee status as of that date.  Given that some journals raise APCs and some shift from free to pay (rarely the other way), it’s likely that this table overstates not only the revenue but also the pay article counts and cost per article for earlier years. Star ng Dates Figure 1.1 shows starting dates for all of the good journals. Although only half the data points are labeled, there’s a point for each year from 1996 on, every two years 1990-95, every three years 1981-89, every five years 1971-80, every decade 1921-1970, and at the far left one group on or before 1900 and one 1901-1920. Figure 1.1. OA journals by star ng year 6 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 While it’s true that the rate of creation of new OA journals has slowed substantially since the peak years of 2011-2014, the drop-off for 2017 (and possibly 2016) may be misleading, since most journals don’t show up in DOAJ until after several articles have been published. The rest of this book shows starting dates for subsets of journals, grouped into two-year periods or longer and showing free and pay journals separately. Figure 1.2 shows that information for all the journals. Figure 1.2. Free and pay journals by star ng date, overall Ar cle Volume per Year, Free and Pay Figure 1.3 uses the template used for graphic free-and-pay article comparisons throughout the book. It’s in chronological order rather than the newest-first order of most tables, and it uses solid OA gold for no-fee articles and cross-hatched dollar green for articles in journals that currently charge fees. As elsewhere, this arrangement may slightly understate the free count in earlier years. The key fact is clear enough: while both categories have grown each year, APC-based publishing has grown faster—84% over the six years, as compared to 58% for free publishing. (That’s an improvement over last year’s report.) 1. The Big Picture 7 Figure 1.3. Free and pay ar cles by year, overall Journal Growth and Shrinkage Change 2016-17 Count Percent Cum% Grew 50%+ 1,697 16.5% Grew 25-49.9% 1,020 9.9% 26.4% Grew 10-24.99% 1,157 11.2% 37.6% Even, ±9.99% 2,658 25.8% 63.5% Shrank 10-24.99% 1,236 12.0% 75.5% Shrank 25-49.99% 1,207 11.7% 87.2% Shrank 50%+ 1,318 12.8% Total 10,293 Table 1.4. Growth and shrinkage, overall Table 1.4 shows how journals grew and shrank in number of articles from 2016 to 2017, noting that new 2017 journals appear as “Grew 50%+” and those with articles in 2016 but none in 2017 are in “Shrank 50%+.” 8 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 The Biggest Numbers There’s a lot of gold OA publishing that’s not in DOAJ, for any number of reasons. I had studied OA journals in former blacklists for 2016; I recounted them for the first half of 2017. Separately, I checked 2017 article counts for journals dropped from DOAJ. Category 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 Gray 1 54,191 58,984 55,208 55,690 52,285 Gray 2 156,706 149,663 135,870 121,179 87,719 Gray 3 138,944 147,893 146,273 113,349 76,584 349,841 356,540 337,351 290,218 216,588 3,361 6,458 6,451 6,260 5,282 DOAJ A-B 563,146 533,496 487,469 450,222 383,125 Total 916,348 896,494 831,271 746,700 604,995 61.5% 59.5% 58.6% 60.3% 63.3% Excluded DOAJ A-B % Table 1.5. All known gold OA ar cles 2013-2017 “Gray 3” is journals where a blacklist offered some evidence. “Gray 2” is where they were on a blacklist without evidence. “Gray 1” is journals formerly in DOAJ, and “X” is excluded journals—in DOAJ but not included in this report (see Chapter 3). The 2017 counts for Gray 2 and 3 are crude approximations, based on doubling the first six months. Both occurrences of “DOAJ” refer to codes A & B. Visibility Fee/APC Free % Visible 5,982 Obscure 1,184 Pay 83.5% 16.5% % 2,981 133 95.7% 4.3% Table 1.6. Visibility, overall Table 1.6 offers a crude measure of the transparency of a journal’s fee status and amount (that is: is there a fee at all, and if so, how much?). “Visible” is perhaps too generous, including cases where the information is buried within a paragraph somewhere in journal information or requires linking out to a master table. “Obscure” means I was unable to 1. The Big Picture 9 locate clear text (not saying there is a fee is not the same as saying there is no fee!) on the journal’s site—and if there was a link back from DOAJ, checking the link did not yield clear text. There’s an unfortunately high percentage of obscurity among free (no-fee) journals. The Rest of the Book The rest of this book offers a variety of ways to look at the current state of serious gold OA. My purpose here is to describe, not prescribe. Chapter 2 discusses APCLand and OAWorld, the fundamental split between 13 publishers who publish lots of articles (at least 4,600 in 2017) and have APCs for at least 47% of them that could have yielded at least $7 million in 2017—and everybody else. It also introduces subject segments. Chapter 3 covers exclusions in some detail: the DOAJ-listed journals not analyzed in the rest of the book. Chapter 4 discusses the three broad subject segments and looks at journals by article volume. Chapter 5 looks at journals and articles by APC and revenue. Chapter 6 looks at journals and articles by type of publisher. Chapter 7 looks at journals by country of publication (excluding journals in APCLand). Chapters 8-11 look at journals and articles within each subject segment (Ch. 9-11), with a brief introduction in Chapter 8. Chapters 12-19 look at journals and articles by geographic region (Ch. 12) and within each region (Ch. 13-19). Gold Open Access by Country 2012-2017 provides an alternative and expanded view of OA journals by country and region. Appendix A discusses the survey itself, some of the caveats, and some of the changes since the previous version. Key points and highlights appear at the end of early chapters. Data The master spreadsheet for this project, including publishers and journal titles but omitting some calculated figures (e.g., revenue) to save space, will be freely available with a CC BY license. For links to the data (and links to the supplements), go to waltcrawford.name/goaj.html. 10 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Highlights and Key Points  More than 246,000 articles appeared in 2017 in 6,791 journals funded through means other than author-side fees.  Nearly 317,000 articles appeared in 2,877 journals charging author-side fees (including memberships), for a total of more than 563,000 serious gold OA articles.  While more than two-thirds of OA journals are free (funded by other means), a small majority of articles (56.3%) appears in feecharging journals.  Serious gold OA is growing, but slowly: for journals currently in DOAJ, 5.6% more articles in 2017 than in 2016.  The “average article” (a meaningless construct) in fee-based journals cost $1,557, leading to an average of $876 including free journals.  Some 1,034 journals show higher APCs in this report than in last year’s, and some 569 show lower fees. Many of those, especially the reductions, may be currency exchange fluctuations.  New journal creation peaked in 2013 (and more broadly in 20112014, the only years with more than 800 new journals per year), but new journals continue to emerge, including 586 in 2016 and 185—so far—in 2017.  Slightly more journals grew than shrank from 2016 to 2017.  While only 4% of fee-charging journals obscure the fact or amount of fees, 16% of no-fee journal fail to make that fact clear. 2. APCLand and OAWorld It still seems sensible to split serious gold OA into two groups: APCLand, a small group of big publishers with mostly fee-based journals, and OAWorld, everybody else. This time, there are 13 publisher names in the APCLand group (Springer, Nature and BioMed Central are listed separately in DOAJ) and one anomaly: because of its large stable of societysponsored journals, Elsevier appears to have published more no-fee than fee 2017 articles in gold OA journals (a few more: 899 out of nearly 30,000). Dove Medical Press published slightly fewer than last year’s cutoff of 5,000 articles but still seems to belong in this group. APCLand APCLand currently consists of 13 publisher names (as entered in DOAJ, normalizing only slightly), each with more than 4,600 articles in 2017 (more than 4,600 with APCs), each with potential 2017 gold OA revenue of at least $7.2 million, and—except for Elsevier’s 48.4% and Springer’s under-50% figure when viewed separately from Nature and BioMed Central—each with at least 58% fee-based articles. In 2017, APCLand accounted for 19.5% of the active gold OA journals and published 43.0% of the gold OA articles. APCLand also accounted for 84% of potential APC revenue. APCLand currently includes BioMed Central, Dove Medical Press, Elsevier, Frontiers Media S.A., Hindawi Publishing Corporation, MDPI AG, Nature, Oxford University Press, Public Library of Science (PLoS), SAGE Publishing, Springer, Wiley, and Wolters Kluwer Medknow Publications. 11 12 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 If you’re curious, these are the largest APCLand entities (treating Springer, Nature, and Biomed Central as a single entity and normalizing different forms of Elsevier and Wolters Kluwer Medknow): by journals active in 2017, SpringerNature, Elsevier, Hindawi and MDPI; by 2017 articles, SpringerNature, MDPI, Elsevier and PLoS; by potential OA APC revenue, SpringerNature, Frontiers, MDPI and PLoS. For 2017, APCLand included 1,890 active gold OA journals publishing 242,313 articles, with a total potential APC revenue of $413,360,238. Overall, 26% of APCLand gold OA journals publishing articles in 2017 did not have APCS (including journals funded through SCOAP3); those journals published 13% of the 2017 APCLand articles. Average cost per article in fee-charging journals was $1,955; including free journals brings that average down to $1,706. The average fee-charging journal in APCLand published 152 articles and the average free journal published 62 articles, for an overall average of 120 articles. OAWorld OAWorld includes more than four thousand named publishers, accounting for 80.5% of the active journals in 2017 and 57% of the articles—but only 16% of the revenue. OAWorld accounts for 7,778 active journals in 2017 with 320,833 articles and a maximum revenue of $79,881,554. A full 81% of the active journals do not charge fees—and those journals account for 67% of the 2017 articles. In other words, two-thirds of OAWorld articles do not involve author-side fees. For those articles that did involve fees, the weighted average cost per article was $750 in 2017, about 39% of the average APCLand cost. When no-fee articles are included, average cost per article in OAWorld drops to $249, less than 15% of APCLand’s overall average cost. Just as free journals tend to be smaller than fee-based journals, so do OAWorld journals tend to be smaller than APCLand journals. For 2017, the average fee-based OAWorld journal published 71 articles, the average free journal 34, for an overall average of 41 articles per journal. 2. APCLand and OAWorld 13 APCLand and OAWorld in this book The original Gold Open Access Journals 2011-2015 discusses my discovery of APCLand as a significant concept and especially its impact on country ratings. This book uses the division as appropriate, which it turns out to be in portions of Chapter 4 and Chapters 7-19. When issued, the subject supplement will treat APCLand as a country. Year-by-Year Comparison 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 APCLand/jrnls 1,890 1,928 1,871 1,780 1,489 Growth 54% 57% 53% 45% 22% 2012 1,225 Articles 242,313 221,780 205,148 189,878 150,650 Growth 99% 82% 68% 56% 24% 121,904 Art/J 128 115 110 107 101 100 OAWorld/Jrnls 7,778 7,909 7,610 7,096 6,410 5,648 Growth 38% 40% 35% 26% 13% Articles 320,833 311,716 282,321 260,344 232,475 Growth 56% 51% 37% 26% 13% Art/J 41 39 37 37 36 205,862 36 Table 2.1. Journals and ar cles by year, APCLand and OAWorld Table 2.1 shows for each year the journals actually publishing articles, number of articles, growth since 2012 (not year-to-year), and articles per journal. Note that article count nearly doubled over the six years for APCLand, while it grew by more than half for OAWorld. Segment by Segment Differences between APCLand and OAWorld are even more dramatic in broad subject segments. 14 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Biomed APCLand looms large in biomed, accounting for 46% of the journals and 58% of the articles. Only 21% of APCLand journals are free, accounting for 14% of the articles. Average cost per article among APCcharging journals in 2017 is $2,105, descending slightly to $1,810 when free journals are included. APCLand published 115,899 biomed articles, just slightly fewer than in STEM. In OAWorld, 70% of active biomed journals in 2017 were free, and those journals published 53% of the articles: even in biomed, most OAWorld articles did not involve fees. Average cost per article in APCbased journals was $971, coming down to $461 when free journals are included. Biomed is the smallest segment in OAWorld, with 84,936 articles in 2017. Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) STEM is the largest segment overall and for APCLand as well, although APCLand only accounts for 22% of journals. Those journals published 53% of all STEM OA articles in 2017. There’s not a lot of free activity in APCLand: 28% of journals, publishing 10% of the 2017 articles. Average cost per article among APC-charging journals was $1,814; including free journals brings that down to $1,632. APCLand published 118,750 STEM articles in 2017. STEM is the second-largest segment for OAWorld, with 106,916 articles in 2017; 78% of the journals didn’t charge APCs, and those journals account for 58% of the articles. Average cost per article among APC-charging journals was $771; for all journals it was $321. Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) APCLand is almost wholly uninterested in the humanities and social sciences: it accounts for 3% of the active journals and 6% of the articles. Although 58% of those journals don’t charge APCs, only 36% of the 7,664 articles in 2017 appeared in free journals. Average cost per article among APC-charging journals was $1,981; including non-APC journals, the cost per article comes down to $1,275. OAWorld published 128,981 HSS articles in 2017—the largest segment. Very little of that involved APCs: 89% of the journals, publishing 2. APCLand and OAWorld 15 84% of the articles, didn’t charge them. Among the journals that did charge, average cost per article was $311—but the overall average was $50. There are considerably more active HSS journals than either biomed or STEM: 4,511 in all compared to 2,548 and 2,609 respectively. OAWorld accounts for 4,363 of those 4,511 journals. A Graphic View of Free and Pay Figures 2.1 and 2.2, using the same colors and patterns (but different vertical scales), show the difference between APCLand and OAWorld on a year-by-year basis. Figure 2.1. APCLand ar cles The solid-gold Free area grows over the years, but is dominated by the more rapidly growing dollar-green crosshatched area. 16 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Figure 2.2. OAWorld ar cles Star ng Dates Figure 2.3. APCLand star ng dates Patterns of journal starting dates also differ between APCLand and OAWorld, as shown in Figures 2.3 and 2.4 (different vertical scale). 2. APCLand and OAWorld 17 Figure 2.4. OAWorld star ng dates These figures may not require much commentary. APCLand began adding gold OA journals rapidly beginning in 2008-09, with 358 total before 2008. Substantial growth in OAWorld began earlier, around the turn of the century, and there were 860 OAWorld journals introduced before 2000. Growth and Shrinkage Change 2016-17 Grew 50%+ Grew 25-49.9% Grew 10-24.99% Even, ±9.99% Shrank 10-24.99% Shrank 25-49.99% Shrank 50%+ Count 409 179 203 446 228 232 408 Table 2.2. Growth and shrinkage, APCLand Percent Cum% 19.4% 8.5% 27.9% 9.6% 37.6% 21.2% 58.8% 10.8% 69.6% 11.0% 80.6% 19.4% 18 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Change 2015-16 Grew 50%+ Grew 25-49.9% Grew 10-24.99% Even, ±9.99% Shrank 10-24.99% Shrank 25-49.99% Shrank 50%+ Count 1,288 841 954 2,212 1,008 975 910 Percent Cum% 15.7% 10.3% 26.0% 11.7% 37.7% 27.0% 64.7% 12.3% 77.0% 11.9% 88.9% 11.1% Table 2.3. Growth and shrinkage, OAWorld No particularly interesting differences. Visibility Fee/APC Visible Obscure Free % 482 24 Pay 95.3% 4.7% % 1,578 17 98.9% 1.1% Table 2.4. Visibility, APCLand Fee/APC Visible Obscure Free % 5,500 1,160 Pay 82.6% 17.4% % 1,403 116 92.4% 7.6% Table 2.5. Visibility, OAWorld It’s hardly surprising that APCLand tends to be clear about fees and free journals. 2. APCLand and OAWorld 19 Highlights and Key Points  APCLand published just under one-fifth of active gold OA journals in 2017 and a bit more than two-fifths of articles—but took in more than four-fifths of revenue.  The average fee-based article in APCLand cost 2.6 times as much as fee-based articles in OAWorld—but the average cost per article for all articles was just under seven times as much in APCLand.  APCLand journals averaged three times as many articles in 2017 as OAWorld journals.  Biomed and STEM are mostly APCLand, with slight majorities of articles, while HSS is predominantly OAWorld, with more than nine out of ten articles. 3. Exclusions and Special Cases This chapter is, in essence, one long footnote, and you can skip it if you like. Along with Appendix A, it provides transparency on methodology and tells why some journals in DOAJ are excluded from this report. The Basics I visited each journal’s website at least once and sometimes up to three times while preparing this survey. The first set of visits took place between January 4, 2018 and March 29, 2018. I marked 1,983 journals—those flagged as exclusions and journals that might not yet have final 2017 issues posted—for revisits. I revisited those journals April 15-29, 2018. Journals flagged as X codes were visited a third time, May 1-4, 2018. Some notes on what visits did and did not entail:  While I began using Excel and Edge, double-clicking on URLs to activate them and a third time to link to the pages, instability in the Excel-Edge combination caused me to switch back to Chrome partway through—and at some point double-click-to-activate stopped working. For most of the survey, I copied URLs from Excel and pasted them into Chrome.  At all times, I ran Malwarebytes Pro and Windows Defender. During an earlier investigation, at least one “journal” managed to hit me with a difficult-to-fix piece of malware and at least four others attempted to do so; this time, I wasn’t taking any chances. Nor should readers or authors.  DOAJ now requires that the presence or absence of a fee (APC) and its amount be visible within DOAJ, thus eliminating the former code CA—but the fee presence and amount isn’t always visible on the 20 3. Exclusions and Special Cases 21 journal site. I added a “visibility” measure—initially with only two values: 1 for visible, 3 for obscure. If I could not determine the fee status and amount from any plausible location on a journal’s site, I used DOAJ information and assigned code 3. (If there’s another edition, I may refine that test: some “visible” information is remarkably difficult to find.) It’s interesting that the Obscure count for fee-based journals, 133, is not much different than the 2015 CA count.  I used Edge or Chrome “translate this page” and, in a few obstinate cases, copied-and-pasted text into a Google Translate window. This was overwhelmingly successful. As noted in the Preface, I was able to enlist human help to take care of the single remaining case.  The total percentage of excluded journals has stayed about the same (declining from 4.0% to 3.9%), the number of excluded journals has risen slightly to 413, entirely because of more malware. Codes XD through XX Table 3.1 summarizes excluded journals by type Code XD: Duplicate or empty since 2011 XI: Impossible to count articles by year XM: Malware encountered XN: Not open access XX: Unreachable/unworkable Total excluded Count 161 4 198 7 43 413 Table 3.1. Excluded journals Compared to last year, XD (which, unlike the other codes, does not mean something’s wrong with the journal—just that it doesn’t have articles since 2012) is probably lower than last year’s combination of XE and some of BC; XI is down one; XM is up, nearly tripled from 2016, and that’s a problem (discussed later in this chapter); XN is down considerably,. Compared to the codes it replaces (XP, XU, XV and XX), XX is down enormously. Except for XM, these are excellent figures. Figure 2.2 shows article counts in those cases where I could derive them, either from DOAJ or from previous years. 22 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Code XI XM XN XX Total 2017 2,928 28 405 3,361 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 193 123 162 109 112 5,250 5,016 4,335 3,698 2,546 32 58 51 58 14 983 1,254 1,712 1,417 618 6,458 6,451 6,260 5,282 3,290 Table 3.2. Par al ar cle counts for excluded journals By definition, XD journals have no articles in 2012-2017, so that row is omitted. Fortunately, excluded journals are a small part of the OA field. The following sections offer additional notes on excluded journals. XD: Duplicate or empty Some of these are superseded or merged journals where the original is still in DOAJ; some are cases where two different titles appear but resolve to the same journal (e.g., language differences); some are journals that haven’t had articles since 2011 or before. XI: Impossible to count articles by year Two of these, one from India and one from Pakistan, consist of wholeissue PDFs without tables of contents; I was unwilling to page through each issue counting articles. One has no dates—even in article PDFs. (How would these articles be cited?) One made getting to articles or contents lists so difficult that I gave up. XM: Malware encountered There are far too many of these, largely due to insertion of malicious code into poorly-secured websites. I won’t list the journals: there are too many. It is worth noting some characteristics of the journals and how Malwarebytes classifies the threat. Country: While a dozen countries have malware cases, there are only four with more than four: Indonesia with 136, Brazil with 26, and Malaysia and Romania with nine each. Without Indonesia, there would be fewer XM cases than last year. Publisher category: Nearly all of these—185—are from universities. 3. Exclusions and Special Cases 23 Free or pay: Surprisingly, 43 have APCs; the rest are free. Nature of problem: Malwarebytes Pro says that 80 of these are riskware—behavior that may be malicious. Another 67 are phishing attempts, code designed to trick the visitor into providing confidential information. Two are bad security certificates, and 49 are malware— clearly malicious software. XN: Not open access What few of these are left have an assortment of flaws. One is admirable but not a journal at all; one has a 12-month embargo; one is no longer OA; one now requires login; one only provides abstracts; and one appears to be a subject-specific index with no way of finding original articles. XX: Unreachable/unworkable Another motley crew, including four persistent 403 errors (forbidden, an odd attribute for an OA journal!); 13 persistent 404s; seven persistent DNS failures; two persistent database failures; four persistent timeouts; and a handful of others. The BX Saves Journals changed to BX (because a title search yielded a workable URL that wasn’t linked to in the original) include 81 “404” cases; 31 DNS failures; 22 timeouts; 16 XM or BM cases; 13 ad and parking pages; seven 500-502 codes; six database failures; four 400-403 errors; four that were XX; and 20 miscellaneous errors. Highlights and Key Points  In most areas, problems have been reduced from 2016.  Malware has gotten much worse, primarily due to two countries (one of which has added more journals to DOAJ than any other). 4. Journals by Ar cle Volume Journals, no matter how they’re funded, vary widely in number of articles per year. “Average articles per journal” is almost meaningless as an overall figure, becoming only slightly more meaningful as you narrow the frame of reference. This chapter looks at journals by article volume, using either 2017 volume or the peak of the period 2012-2017. It should help clarify what’s out there and how pay-versus-free varies by article volume. Gold Open Access Journals 2011-2015 discussed various ways to determine appropriate groups of journals by volume. There’s no “best” way, so for the sake of consistency this chapter (and the rest of the book) uses the same five-part breakdown as previous years: Largest (600 or more articles in peak year); Large (150 to 599 articles); Medium (60 to 149 articles); Small (20 to 59 articles); Smallest (1 to 19 articles). It also uses the same detailed breakdown as last year. Detailed Breakdown of Journals by Peak Volume Table 4.1 offers a detailed breakdown of journals by peak article volume, showing for each range the number of journals, how many journals published articles in 2017, the percentage of those journals that don’t charge APCs (%Free), the number of articles in 2017, the percentage of articles appearing in non-APC journals, and the percentage of all 2017 articles represented in this bracket. The peak number is the lower limit of the row—thus, the first row is 20,000 articles and up, while the second is 2,000 to 19,999. 24 4. Journals by Article Volume 25 Peak Journals Act. 17 %Free Articles %Free % of articles 20,000 2 2 0.00% 46,491 0.00% 8.26% 2,000 20 20 15.00% 48,515 19.64% 8.61% 1,000 33 33 9.09% 33,301 9.38% 5.91% 800 28 28 28.57% 18,160 26.86% 3.22% 600 33 33 24.24% 17,016 17.54% 3.02% 400 74 74 16.22% 24,564 10.15% 4.36% 300 100 99 24.24% 24,600 21.00% 4.37% 200 211 210 33.33% 38,201 30.91% 6.78% 150 233 231 38.96% 29,985 37.02% 5.32% 125 201 198 52.53% 18,981 51.24% 3.37% 100 364 355 50.70% 29,599 49.55% 5.26% 80 487 481 56.13% 32,119 56.34% 5.70% 60 835 819 64.35% 42,880 66.04% 7.61% 50 652 638 71.00% 26,471 71.53% 4.70% 40 993 959 75.70% 32,891 76.95% 5.84% 30 1,545 1,504 77.99% 40,070 80.11% 7.12% 20 2,150 2,012 78.73% 37,405 80.94% 6.64% 15 1,084 979 79.16% 13,210 81.32% 2.35% 10 868 734 80.79% 7,242 82.57% 1.29% 5 369 251 72.91% 1,423 74.63% 0.25% 1 11 8 62.50% 22 81.82% 0.00% Table 4.1. Journals and ar cles by detailed peak volume Free (no-fee) journals tend to be smaller: that’s clear and not surprising. For journals, note that less than one-third of journals with peak volumes of 300 articles or more are free, while a majority of those with fewer than 150 articles are free, including more than two-thirds of those with fewer than 60 articles. The Three Segments Chapter 2 introduced the three subject segments used throughout, but it’s worth adding a few notes about each segment: 26 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017  Biomed: All of human biology and medicine, the segment with by far the most fee revenue.  STEM: Journals in hard sciences (other than human biology), technology, engineering and mathematics, including multidisciplinary journals primarily dealing with science and medicine. The segment with the most articles.  HSS: Humanities and social sciences, as well as multidisciplinary journals that include both scientific and other areas. Fewest articles but most journals of any segment. Journals and Articles by Segment To get a sense of the size of each segment, Table 4.2 breaks out the data in Table 1.1 into the three segments. Journals Act. 2017 Articles Art/Jrnl Biomed 2,694 2,548 200,835 79 Free 1,256 1,216 60,852 50 Pay 1,438 1,332 139,983 105 Free% 47% 48% 30% STEM 2,814 2,609 225,666 86 Free 1,688 1,603 74,303 46 Pay 1,126 1,006 151,363 150 Free% 60% 61% 33% HSS 4,785 4,511 136,645 30 Free 4,227 3,972 111,155 28 Pay 558 539 25,490 47 Free% 88% 88% 81% Table 4.2. Journals and ar cles by segment Biomed is the only segment with a slight majority of fee-charging journals, while STEM has the most articles per journal. The two megajournals are both included in STEM. 4. Journals by Article Volume 27 Journals by Segment Largest: 600+ Free% Large: 150-599 Free% Med.: 60-149 Free% Small: 20-59 Free% Smallest: 1-19 Free% Biomed STEM HSS Total 52 55 9 116 10% 24% 44% 19% 351 185 78 614 28% 30% 56% 32% 711 583 559 1,853 46% 52% 80% 58% 1,123 1,299 2,691 5,113 56% 68% 90% 77% 311 487 1,174 1,972 49% 72% 90% 79% Table 4.3. Journals by segment, 2017 Bigger journals tend to have APCs—even in HSS, most of the largest journals charge. Close comparisons to last year’s table show a growing percentage of free journals in almost all size categories for Biomed and STEM, but the overall picture hasn’t changed much. Ar cle Volume by Segment Largest: 600+ Free% Large: 150-599 Free% Med.: 60-149 Free% Small: 20-59 Free% Smallest: 1-19 Free% Biomed STEM HSS Total 48,229 108,789 6,465 163,483 4% 15% 35% 13% 68,308 38,048 10,994 117,350 22% 27% 49% 26% 49,979 39,140 34,460 123,579 46% 52% 79% 57% 31,408 34,394 71,035 136,837 61% 69% 90% 78% 2,911 5,295 13,691 21,897 54% 74% 90% 81% Table 4.4. Ar cles by segment, 2017 28 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Table 4.4 translates Table 3.3 into articles. Perhaps worth noting: most articles (a bare majority) in large HSS journals involve charges even though most of the journals are free. Small journals and, to a lesser extent, medium-sized journals dominate HSS, with more than six times as many articles as large and largest journals. By comparison, the large and largest biomed journals publish more than 40% more articles than small and medium-sized journals, and large and largest STEM journals publish nearly twice as many articles as small and medium-sized journals (99.7% more). Even if you remove the two megajournals, large and largest STEM journals would account for one-third more articles than small and medium-sized ones. APCLand and OAWorld: Journals Let’s look at APCLand and OAWorld separately, using the same layout and data as for Tables 4.3 and 4.4. Biomed STEM HSS Total Largest: 600+ 37 33 1 71 Free% 0% 12% 0% 6% Large: 150-599 221 70 5 296 Free% 18% 13% 40% 17% Med.: 60-149 332 134 20 486 Free% 25% 28% 40% 26% Small: 20-59 451 281 85 817 Free% 26% 35% 64% 33% Smallest: 1-19 119 64 37 220 Free% 8% 25% 59% 21% Table 4.5. Journals by segment, APCLand Even in OAWorld, most large and largest biomed and STEM journals have fees—but not the overwhelming dominance in APCLand. 4. Journals by Article Volume 29 Biomed Largest: 600+ Free% Large: 150-599 Free% Med.: 60-149 Free% Small: 20-59 Free% Smallest: 1-19 Free% STEM 15 33% 130 45% 379 65% 672 77% 192 74% 22 41% 115 40% 449 59% 1,018 77% 423 79% HSS Total 8 50% 73 58% 539 82% 2,606 91% 1,137 91% 45 40% 318 46% 1,367 70% 4,296 85% 1,752 86% Table 4.6. Journals by segment. OAWorld APCLand and OAWorld: Ar cles Largest: 600+ Free% Large: 150-599 Free% Med.: 60-149 Free% Small: 20-59 Free% Smallest: 1-19 Free% Biomed STEM HSS Total 34,705 85,483 2,319 122,507 0% 5% 0% 4% 45,274 15,982 1,211 62,467 13% 10% 35% 13% 23,413 9,487 1,354 34,254 27% 28% 38% 28% 11,571 7,229 2,349 21,149 32% 43% 65% 39% 936 569 431 1,936 10% 31% 63% 28% Table 4.7. Ar cles by segment, APCLand 30 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Largest: 600+ Free% Large: 150-599 Free% Med.: 60-149 Free% Small: 20-59 Free% Smallest: 1-19 Free% Biomed STEM HSS Total 13,524 23,306 4,146 40,976 14% 51% 54% 39% 23,034 22,066 9,783 54,883 39% 39% 51% 41% 26,566 29,653 33,106 89,325 63% 59% 81% 69% 19,837 27,165 68,686 115,688 78% 76% 91% 85% 1,975 4,726 13,260 19,961 75% 79% 91% 86% Table 4.8. Ar cles by segment, OAWorld Highlights and Key Points  Larger journals tend to have fees, but not all of them.  HSS articles are predominantly in small and medium-sized journals, while the large and largest STEM journals publish twice as many articles as the small and medium-sized journals.  Very small journals are nearly irrelevant in biomed and STEM (about 1.4% and 2.3% respectively), but play a larger role in HSS (10% of all articles). 5. Fees and Maximum Revenue It takes money to publish even the smallest journal. For small open access journals run out of a university library or department the costs be may be so small as to be trivial. Quite possibly, the only direct costs are hosting costs absorbed by the institution, DOI costs and a subdomain that doesn’t require registration. Normally, there are costs that require money from some source, even if most costs (managing peer review, editorial oversight, posting articles, maintaining the journal site, etc.) are absorbed by a parent institution or automated—and even if the journal handles layout and typesetting by requiring templates and doesn’t do copyediting. Larger journals almost certainly require more funding: it’s hard to believe that a journal publishing hundreds of articles each year can survive entirely based on volunteer labor. You can find long lists of all the things publishers may do and long discussions of what constitutes reasonable pricing. This book doesn’t say “here’s what an article should cost” but does offer some data on the maximum amount that journals may be getting from APCs. Revenue Ranges Table 5.1, which includes only journals with fees, shows the number of journals and articles in each of a fairly large range of revenue segments—the only time we’ll break out revenue for fee journals beyond four large segments. Except for slight modifications at the top of ranges to reflect reality, revenue brackets are the same as in GOAJ2: Gold Open Access Journals 2011-2016 to provide some comparability. 31 32 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Revenue Journals Cum J Articles Art/J $23 to $44 million 3 51,030 17,010 $4 to $7.8 million 13 16 30,803 2,369 $2 to $3.98 million 19 35 23,699 1,247 $1 to $1.99 million 38 73 24,783 652 $750,000 to $956,670 35 108 14,785 422 $500,000 to $725,900 63 171 20,285 322 $400,000 to $499,785 41 212 10,157 248 $300,000 to $398,958 63 275 12,364 196 $250,000 to $295,260 48 323 6,786 141 $200,000 to $249,200 53 376 5,957 112 $150,000 to $199,962 82 458 9,985 122 $100,000 to $149,850 150 608 14,562 97 $75,000 to $99,680 119 727 10,473 88 $50,000 to $74,880 209 936 14,138 68 $40,000 to $49,728 114 1,050 7,928 70 $30,000 to $39,664 154 1,204 8,858 58 $25,000 to $29,900 $20,000 to $24,990 $15,000 to $19,872 $10,000 to $14,940 $7,500 to $9,950 $5,000 to $7,434 $2,500 to $4,950 $1,000 to $2,479 $4 to $999 $0 (no 2017 articles) 87 132 142 221 107 172 219 262 331 245 1,291 1,423 1,565 1,786 1,893 2,065 2,284 2,546 2,877 3,122 4,338 6,085 5,045 8,275 3,071 5,530 6,397 5,930 5,572 0 50 46 36 37 29 32 29 23 17 0 Table 5.1. Revenue by journal, detailed breakdown What should be clear from Table 5.1 is that APC-based OA publishing isn’t an easy get-rich-quick scheme. Only 608 journals could have brought in at least $100,000 in 2017, and only 936 are at the $50,000 mark. Barely more than half earned $20,000 or more. 5. Fees and Maximum Revenue 33 Max. 2017 Revenue APCLand: $7-$78M Count Total 13 $2-$6.2 Million 11 $37,721,437 $1-$1.9 Million 6 $8,695,506 $500K-$960K 21 $14,784,502 $250K-$498K 10 $3,266,618 $100K-$249K 46 $7,320,326 $50K-$99K 63 $4,503,176 $25K-$49K 75 $2,673,807 $15K-$24K 74 $1,480,618 $10K-$14K 66 $807,870 $5K-$9K 115 $815,084 $2K-$4K 147 $480,764 $4-$1,999 243 $206,950 Zero 3000+ Table 5.2. Maximum poten al 2017 revenue by publishers, not normalized To be sure, most fee-based publishers have more than one journal. Table 5.2 shows a rough picture of publisher revenue, although publishers weren’t normalized or grouped. Still, only 30 publishers had at least $1 million in potential revenue, with another 21 over the half-million mark. (Unlike most of this chapter, Table 5.2 does include no-fee publishers, which represent more than three-quarters of the publishing entities.) Detailed APC Breakdown APCs range from $0.20 (yes, twenty cents) to $5,200. Table 5.3 offers a fairly detailed set of APC ranges. 34 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 APC $4,000-$5,200 $3,000-$3,975 $2,500-$2,980 $2,250-$2,492 $2,000-$2,240 $1,750-$1,995 $1,500-$1,745 $1,250-$1,495 $1,000-$1,249 $750-$995 $600-$749 $400-$599 $300-$399 $200-$294 $100-$193 $0.20-$98 Journals Cum J Articles Art/J 12 7,928 661 55 67 5,513 100 71 138 27,349 385 107 245 15,384 144 269 514 38,187 142 274 788 61,549 225 135 923 21,336 158 108 1,031 31,844 295 264 1,295 17,748 67 222 1,517 8,785 40 317 1,834 6,177 19 221 2,055 16,358 74 163 2,218 10,211 63 121 2,339 10,650 88 286 2,625 14,560 51 497 3,122 23,257 47 Table 5.3. APC levels, detailed breakdown Unlike the reasonably good correlation between journal revenue and articles per journal in Table 5.1, there’s no clear correlation in Table 5.3. The highest article-per-journal averages are in the most expensive journals and in priced journals charging $1,750 to $1,995. Journals charging $600 to $749 have fewer articles per journal than journals charging less than $600. For consistency, the APC brackets in the remainder of this chapter and the rest of the book are the same as last year:  High: $1,400 and up  Medium: $600 to $1,399  Low: $200 to $599  Modest: $0.20 to $199  Free (no author-side fee) 5. Fees and Maximum Revenue 35 Fees and Revenue by Segment Biomed $1,400+ STEM HSS 686 199 39 924 Articles 96,723 100,048 3,770 200,541 Revenue $227,033,788 $197,032,148 $9,885,553 298 331 77 706 41,259 $600-$1.399 Articles 14,528 23,412 3,319 Revenue $13,989,701 $24,691,688 $3,461,025 208 184 100 492 Articles 18,408 13,284 5,527 37,219 Revenue $6,902,007 $5,228,685 $1,911,446 140 292 323 755 Articles 10,324 14,619 12,874 37,817 Revenue $1,015,337 $1,178,135 $912,279 1,216 1,603 3,972 6,791 Articles 60,852 74,303 111,155 246,310 $200-$599 $0.20-$199 Free Table 5.4. Ar cles and revenue by segment, overall Table 5.4 shows active journals (those with articles in 2017). Across the board, the most expensive journals account for most of the revenue, with $1,400+ journals taking in 91% of all revenue for biomed, 86% for STEM, and 61% for HSS. Growth and Shrinkage Tables 5.5 through 5.9 show article change in each journal from 2016 to 2017 for the five price brackets. These tables do include journals with no 2017 articles, always in the “Shrank 50%+” row unless they didn’t have 2016 articles either (making them “Even, ±9.99%”). 36 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Change 2016-17 Count Percent Grew 50%+ 204 Grew 25-49.9% 112 Grew 10-24.99% 119 Even, ±9.99% 206 Shrank 10-24.99% 115 Shrank 25-49.99% 110 Shrank 50%+ 83 Total 949 Cum% 21.5% 11.8% 12.5% 21.7% 12.1% 11.6% 8.7% 33.3% 45.8% 67.5% 79.7% 91.3% Table 5.5. Growth and shrinkage, APCs $1,400 and up Change 2016-17 Grew 50%+ Grew 25-49.9% Grew 10-24.99% Even, ±9.99% Shrank 10-24.99% Shrank 25-49.99% Shrank 50%+ Total Count 155 53 59 130 77 103 308 885 Percent Cum% 17.5% 6.0% 23.5% 6.7% 30.2% 14.7% 44.9% 8.7% 53.6% 11.6% 65.2% 34.8% Table 5.6. Growth and shrinkage, APCs $600-$1,399 More rapid and fairly rapid growth in high-fee journal articles than elsewhere—and more shrinkage at the worst level than at any other. 5. Fees and Maximum Revenue 37 * Change 2016-17 Count Percent Grew 50%+ 95 Grew 25-49.9% 60 Grew 10-24.99% 49 Even, ±9.99% 141 Shrank 10-24.99% 75 Shrank 25-49.99% 55 Shrank 50%+ 30 Total 505 Cum% 18.8% 11.9% 9.7% 27.9% 14.9% 10.9% 5.9% 30.7% 40.4% 68.3% 83.2% 94.1% Table 5.7. Growth and shrinkage, APCs $200 to $599 Change 2016-17 Grew 50%+ Grew 25-49.9% Grew 10-24.99% Even, ±9.99% Shrank 10-24.99% Shrank 25-49.99% Shrank 50%+ Total Count 111 66 87 237 93 96 93 783 Percent Cum% 14.2% 8.4% 22.6% 11.1% 33.7% 30.3% 64.0% 11.9% 75.9% 12.3% 88.1% 11.9% Table 5.8. Growth and shrinkage, APCs $0.20 to $199 Change 2016-17 Grew 50%+ Grew 25-49.9% Grew 10-24.99% Even, ±9.99% Shrank 10-24.99% Shrank 25-49.99% Shrank 50%+ Total Count Percent Cum% 1,132 15.8% 729 10.2% 843 11.8% 1,944 27.1% 876 12.2% 843 11.8% 804 7,171 11.2% Table 5.9. Growth and shrinkage, free (no-fee) journals 26.0% 37.7% 64.8% 77.0% 88.8% 38 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Highlights and Key Points  Relatively few gold OA journals bring in large revenue; nearly half yielded less than $20,000 in 2017.  Thirty publishers may have gained $1 million or more in 2017 gold OA fees; another 21 gained more than half a million.  There’s no clear correlation between APC level and articles per journal, except at the very top.  Journals charging $1,400 and up account for 91% of 2017 gold OA revenue in biomed, 86% in STEM and 61% for HSS.  Journals charging $1,400 and up were more likely to grow rapidly, with a full third publishing half again as many articles in 2017 as in 2016, and fewer than 10% falling by half or more.  Journals charging $600 to $1,399 are more likely to have shrunk in 2017: the only price category (including free) where less than onethird grew significantly and a majority shrank significantly. 6. Publisher Category Do the characteristics of open access journals vary depending on the type of publisher? This chapter explores that question, breaking serious gold OA journals down into five categories, based on the publisher name as it appears in DOAJ. The categories are:  University, college or institute: Excluding (as much as possible) “institutes” that don’t have educational or research functions. A university press falls into this category even if it seems to function as a traditional publisher.  Societies, associations and government agencies: There aren’t that many government-published OA journals, not enough to create a separate category.  Traditional publishers: Companies (or publisher names) that publish subscription journals as well as multiple OA journals.  Open access publishers: Publishers that don’t appear to publish many subscription journals but do publish multiple OA journals.  Miscellaneous: Publisher names (frequently journal names) that don’t obviously fall into the other types and that only have one or two journals. I searched for information on non-obvious publisher names with more than two journals and assigned categories appropriately. I’m sure there are quite a few miscellaneous journals that are from universities, colleges, societies, associations or government agencies but where the nonEnglish publisher name didn’t make that obvious—but never more than a couple for each publisher name. 39 40 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Category Journals %Free Articles %Free Open Access 2,089 35% 182,599 14% Univ/college 5,273 87% 175,080 76% Traditional 1,027 38% 112,474 30% Society/govt 784 78% 46,543 53% Miscellaneous 1,120 77% 46,450 62% Table 6.1. Publisher category, overall Table 6.1 (sorted by number of 2017 articles) shows overall figures— and, unlike the rest of this chapter, does include journals with no 2017 articles. OA publishers have an even lower percentage of free (no-fee) journals than traditional publishers—and a much lower percentage of no-fee articles. Most added journals are from universities; thanks partly to more searching, there are fewer miscellaneous journals than last year. The rest of this chapter is subchapters in the order shown above, always ignoring journals with no 2017 articles. Open Access Publishers 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 Journals 1,846 1,895 1,886 1,843 1,657 1,342 %Free 37% 36% 34% 31% 30% 31% 182,599 174,311 166,782 167,231 144,525 120,797 14% 15% 15% 14% 15% 16% Articles %Free Table 6.2. Journals and ar cles by year, open access publishers This category is startlingly different from the others, with very few noAPC articles and very few new journals. The percentage of free journals is up from last year, but not the percentage of free articles. Except for a tiny drop in 2015, article count has grown every year. 6. Publisher Category 41 Figure 6.1. Free and pay ar cles by year, open access publishers Journals Largest: 600+ Large: 150-599 Med.: 60-149 Small: 20-59 Smallest: 1-19 %Free 60 233 429 827 297 3% 15% 28% 45% 51% Articles %Free 83,809 2% 49,293 12% 27,398 29% 19,423 51% 2,676 57% Table 6.3. Ar cle volume, open access publishers This year, a majority of articles in the smaller journals are in no-fee journals, but while most journals are smaller, the larger ones absolutely dominate article count. Jour. %APC %All Art. %APC %All $1,400+ 520 38% 25% 123,279 79% 68% $600-$1.399 545 40% 26% 16,810 11% 9% $200-$599 230 17% 11% 14,138 9% 8% $0.20-$199 69 5% 3% 2,046 1% 1% Free 725 35% 26,326 14% Table 6.4. APC levels, open access publishers 42 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 The shift toward high APCs continues. Average APC per article in feebased journals is $1,760; overall average is $1,513. Figure 6.2. Star ng dates, open access publishers Biomed STEM $1,400+ HSS 407 80 21 Articles 66,095 54,054 3,130 Revenue $150,875,630 $93,664,277 $8,401,204 $600-$1.399 186 163 29 Articles 5,103 10,451 1,256 Revenue $5,060,614 $11,352,267 $1,204,001 $200-$599 105 75 44 Revenue $2,913,172 $1,687,875 $861,220 $0.20-$199 33 12 16 Articles 1,619 124 303 Revenue $182,072 $13,788 $33,701 Free 255 226 194 Articles 13,022 8,327 4,977 Table 6.5. Ar cles and revenue by segment, open access publishers 6. Publisher Category 43 Figure 6.2 is distinctive in that there are so few pre-1998 journals and that APC-based startups have consistently outnumbered free ones. Table 6.5 is what you’d expect: lots of expensive biomed (that’s where the money is), very little HSS (that’s where the money is not). Region Journals %Free Articles %Free APCLand 1,077 16% 147,991 7% Eastern Europe 369 86% 11,912 77% Western Europe 243 50% 11,600 42% Pacific/English 62 31% 4,360 13% Asia 17 29% 2,438 7% Middle East 28 64% 1,988 42% Africa 45 38% 1,794 27% Latin America 5 100% 516 100% Table 6.6. Journals by region, open access publishers Note that here as elsewhere, the region table is sorted by 2017 article count. APCLand dominates this category, not surprisingly. Fee/APC Free % Pay % Visible 672 92.7% 1,342 98.7% Obscure 53 7.3% 18 1.3% Table 6.7. Visibility, open access publishers Universi es, Colleges and Ins tutes 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 Journals 5,003 5,078 4,881 4,559 4,177 3,708 %Free 86% 87% 87% 87% 87% 88% 175,080 171,035 162,064 149,559 131,569 118,069 76% 76% 76% 75% 77% 77% Articles %Free Table 6.8. Journals and ar cles by year, university-published Universities publish a large and growing number of OA journals, consistently mostly free. While article count has grown every year, many 44 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 university journals post online months after the issue date: I’d be surprised if the final 2017 article count was not at least a couple of thousand higher. Figure 6.3. Free and pay ar cles by year, university-published Journals %Free Articles %Free Largest: 600+ 13 31% 8,827 12% Large: 150-599 157 56% 24,536 50% Med.: 60-149 780 78% 50,195 77% Small: 20-59 2,885 89% 77,444 89% Smallest: 1-19 1,168 90% 14,078 89% Table 6.9. Ar cle volume, university-published University journals tend to be small—and the few largest ones are the only area in which APC-charging journals outnumber free ones. Table 6.10 shows that the handful of expensive journals publish far more articles per journal than the cheaper and free ones. Average cost per article among fee-charging journals is $543; among all journals, $130. Both of these figures are lower than in last year’s study. 6. Publisher Category 45 Jour. %APC %All Art. %APC %All $1,400+ 32 5% 1% 6,595 16% 4% $600-$1.399 40 6% 1% 2,850 7% 2% $200-$599 116 17% 2% 9,582 23% 5% $0.20-$199 511 73% 10% 22,807 55% 13% Free 4,574 87% 133,246 76% Table 6.10. APC levels, university-published Figure 6.4. Star ng dates, university-published There were quite a few early OA journals; steady growth accelerating after 2005; and a peak in 2012-2013 with continuing healthy growth since then—and fee journals always a small minority. Table 6.11 is what you might expect: most journals and articles in no-fee HSS and STEM journals, with what little revenue there is mostly concentrated in high-priced biomed and STEM journals and, to a lesser extent, medium-priced journals in those segments. 46 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Biomed $1,400+ Articles Revenue $600-$1.399 Articles Revenue $200-$599 Articles Revenue $0.20-$199 Revenue Free Articles 17 4,143 $9,244,270 10 670 $585,990 38 3,934 $1,369,079 67 $303,217 484 20,078 STEM 11 2,298 $5,513,698 20 1,955 $1,898,664 47 4,015 $1,505,291 198 $609,352 893 31,970 HSS 4 154 $278,841 7 225 $194,039 30 1,633 $550,937 234 $658,257 2,943 81,198 Table 6.11. Ar cles and revenue by segment, university-published Region Journals %Free Articles %Free Latin America 1,523 95% 55,993 89% Eastern Europe 826 84% 34,996 72% Asia 1,035 71% 25,978 60% Western Europe 885 94% 25,550 86% Middle East 402 85% 16,594 76% Pacific/English 257 94% 6,685 92% APCLand 32 13% 6,595 1% Africa 43 65% 2,689 64% Table 6.12. Journals by region, university-published Latin America has the most university-published journals and articles; Asia has seen the fastest growth in DOAJ listings. Fee/APC Free % Pay % Visible 3,796 83.0% 642 92.2% Obscure 776 17.0% 54 7.8% Table 6.13. Visibility, university-published 6. Publisher Category 47 Unfortunately, quite a few university journals fail to make their no-fee status clear—roughly two-thirds of all the obscure free cases. Tradi onal Publishers 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 Journals 997 1,003 917 783 566 476 %Free 39% 39% 39% 39% 39% 40% Articles 107,935 97,674 75,186 56,298 39,777 29,337 %Free 31% 32% 32% 36% 34% 37% Table 6.14. Journals and ar cles by year, tradi onal publishers This group of mostly fee-based journals is also growing rapidly in DOAJ and shows constant, substantial but slowing growth in article count. Note that some of these journals (possibly most of the 39% free) are sponsored by societies or universities. Figure 6.5. Free and pay ar cles by year, tradi onal publishers 48 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Journals Largest: 600+ Large: 150-599 Med.: 60-149 Small: 20-59 Smallest: 1-19 %Free 22 109 267 451 148 36% 28% 42% 42% 30% Articles %Free 49,605 27% 22,402 22% 20,626 40% 13,865 44% 1,437 35% Table 6.15. Ar cle volume, tradi onal publishers Jour. %APC %All $1,400+ 351 55% 34% $600-$1.399 239 38% 23% $200-$599 37 6% 4% $0.20-$199 8 1% 1% Free 392 38% Art. %APC %All 55,743 75% 52% 15,175 20% 14% 3,534 5% 3% 281 0% 0% 33,202 31% Table 6.16. APC levels, tradi onal publishers More than half of APC-charging journals are at the most expensive level—and the average cost per article in fee journals is $2,120, highest of any category, although including non-fee journals brings the average down to $1,473, just below open access publishers. (A reminder: all average costs are weighted averages, based on number of articles, not number of journals. If one journal charges $1,000 and has 100 articles and nine others charge $100 and have 11 articles each, the average charge is $552, not $190.) Figure 6.6 is distinctive (even more so as more journals have entered DOAJ), with almost no traditional-publisher gold OA activity before 2004 and a sharp spike in 2014-2015. 6. Publisher Category 49 Figure 6.6. Star ng dates, tradi onal publishers Biomed $1,400+ Articles Revenue $600-$1.399 Articles Revenue $200-$599 Articles Revenue $0.20-$199 Articles Revenue Free Articles 235 21,311 $55,300,358 78 7,394 $7,025,276 20 1,761 $876,132 2 99 $8,588 163 10,557 STEM 91 34,148 $86,141,808 119 6,086 $6,316,439 13 1,390 $647,290 3 160 $20,871 146 20,624 Table 6.17. Ar cles and revenue by segment, tradi onal publishers HSS 12 284 $542,415 35 1,695 $1,955,079 3 383 $160,900 2 22 $1,192 75 2,021 50 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 While both biomed and STEM are top-heavy as expected (with expensive journals dominating article count and revenue), what’s a little unusual is that STEM yielded substantially more revenue than biomed. Region Journals %Free Articles %Free APCLand 780 41% 87,707 24% Western Europe 174 18% 22,554 47% Eastern Europe 22 82% 1,098 75% Asia 7 71% 445 57% Pacific/English 9 22% 442 14% Latin America 4 100% 164 100% Middle East 1 100% 64 100% Table 6.18. Journals by region, tradi onal publishers APCLand dominates, followed by Western Europe and Pacific/English. Fee/APC Free % Pay % Visible 363 92.6% 623 98.1% Obscure 29 7.4% 12 1.9% Table 6.19. Visibility, tradi onal publishers Only 41 obscure cases, but that’s 41 too many, especially for traditional publishers—and most especially the 12 obscure fee cases. Socie es, Associa ons and Government Agencies 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 Journals 759 772 747 707 645 591 %Free 78% 78% 79% 79% 80% 80% Articles 46,543 43,502 41,496 39,489 35,280 32,006 %Free 53% 55% 57% 53% 52% 52% Table 6.20. Journals and ar cles by year, society-published The smallest number of journals and essentially tied with miscellaneous publishers for articles (93 or 0.2% more), this is a slow-growing category with consistently more than three-quarters free journals and just over half no-fee articles. 6. Publisher Category 51 Figure 6.7. Free and pay ar cles by year, society-published Journals %Free Articles %Free Largest: 600+ 10 10% 9,749 10% Large: 150-599 59 37% 11,438 39% Med.: 60-149 181 69% 13,104 67% Small: 20-59 378 87% 10,826 86% Smallest: 1-19 131 88% 1,426 90% Table 6.21. Ar cle volume, society-published $1,400+ $600-$1.399 $200-$599 $0.20-$199 Free Jour. %APC %All Art. %APC %All 27 16% 3% 7,303 34% 16% 26 15% 3% 4,844 22% 10% 54 32% 7% 4,940 23% 11% 64 37% 8% 4,674 21% 10% 613 78% 24,782 53% Table 6.22. APC levels, society-published Table 6.21 is a classic pattern: the smaller the journal, the more likely it is to be free. Pricey journals do not dominate society publishing. 52 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Average charge per article in fee-based journals in 2017 was $1,116; for all journals, the average was $522. Both figures are up from last year’s study. Figure 6.8. Star ng dates, society-published Figure 6.8 is interesting because there are quite a few early OA journals and because the spike in new journals comes years earlier than in most other categories. 6. Publisher Category 53 Biomed $1,400+ Articles Revenue $600-$1.399 Articles Revenue $200-$599 Articles Revenue $0.20-$199 Articles Revenue Free Articles STEM 11 2,341 $5,198,090 8 588 $535,006 20 2,309 $790,399 15 1,919 $281,210 165 9,685 HSS 15 4,879 $11,516,515 17 4,256 $4,587,037 27 2,440 $825,311 31 2,133 $251,939 166 7,103 1 83 $157,700 0 0 $0 7 191 $82,346 18 622 $52,491 258 7,994 Table 6.23. Ar cles and revenue by segment, society-published Another category where STEM revenue outpace biomed revenue (more than doubling them in this case)—and as usual the most expensive journals get the lion’s share of the relatively small revenue. Region Journals %Free Articles %Free Pacific/English 122 68% 13,581 28% Latin America 185 82% 11,568 73% Western Europe 179 88% 8,488 66% Eastern Europe 115 81% 5,261 73% Asia 111 63% 4,520 45% Middle East 36 81% 1,889 48% Africa 11 55% 1,236 16% Table 6.24. Journals by region, society-published Fee/APC Visible Obscure Free % 477 135 Table 6.25. Visibility, society-published Pay 77.9% 22.1% % 153 17 90.0% 10.0% 54 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 As with miscellaneous publishers, societies have a problem with obscurity: more than one out of five free journals lacks clarity on its status. Miscellaneous Since the only thing these publishers have in common is that they only publish one or two journals (and aren’t obviously universities or societies), there’s not much to say about them, but the usual set of tables and figures is here for the record. 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 Journals 1,063 1,089 1,050 984 854 756 %Free 77% 77% 78% 79% 80% 80% Articles 46,450 46,956 41,941 37,645 31,974 27,557 %Free 62% 60% 62% 65% 67% 68% Table 6.26. Journals and ar cles by year, miscellaneous Figure 6.9. Free and pay ar cles by year, miscellaneous 6. Publisher Category 55 Journals %Free Articles %Free Largest: 600+ 11 64% 6,954 52% Large: 150-599 56 38% 9,681 34% Med.: 60-149 196 62% 12,256 61% Small: 20-59 572 83% 15,279 82% Smallest: 1-19 228 87% 2,280 88% Table 6.27. Ar cle volume, miscellaneous Jour. %APC %All Art. %APC %All $1,400+ 19 8% 2% 3,082 17% 7% $600-$1.399 35 14% 3% 1,580 9% 3% $200-$599 68 27% 6% 5,025 28% 11% $0.20-$199 131 52% 12% 8,009 45% 17% Free 867 77% 28,754 62% Table 6.28. APC levels, miscellaneous Average charge per article in fee-charging journals was $622 in 2017; across all journals, it averaged $237. Figure 6.10. Star ng dates, miscellaneous 56 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Biomed $1,400+ Articles Revenue $600-$1.399 Articles Revenue $200-$599 Articles Revenue $0.20-$199 Articles Revenue Free Articles STEM 16 2,833 $6,415,440 16 773 $782,815 25 2,640 $953,225 23 2,587 $240,250 149 7,510 HSS 2 130 $195,850 12 664 $537,281 22 1,531 $562,918 48 3,450 $282,185 172 6,279 1 119 $505,393 6 143 $107,906 16 854 $256,043 53 1,972 $166,638 502 14,965 Table 6.29. Ar cles and revenue by segment, miscellaneous Region Journals %Free Articles %Free Western Europe 361 82% 13,211 65% Eastern Europe 201 73% 8,756 61% Asia 123 59% 8,070 31% Pacific/English 143 83% 5,964 82% Latin America 116 89% 4,777 76% Middle East 96 79% 4,685 74% Africa 22 50% 967 33% Table 6.30. Journals by region, miscellaneous Fee/APC Visible Obscure Free % 674 191 Table 6.31. Visibility, miscellaneous Pay 77.9% 22.1% % 221 32 87.4% 12.6% 6. Publisher Category 57 Highlights and Key Points  Universities and colleges publish far more journals than any other category, three-quarters of them free—but open access publishers publish the most articles, six-sevenths of them for fees.  As a rule, the larger the journal, the more likely it is to have fees— and relatively expensive journals tend to publish more articles than those with lower fees.  Biomed journals yield the most revenue, mostly for open access publishers; traditional and society publishers get more revenue from STEM than from biomed,  Most journals lacking clear statements about existence of APCs and their size are from universities—but the percentage of obscure fee statements is highest in society and miscellaneous journals. 7. Country of Publica on The set of journals covered in this report comes from 110 different countries. A table of those countries takes up four or five pages, and one table doesn’t provide much information. It appears more useful to look at regions—and to split out APCLand, primarily international publishers, as a region all its own. That’s what Chapters 12 through 19 do. This chapter offers some partial lists: a list of countries in APCLand with 2017 journal and article counts, a table showing all countries in OAWorld alphabetically with 2017 journal and article counts, and partial lists of countries ranked in different ways. When it appears, Gold Open Access by Country 2012-2017 will offer details of OA journals in each region and country(with more than a few journals), without distinguishing APCLand from OAWorld. Note that last year’s report included journals from 116 countries (the book says “117,” but Iran was inadvertently split into two forms of the country name). The differences: Palestine has one journal—but it has not published articles in 2016 or 2017; journals from Azerbaijan, British Virgin Islands, Brunei Darussalam, Kosova, Madagascar and Viet Nam have disappeared from DOAJ; and Puerto Rico is new to the list. APCLand by Country Table 7.1 shows the 29 countries represented in APCLand. Some APCLand publishers use the same country for most or all of their journals. Others distribute country names, possibly because the publishers operate in many countries. As compared to last year, Argentina, Greece, Jordan and Mexico now have APCLand journals; there are no longer 58 7. Country of Publication 59 active APCLand journals from Chile, France, New Zealand, Peru, Poland or the Russian Federation. As you’d expect, there are six primary countries in APCLand—ones with more than 10,000 (and more than 6,500) 2017 articles. In descending order by 2016 article volume, they are the United Kingdom, Switzerland, the United States, Egypt, Netherlands and India. Only two of the six countries, Netherlands and India, have a significant number of free journals. Country Journals %Free Articles %Free Argentina 1 100% 68 100% Australia 4 50% 185 73% China 37 84% 2,278 91% Colombia 2 100% 40 100% Egypt 377 12% 18,590 10% Georgia 1 100% 80 100% Germany 96 53% 6,459 73% Greece 1 100% 92 100% Hong Kong 6 50% 404 44% India 130 71% 10,324 65% Iran, Islamic Republic of 4 100% 132 100% Ireland 2 0% 136 0% Italy 3 67% 70 63% Japan 4 25% 390 25% Jordan 2 100% 86 100% Korea, Republic of 13 85% 816 90% Lithuania 1 100% 48 100% Mexico 3 100% 173 100% Netherlands 163 50% 14,535 40% Qatar 1 100% 26 100% Saudi Arabia 12 100% 1,191 100% Singapore 4 75% 143 87% South Africa 1 0% 22 0% Spain 27 96% 1,618 96% Switzerland 222 23% 56,179 4% 60 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Country Taiwan, Province of China Thailand United Kingdom United States Journals %Free Articles %Free 9 100% 944 100% 2 0% 85 0% 654 8% 87,542 2% 108 5% 39,657 1% Table 7.1. Countries in APCLand OAWorld: The Complete List Country Jour. %Free Art. %Free Albania 2 100% 42 100% Algeria 13 100% 1,165 100% Argentina 150 95% 3,356 91% Australia 62 87% 2,611 63% Austria 38 84% 920 68% 1 100% 10 100% 17 65% 607 69% Barbados 1 100% 32 100% Belarus 6 100% 328 100% Belgium 32 94% 602 93% Bahamas Bangladesh Bolivia, Plurinational State of 4 100% 57 100% 13 77% 323 76% 1,059 92% 51,227 82% 36 53% 1,891 37% 1 0% 124 0% 114 85% 4,197 64% Chile 74 93% 2,031 83% China 41 41% 4,836 16% 247 99% 7,002 98% Bosnia and Herzegovina Brazil Bulgaria Cameroon Canada Colombia Congo, the Democratic Republic of the 1 100% 138 100% Costa Rica 46 100% 1,230 100% Croatia 81 90% 2,604 75% Cuba 44 100% 1,952 100% 7. Country of Publication 61 Country Cyprus Jour. %Free Art. %Free 4 75% 90 72% Czech Republic 79 84% 2,624 71% Denmark 15 93% 229 84% Ecuador 35 100% 1,326 100% Egypt 7 43% 158 49% El Salvador 1 100% 26 100% Estonia 14 100% 244 100% Ethiopia 3 100% 156 100% Finland 18 83% 532 72% France 169 88% 14,480 95% 1 100% 46 100% 164 69% 10,240 48% Ghana 5 40% 85 48% Greece 26 65% 1,079 64% Guam 1 0% 5 0% Guatemala 1 100% 15 100% Hong Kong 14 43% 358 81% Hungary 21 90% 684 82% 6 100% 313 100% 59 54% 6,238 22% Georgia Germany Iceland India Indonesia 970 70% 21,006 64% Iran, Islamic Republic of 303 84% 12,364 72% Iraq 17 12% 1,380 6% Ireland 11 100% 205 100% 3 100% 82 100% 262 82% 7,950 78% 1 0% 5 0% 12 50% 565 28% Kazakhstan 1 0% 13 0% Kenya 3 0% 268 0% 46 63% 2,357 53% 2 100% 38 100% Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Korea, Republic of Kyrgyzstan 62 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Country Latvia Jour. %Free Art. %Free 10 80% 387 69% Lebanon 1 100% 23 100% Libya 3 67% 135 59% 32 78% 686 68% Luxembourg 2 100% 16 100% Macedonia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Malaysia 7 71% 354 34% 32 72% 1,241 53% Malta 2 100% 25 100% Mauritius 1 100% 11 100% Mexico 92 88% 2,831 84% Moldova, Republic of Lithuania 22 64% 875 62% Mongolia 3 67% 61 30% Montenegro 6 67% 287 70% Morocco 10 90% 215 89% Nepal 15 100% 428 100% Netherlands 46 83% 1,254 90% New Zealand 12 92% 172 93% 2 100% 20 100% Nicaragua Nigeria 5 40% 500 8% Norway 66 91% 1,216 93% 5 100% 191 100% Pakistan 33 67% 1,673 33% Paraguay 5 100% 100 100% 33 97% 1,096 96% 5 80% 246 40% Poland 430 86% 16,485 74% Portugal 82 88% 2,485 74% Puerto Rico 2 100% 19 100% Qatar 4 75% 85 88% Romania 255 80% 8,495 69% Russian Federation 189 89% 12,229 83% Oman Peru Philippines 7. Country of Publication 63 Country Saudi Arabia Serbia Singapore Slovakia Jour. %Free Art. %Free 2 50% 264 10% 121 90% 4,005 73% 4 25% 204 8% 38 76% 1,020 69% Slovenia 48 96% 1,356 87% South Africa 70 37% 2,860 30% 524 96% 14,714 94% 8 100% 213 100% Sweden 45 58% 1,890 37% Switzerland 44 52% 3,276 46% Taiwan, Province of China 16 69% 643 30% Thailand 16 81% 737 83% Tunisia 5 60% 179 30% Turkey Spain Sri Lanka 214 89% 10,393 80% Turkmenistan 1 100% 10 100% Uganda 1 0% 850 0% Ukraine 116 61% 6,945 55% 6 0% 268 0% United Kingdom 290 39% 19,977 18% United States 405 74% 24,052 46% Uruguay 14 100% 307 100% Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of 20 85% 371 60% 1 100% 12 100% United Arab Emirates Yemen Table 7.2. Countries in OAWorld, alphabe c This table includes only journals with 2017 articles. Countries with the Most Journals and Ar cles Table 7.3 shows OAWorld countries with at least four serious OA journals, from the most journals to the fewest. Table 7.4 shows the same data, arranged from highest to lowest percentage of free journals. Table 7.5 shows countries with more than 200 OA articles in 2016, from most 64 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 articles to fewest. Finally, Table 7.6 shows the same data as Table 7.5, but in order by percentage appearing in free journals. Country Journals %Free Brazil 1,059 92% Indonesia 970 70% Spain 524 96% Poland 430 86% United States 405 74% Iran, Islamic Republic of 303 84% United Kingdom 290 39% Italy 262 82% Romania 255 80% Colombia 247 99% Turkey 214 89% Russian Federation 189 89% France 169 88% Germany 164 69% Argentina 150 95% Serbia 121 90% Ukraine 116 61% Canada 114 85% Mexico 92 88% Portugal 82 88% Croatia 81 90% Czech Republic 79 84% Chile 74 93% South Africa 70 37% Norway 66 91% Australia 62 87% India 59 54% Slovenia 48 96% Costa Rica 46 100% Korea, Republic of 46 63% 7. Country of Publication 65 Country Netherlands Sweden Cuba Switzerland China Austria Slovakia Bulgaria Ecuador Pakistan Peru Belgium Lithuania Malaysia Greece Moldova, Republic of Hungary Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Finland Bangladesh Iraq Taiwan, Province of China Thailand Denmark Nepal Estonia Hong Kong Uruguay Algeria Bosnia and Herzegovina Japan New Zealand Journals %Free 46 83% 45 58% 44 100% 44 52% 41 41% 38 84% 38 76% 36 53% 35 100% 33 67% 33 97% 32 94% 32 78% 32 72% 26 65% 22 64% 21 90% 20 85% 18 83% 17 65% 17 12% 16 69% 16 81% 15 93% 15 100% 14 100% 14 43% 14 100% 13 100% 13 77% 12 50% 12 92% 66 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Country Journals %Free Ireland 11 100% Latvia 10 80% Morocco 10 90% Sri Lanka 8 100% Egypt 7 43% Macedonia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of 7 71% Belarus 6 100% Iceland 6 100% Montenegro 6 67% United Arab Emirates 6 0% Ghana 5 40% Nigeria 5 40% Oman 5 100% Paraguay 5 100% Philippines 5 80% Tunisia 5 60% Bolivia, Plurinational State of 4 100% Cyprus 4 75% Qatar 4 75% Singapore 4 25% Table 7.3. OAWorld countries with four or more journals, ranked by journals 7. Country of Publication 67 Country Costa Rica Cuba Ecuador Nepal Estonia Uruguay Algeria Ireland Sri Lanka Belarus Iceland Oman Paraguay Bolivia, Plurinational State of Colombia Peru Spain Slovenia Argentina Belgium Denmark Chile Brazil New Zealand Norway Hungary Croatia Serbia Morocco Turkey Russian Federation France Journals %Free 46 100% 44 100% 35 100% 15 100% 14 100% 14 100% 13 100% 11 100% 8 100% 6 100% 6 100% 5 100% 5 100% 4 100% 247 99% 33 97% 524 96% 48 96% 150 95% 32 94% 15 93% 74 93% 1,059 92% 12 92% 66 91% 21 90% 81 90% 121 90% 10 90% 214 89% 189 89% 169 88% 68 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Country Journals %Free Mexico 92 88% Portugal 82 88% Australia 62 87% Poland 430 86% Canada 114 85% Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of 20 85% Austria 38 84% Iran, Islamic Republic of 303 84% Czech Republic 79 84% Finland 18 83% Netherlands 46 83% Italy 262 82% Thailand 16 81% Romania 255 80% Latvia 10 80% Philippines 5 80% Lithuania 32 78% Bosnia and Herzegovina 13 77% Slovakia 38 76% Cyprus 4 75% Qatar 4 75% United States 405 74% Malaysia 32 72% Macedonia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of 7 71% Indonesia 970 70% Germany 164 69% Taiwan, Province of China 16 69% Pakistan 33 67% Montenegro 6 67% Greece 26 65% Bangladesh 17 65% Moldova, Republic of 22 64% 7. Country of Publication 69 Country Korea, Republic of Ukraine Tunisia Sweden India Bulgaria Switzerland Japan Hong Kong Egypt China Ghana Nigeria United Kingdom South Africa Singapore Iraq United Arab Emirates Journals %Free 46 63% 116 61% 5 60% 45 58% 59 54% 36 53% 44 52% 12 50% 14 43% 7 43% 41 41% 5 40% 5 40% 290 39% 70 37% 4 25% 17 12% 6 0% Table 7.4. Countries with four or more OA journals ranked by free journal % 70 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Country Brazil United States Indonesia United Kingdom Poland Spain France Iran, Islamic Republic of Russian Federation Turkey Germany Romania Italy Colombia Ukraine India China Canada Serbia Argentina Switzerland South Africa Mexico Czech Republic Australia Croatia Portugal Korea, Republic of Chile Cuba Bulgaria Sweden Articles %Free 51,227 82% 24,052 46% 21,006 64% 19,977 18% 16,485 74% 14,714 94% 14,480 95% 12,364 72% 12,229 83% 10,393 80% 10,240 48% 8,495 69% 7,950 78% 7,002 98% 6,945 55% 6,238 22% 4,836 16% 4,197 64% 4,005 73% 3,356 91% 3,276 46% 2,860 30% 2,831 84% 2,624 71% 2,611 63% 2,604 75% 2,485 74% 2,357 53% 2,031 83% 1,952 100% 1,891 37% 1,890 37% 7. Country of Publication 71 Country Articles %Free Pakistan 1,673 33% Iraq 1,380 6% Slovenia 1,356 87% Ecuador 1,326 100% Netherlands 1,254 90% Malaysia 1,241 53% Costa Rica 1,230 100% Norway 1,216 93% Algeria 1,165 100% Peru 1,096 96% Greece 1,079 64% Slovakia 1,020 69% Austria 920 68% Moldova, Republic of 875 62% Uganda 850 0% Thailand 737 83% Lithuania 686 68% Hungary 684 82% Taiwan, Province of China 643 30% Bangladesh 607 69% Belgium 602 93% Japan 565 28% Finland 532 72% Nigeria 500 8% Nepal 428 100% Latvia 387 69% Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of 371 60% Hong Kong 358 81% Macedonia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of 354 34% Belarus 328 100% Bosnia and Herzegovina 323 76% Iceland 313 100% 72 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Country Uruguay Montenegro Kenya United Arab Emirates Saudi Arabia Philippines Estonia Denmark Morocco Sri Lanka Ireland Singapore Articles %Free 307 100% 287 70% 268 0% 268 0% 264 10% 246 40% 244 100% 229 84% 215 89% 213 100% 205 100% 204 8% Table 7.5. OAWorld countries with 200+ 2017 ar cles, ranked by ar cle count Country Cuba Ecuador Costa Rica Algeria Nepal Belarus Iceland Uruguay Estonia Sri Lanka Ireland Colombia Peru France Spain Norway Belgium Articles %Free 1,952 100% 1,326 100% 1,230 100% 1,165 100% 428 100% 328 100% 313 100% 307 100% 244 100% 213 100% 205 100% 7,002 98% 1,096 96% 14,480 95% 14,714 94% 1,216 93% 602 93% 7. Country of Publication 73 Country Argentina Netherlands Morocco Slovenia Mexico Denmark Russian Federation Chile Thailand Brazil Hungary Hong Kong Turkey Italy Bosnia and Herzegovina Croatia Portugal Poland Serbia Iran, Islamic Republic of Finland Czech Republic Montenegro Slovakia Bangladesh Latvia Romania Austria Lithuania Indonesia Canada Greece Articles %Free 3,356 91% 1,254 90% 215 89% 1,356 87% 2,831 84% 229 84% 12,229 83% 2,031 83% 737 83% 51,227 82% 684 82% 358 81% 10,393 80% 7,950 78% 323 76% 2,604 75% 2,485 74% 16,485 74% 4,005 73% 12,364 72% 532 72% 2,624 71% 287 70% 1,020 69% 607 69% 387 69% 8,495 69% 920 68% 686 68% 21,006 64% 4,197 64% 1,079 64% 74 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Country Articles %Free Australia 2,611 63% Moldova, Republic of 875 62% Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of 371 60% Ukraine 6,945 55% Korea, Republic of 2,357 53% Malaysia 1,241 53% Germany 10,240 48% Switzerland 3,276 46% United States 24,052 46% Philippines 246 40% Sweden 1,890 37% Bulgaria 1,891 37% Macedonia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of 354 34% Pakistan 1,673 33% Taiwan, Province of China 643 30% South Africa 2,860 30% Japan 565 28% India 6,238 22% United Kingdom 19,977 18% China 4,836 16% Saudi Arabia 264 10% Singapore 204 8% Nigeria 500 8% Iraq 1,380 6% Uganda 850 0% Kenya 268 0% United Arab Emirates 268 0% Table 7.6. OAWorld countries with 200+ 2017 ar cles, ranked by free % 7. Country of Publication 75 Highlights and Key Points Note that these are not directly in the tables.  Indonesia has by far the largest growth in DOAJ listings in 2017— and were it not for malware issues, Indonesia would pass Brazil for the largest number of journals (but not articles).  Spain and Poland now have more OAWorld journals than the United States, which has fewer such journals than in 2016. The biggest drop in OAWorld journals is India, which moved from seventh place to 27th place, with more than three-quarters of its journals disappearing or moving to APCLand (that’s at least partly due to Wolters Kluwer Medknow being added to APCLand). 8. Subject Segments Since the three broad subject segments were introduced in Chapter 2 and play roles in Chapters 4, 5 and 6, there’s no need to spend much space introducing them. A few notes:  The subject segments came about while I was writing Open-Access Journals: Idealism and Opportunism (ALA, 2015), one of the partial-survey precursors to this report. It seemed like a meaningful way to show substantial differences in OA practice in different subject areas—differences that grew more distinct as the survey became more complete.  Assignment of journals to one of 28 subjects is tricky and partly subjective. The subject summaries at the end of each chapter provide more information on what’s included in each subject; you can also find that information in Gold Open Access Journals 2011-2015: A Subject Approach.  Assignment of subjects to segments may also be arguable, at least in the cases of anthropology and psychology, which some might argue belong in STEM and biomed respectively.  I’ve used a consistent set of tables and graphs in each of the next three chapters, based on tables and graphs used in earlier chapters. The hope is to provide varied perspectives without taking up too much space.  Because there won’t be a full subject-by-subject book, I’ve added subject pages to each chapter, providing three tables for each subject with minimal commentary. An issue of Cites & Insights, most probably July or August 2018, will contain additional tables and figures for each subject. 76 9. Biology and Medicine Biomed—subjects related to human biology and the many subjects related to human medicine, including pharmacy, alternative medical practices and some aspects of nutrition—is where the money is. STEM has more articles, but biomed has more potential revenue. It’s also the only segment where a majority of journals charge APCs. Journals and Ar cles Free Pay Total Free% Journals Active 2017 Articles Art/Jrnl 1,256 1,216 60,852 50 1,438 1,332 139,983 105 2,694 2,548 200,835 79 47% 48% 30% Table 9.1. Journals and ar cles, biomed Just over half of biomed journals charge APCs, but those journals publish seven out of ten 2017 articles and average more than twice as many articles per journal as no-fee journals. Still: it’s worth noting that there were nearly 61,000 no-fee biomed articles in 2017. 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 Journals %Free Articles %Free 2,548 2,571 2,480 2,334 2,034 1,768 48% 48% 47% 46% 46% 46% 200,835 191,466 182,895 170,622 137,994 118,365 30% 32% 32% 32% 34% 35% Table 9.2. Journals and ar cles by year, biomed 77 78 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 The segment keeps growing, at roughly 9,000 articles per year since 2015 and much more rapidly from 2012 to 2014. Figure 9.1. Free and pay ar cles by year, biomed Ar cle Volume Journals %Free Articles %Free Largest: 600+ 52 10% 48,229 4% Large: 150-599 351 28% 68,308 22% Med.: 60-149 711 46% 49,979 46% Small: 20-59 1,123 56% 31,408 61% Smallest: 1-19 311 49% 2,911 54% Table 9.3. Ar cle volume, biomed Most articles are in larger journals (rarely free); most journals are small (mostly free). This may be the place to note that thousands of biomed articles may appear in the two megajournals, both in STEM. 9. Biology and Medicine 79 APC Levels Jour. %APC %All $1,400+ 710 49% 26% $600-$1.399 371 26% 14% $200-$599 210 15% 8% $0.20-$199 147 10% 5% Free 1,256 47% Art. %APC %All 96,723 69% 48% 14,528 10% 7% 18,408 13% 9% 10,324 7% 5% 60,852 30% Table 9.4. APC levels, biomed More than two-thirds of APC-paying articles are in the most expensive journals, as are just under half of all biomed articles. Average charge per article in fee-based journals in 2017 was $1,778; overall average was $1,240. Both figures are up roughly $100 (actually $127 and $91 respectively) from last year’s study. Star ng Date Figure 9.2. Star ng dates, biomed 80 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Most very early gold OA biomed journals were free, but after a fee-based burst in 2000-2003 and brief drop, the boom in fee-based journals since 2008 has outpaced the rapid growth of free journals in 20102015. Oddly, and obscured in the graph, new free journals outnumbered new fee-based ones in 2016-2017 (96 to 89). Regions Region Journals %Free Articles %Free APCLand 1,160 21% 115,899 14% Western Europe 274 46% 19,194 31% Latin America 256 84% 16,750 74% Asia 224 61% 13,626 36% Eastern Europe 247 81% 12,322 69% Middle East 237 89% 11,138 77% Pacific/English 121 50% 9,376 37% Africa 29 66% 2,530 27% Table 9.5. Journals by region, biomed APCLand dominates biomed publishing, with more than half of all articles. Western Europe is the only other “region” where most journals have fees. Publisher Category Category Journals %Free Articles %Free Open Access 986 26% 93,603 14% Traditional 498 33% 41,122 26% Univ/college 616 79% 32,925 61% Society/govt 219 75% 16,842 58% Miscellaneous 229 65% 16,343 46% Table 9.6. Publisher categories, biomed 9. Biology and Medicine 81 Growth and Shrinkage Change 2016-17 Grew 50%+ Grew 25-49.9% Grew 10-24.99% Even, ±9.99% Shrank 10-24.99% Shrank 25-49.99% Shrank 50%+ Count 407 279 283 724 335 319 347 Percent Cum% 15.1% 10.4% 25.5% 10.5% 36.0% 26.9% 62.8% 12.4% 75.3% 11.8% 87.1% 12.9% Table 9.7. Growth and shrinkage, biomed Subjects Subject Biology Medicine Journals %Free Articles %Free 337 34% 34,882 13% 2,211 50% 165,953 34% Table 9.8. Subjects, biomed I’m not equipped to prepare what could be a useful breakdown of medicine into, say, five or six topical areas. No other comment. Visibility Fee/APC Visible Obscure Free % 1,094 162 Pay 87.1% 12.9% % 1,396 40 97.2% 2.8% Table 9.9. Visibility, biomed Note: here, as in later chapters, order of tables may change to save pages. 82 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Countries in OAWorld (par al) Table 9.10 shows the countries with the most 2017 biomed articles, arranged in descending order. Country Journals %Free Articles %Free Brazil 160 78% 12,812 70% United Kingdom 94 22% 9,284 6% Iran, Islamic Republic of 172 88% 8,069 74% United States 90 46% 7,170 41% India 32 50% 4,446 17% Poland 89 74% 3,760 62% Russian Federation 53 98% 3,237 98% Indonesia 103 64% 2,877 60% Switzerland 26 38% 2,869 42% Turkey 54 100% 2,431 100% Ukraine 25 72% 2,399 48% China 14 43% 2,153 9% Italy 50 40% 1,809 37% Canada 21 71% 1,422 29% Korea, Republic of 21 71% 1,325 63% Colombia 29 100% 1,249 100% Spain 31 94% 1,239 98% Sweden 10 20% 1,154 22% Germany 19 63% 982 68% Pakistan 12 42% 981 12% Uganda 1 0% 850 0% Australia 8 50% 750 14% South Africa 17 65% 713 52% Cuba 16 100% 665 100% Romania 21 86% 642 74% Serbia 14 71% 617 49% Table 9.10. Countries with more than 600 ar cles, biomed 9. Biology and Medicine 83 Biology: Selected Tables 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 Journals 337 342 336 326 284 246 %Free 34% 33% 33% 31% 30% 30% Articles 34,882 31,506 31,541 28,384 22,297 18,693 %Free 13% 14% 14% 14% 15% 15% Table 9.11. Journals and ar cles by year, biology Jour. %APC %All Art. %APC %All $1,400+ 129 53% 36% 23,486 77% 67% $600-$1.399 61 25% 17% 3,329 11% 10% $200-$599 29 12% 8% 1,582 5% 5% $0.20-$199 24 10% 7% 1,924 6% 6% Free 120 33% 4,561 13% Table 9.12. APC levels, biology Region Journals %Free Articles %Free APCLand 172 10% 22,203 4% Western Europe 31 32% 4,140 11% Pacific/English 21 38% 2,701 7% Eastern Europe 40 83% 2,178 56% Latin America 25 60% 2,104 45% Asia 30 60% 1,000 43% Middle East 15 73% 372 76% Africa 3 67% 184 23% Table 9.13. Journals by region, biology Average cost per article: $1,995 in APC journals, $1,734 overall. Biology includes all aspects of human biology and biochemistry. Areas such as marine biology are included in zoology (STEM). 84 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Medicine: Selected Tables 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 Journals 2,211 2,229 2,144 2,008 1,750 1,522 %Free 50% 50% 49% 48% 48% 48% 165,953 159,960 151,354 142,238 115,697 99,672 34% 36% 36% 36% 38% 38% Articles %Free Table 9.14. Journals and ar cles by year, medicine Jour. %APC %All $1,400+ 581 49% 25% $600-$1.399 310 26% 13% $200-$599 181 15% 8% $0.20-$199 123 10% 5% Free 1,136 49% Art. %APC %All 73,237 67% 44% 11,199 10% 7% 16,826 15% 10% 8,400 8% 5% 56,291 34% Table 9.15. APC levels, medicine Region Journals %Free Articles %Free APCLand 988 23% 93,696 16% Western Europe 243 48% 15,054 37% Latin America 231 87% 14,646 79% Asia 194 61% 12,626 35% Middle East 222 90% 10,766 77% Eastern Europe 207 80% 10,144 71% Pacific/English 100 53% 6,675 49% Africa 26 65% 2,346 28% Table 9.16. Journals by region, medicine Average cost per article: $1,719 in fee-charging journals, $1,136 overall. Includes all aspects of human health (except that some exercise and sports-related journals are in anthropology, HSS), including alternative medical systems and portions of nutrition. Veterinary medicine is included in zoology (STEM). 10. Science, Technology, Engineering and Math STEM—in this case, excluding human biology and medicine, as well as social sciences—includes slightly more gold OA journals than biomed, somewhat more 2017 articles, but somewhat less revenue. This chapter includes the two megajournals (in “Other Sciences”). Journals and Ar cles Free Pay Total Free% Journals Active 2017 Articles Art/Jrnl 1,688 1,603 74,303 46 1,126 1,006 151,363 150 2,814 2,609 225,666 86 60% 61% 33% Table 10.1. Journals and ar cles, STEM Six out of ten STEM journals don’t charge fees, but two-thirds of articles appear in the fee journals, which average more than three times as many articles per journal as free ones. 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 Journals 2,609 2,654 2,565 2,426 2,146 1,813 %Free 61% 61% 61% 60% 61% 63% 225,666 206,749 181,536 169,914 146,815 121,696 33% 34% 34% 33% 32% 34% Articles %Free Table 10.2. Journals and ar cles by year, STEM 85 86 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Article count keeps growing fairly rapidly in both free and pay journals, as is also shown in Figure 10.1. Figure 10.1. Free and pay ar cles by year, STEM Ar cle Volume Journals %Free Articles %Free Largest: 600+ 55 24% 108,789 15% Large: 150-599 185 30% 38,048 27% Med.: 60-149 583 52% 39,140 52% Small: 20-59 1,299 68% 34,394 69% Smallest: 1-19 487 72% 5,295 74% Table 10.2. Ar cle volume, STEM The largest journals dominate, and most medium and smaller journals are free, as are most of their articles. 10. Science, Technology, Engineering and Math 87 APC Levels Jour. %APC %All Art. %APC %All $1,400+ 199 18% 7% 100,048 66% 44% $600-$1.399 434 39% 15% 23,412 15% 10% $200-$599 192 17% 7% 13,284 9% 6% $0.20-$199 301 27% 11% 14,619 10% 6% Free 1,688 60% 74,303 33% Table 10.4. APC levels, STEM Unlike biomed, STEM has relatively few expensive journals—but since those journals include the two megajournals, they account for twothirds of all paid articles. Average cost per article has risen significantly, to $1,507 for fee journals (up from $1,303) and $1,011 across all journals (up from $847). Star ng Date Figure 10.2. Star ng dates, STEM 88 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 With more journals added (and removed), free journal startups always outnumbered pay journals, even during the 2012-2015 peak. Regions Region Journals %Free Articles %Free APCLand 582 28% 118,750 10% Western Europe 365 59% 30,572 59% Eastern Europe 549 81% 23,053 70% Latin America 393 83% 18,119 69% Asia 415 60% 14,695 43% Pacific/English 114 60% 12,119 28% Middle East 149 74% 6,190 67% Africa 42 62% 2,168 76% Table 10.5. Journals by region, STEM Eastern Europe has almost as many active journals as APCLand, predominantly free. But APCLand has more than twice as many articles as all of Europe, with slightly more than half of all STEM articles. Publisher Category Category Journals %Free Articles %Free Open Access 556 41% 76,864 11% Traditional 372 39% 66,947 31% Univ/college 1,169 76% 48,990 65% Society/govt 256 65% 20,811 34% Miscellaneous 256 67% 12,054 52% Table 10.6. Publisher categories, STEM Universities publish the most STEM journals (mostly free) while OA publishers produce the most articles (predominantly paid). 10. Science, Technology, Engineering and Math 89 Growth and Shrinkage Change 2015-16 Grew 50%+ Grew 25-49.9% Grew 10-24.99% Even, ±9.99% Shrank 10-24.99% Shrank 25-49.99% Shrank 50%+ Count 500 264 301 712 329 317 391 Percent Cum% 17.8% 9.4% 27.1% 10.7% 37.8% 25.3% 63.1% 11.7% 74.8% 11.3% 86.1% 13.9% Table 10.7. Growth and shrinkage, STEM Subjects Subject Journals %Free Articles %Free Agriculture 379 58% 21,662 39% Chemistry 139 51% 15,235 28% Computer Science 239 60% 10,143 43% Earth Sciences 329 68% 15,206 51% Ecology 266 62% 19,178 31% Engineering 342 64% 21,330 41% Mathematics 211 69% 8,376 52% Other Sciences 185 72% 67,122 10% Physics 137 45% 19,553 47% Technology 177 68% 17,832 64% Zoology 205 48% 10,029 31% Table 10.8 Subjects, STEM Visibility Fee/APC Visible Obscure Free % 1,445 242 Table 10.9. Visibility, STEM Pay 85.7% 14.3% % 1,064 56 95.0% 5.0% 90 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Countries in OAWorld (par al) Country Journals %Free Articles %Free Brazil 213 79% 13,330 64% France 42 64% 10,958 95% United States 81 54% 10,472 21% United Kingdom 81 21% 7,445 19% Germany 74 51% 7,259 37% Indonesia 296 61% 7,171 56% Poland 184 87% 7,051 78% Russian Federation 51 90% 3,020 79% Iran, Islamic Republic of 79 75% 2,804 64% Turkey 49 92% 2,763 81% China 25 36% 2,610 18% Romania 70 83% 2,457 79% Ukraine 45 67% 1,994 69% Serbia 46 91% 1,836 68% Spain 62 92% 1,833 89% Colombia 58 97% 1,703 96% Czech Republic 36 67% 1,662 56% India 17 59% 1,592 32% Bulgaria 20 45% 1,292 30% Italy 40 70% 1,264 65% Croatia 26 73% 1,218 48% Canada 24 63% 1,064 59% Algeria 8 100% 1,014 100% Mexico 22 59% 837 50% Table 10.10. Countries in OAWorld (par al), STEM Table 10.10 shows active journals and articles for countries with at least 600 STEM articles in 2017. 10. Science, Technology, Engineering and Math 91 Agriculture: Selected tables 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 Journals 379 381 377 358 319 285 %Free 58% 58% 58% 58% 57% 58% Articles 21,662 19,869 17,441 15,514 13,932 12,757 %Free 39% 40% 42% 43% 44% 45% Table 10.11. Journals and ar cles by year, agriculture Jour. %APC %All Art. %APC %All $1,400+ 23 14% 6% 5,623 42% 26% $600-$1.399 37 22% 9% 1,591 12% 7% $200-$599 31 19% 8% 1,955 15% 9% $0.20-$199 74 45% 19% 4,101 31% 19% Free 228 58% 8,392 39% Table 10.12. APC levels, agriculture Region Journals %Free Articles %Free APCLand 52 25% 6,726 9% Latin America 89 67% 5,281 52% Eastern Europe 83 76% 4,104 63% Asia 69 51% 1,813 40% Middle East 28 54% 1,552 43% Western Europe 36 69% 1,212 60% Pacific/English 14 36% 671 21% Africa 8 63% 303 54% Table 10.13. Journals by region, agriculture Average cost per article: $1,197 for fee journals, $733 overall. Includes some aspects of aquaculture (but not marine biology or fisheries), food processing and some aspects of nutrition. 92 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Chemistry: Selected tables Journals %Free Articles %Free 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 139 51% 15,235 28% 146 49% 13,734 29% 143 48% 12,001 29% 135 42% 12,537 19% 122 42% 12,582 17% 93 45% 11,458 16% Table 10.14. Journals and ar cles by year, chemistry Jour. %APC %All Art. %APC %All $1,400+ 16 18% 10% 6,055 55% 40% $600-$1.399 40 45% 25% 2,483 23% 16% $200-$599 16 18% 10% 1,528 14% 10% $0.20-$199 16 18% 10% 870 8% 6% Free 73 45% 4,299 28% Table 10.15. APC levels, chemistry Region Journals %Free Articles %Free APCLand 48 23% 8,685 13% Western Europe 11 36% 2,343 57% Pacific/English 4 50% 1,392 18% Eastern Europe 29 72% 1,101 67% Latin America 8 50% 644 13% Asia 22 68% 506 53% Middle East 14 86% 463 89% Africa 3 67% 101 76% Table 10.16. Journals by region, chemistry Average cost per article: $1,340 for APC-charging journals, $962 across all journals, both up more than 13% from last time. Biochemistry is typically included in biology. 10. Science, Technology, Engineering and Math 93 Computer Science: Selected tables 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 Journals 239 244 231 207 182 147 %Free 60% 60% 60% 62% 63% 63% Articles 10,143 9,870 8,656 7,301 6,570 5,437 %Free 43% 43% 47% 55% 50% 51% Table 10.17. Journals and ar cles by year, computer science Jour. %APC %All Art. %APC %All $1,400+ 12 11% 5% 1,069 18% 11% $600-$1.399 41 39% 16% 1,674 29% 17% $200-$599 20 19% 8% 1,318 23% 13% $0.20-$199 33 31% 13% 1,724 30% 17% Free 156 60% 4,358 43% Table 10.18. APC levels, computer science Region APCLand Eastern Europe Western Europe Asia Pacific/English Latin America Middle East Africa Journals 56 51 36 61 16 9 6 4 %Free 14% 82% 69% 67% 75% 100% 67% 50% Articles 3,625 2,036 2,012 1,152 825 268 147 78 %Free 5% 86% 28% 68% 84% 100% 63% 15% Table 10.19. Journals by region, computer science Average cost per article: $770 across APC-charging journals, $439 across all journals—both up substantially from last year, but still the lowest charges in STEM. Includes software, data processing, AI, robotics and portions of information science. 94 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Earth Sciences 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 Journals 329 338 330 316 285 256 %Free 68% 69% 69% 68% 69% 71% Articles 15,206 14,561 13,098 11,475 10,141 9,996 %Free 51% 54% 54% 58% 61% 66% Table 10.20. Journals and ar cles by year, earth sciences Jour. %APC %All Art. %APC %All $1,400+ 16 14% 5% 2,698 36% 18% $600-$1.399 57 49% 16% 2,739 37% 18% $200-$599 18 16% 5% 886 12% 6% $0.20-$199 25 22% 7% 1,133 15% 7% Free 235 67% 7,750 51% Table 10.21. APC levels, earth sciences Region APCLand Western Europe Latin America Eastern Europe Asia Middle East Pacific/English Africa Journals 62 90 63 72 23 10 8 1 %Free 39% 61% 89% 90% 52% 60% 63% 100% Articles 5,258 4,304 2,191 1,941 813 486 203 10 %Free 20% 58% 84% 87% 37% 42% 62% 100% Table 10.22. Journals by region, earth sciences Average cost per article: $1,137 for APC-based journals, $557 for all journals. Includes geography, geology, oceanography, some place-related fields (e.g., parts of tourism) and astronomy. 10. Science, Technology, Engineering and Math 95 Ecology: Selected tables 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 Journals 266 267 253 232 204 162 %Free 62% 62% 61% 61% 63% 64% Articles 19,178 15,963 13,127 11,485 9,512 7,677 %Free 31% 32% 31% 33% 36% 36% Table 10.23. Journals and ar cles by year, ecology Jour. %APC %All Art. %APC %All $1,400+ 29 27% 10% 7,854 60% 41% $600-$1.399 39 36% 14% 2,978 23% 16% $200-$599 14 13% 5% 844 6% 4% $0.20-$199 25 23% 9% 1,475 11% 8% Free 174 62% 6,027 31% Table 10.24. APC levels, ecology Region APCLand Western Europe Latin America Eastern Europe Pacific/English Asia Middle East Africa Journals %Free 57 44 47 47 23 27 14 7 32% 50% 87% 81% 52% 67% 79% 71% Articles 8,579 4,517 1,778 1,657 1,030 954 433 230 %Free 11% 34% 74% 59% 41% 37% 77% 72% Table 10.25. Journals by region, ecology Average cost per article: APC journals $1,273, overall $874—both up sharply (around $300) from last year. Includes environmental fields and any journal where much coverage seems devoted to ecological issues. 96 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Engineering: Selected tables Journals %Free Articles %Free 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 342 64% 21,330 41% 351 64% 18,115 46% 345 65% 16,511 48% 324 64% 16,098 46% 289 64% 14,060 45% 246 67% 11,196 44% Table 10.26. Journals and ar cles by year, engineering Jour. %APC %All Art. %APC %All $1,400+ 24 17% 6% 6,527 52% 31% $600-$1.399 53 38% 14% 2,249 18% 11% $200-$599 23 17% 6% 2,235 18% 10% $0.20-$199 39 28% 10% 1,608 13% 8% Free 233 63% 8,711 41% Table 10.27. APC levels, engineering Region Journals %Free Articles %Free APCLand 76 30% 5,973 21% Eastern Europe 91 76% 4,912 62% Asia 58 60% 3,024 34% Pacific/English 9 67% 2,590 4% Latin America 56 96% 2,133 96% Western Europe 24 46% 1,638 25% Middle East 22 86% 809 89% Africa 6 50% 251 43% Table 10.28. Journals by region, engineering Average cost per article: APC journals $1,189, overall $704—both much higher than last year. Distinguished from technology primarily based on journal titles and specific subject headings. 10. Science, Technology, Engineering and Math 97 Mathema cs: Selected tables 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 Journals 211 215 206 206 183 135 %Free 69% 67% 63% 60% 63% 70% Articles 8,376 8,103 9,282 11,867 10,040 7,935 %Free 52% 52% 42% 32% 32% 35% Table 10.29. Journals and ar cles by year, mathema cs Jour. $1,400+ $600-$1.399 $200-$599 $0.20-$199 Free 5 64 6 15 150 %APC %All Art. %APC %All 6% 2% 1,578 39% 19% 71% 27% 1,811 45% 22% 7% 3% 293 7% 3% 17% 6% 317 8% 4% 63% 4,377 52% Table 10.30. APC levels, mathema cs Region APCLand Eastern Europe Pacific/English Asia Western Europe Middle East Latin America Africa Journals %Free 51 53 16 35 24 18 13 1 24% 87% 81% 71% 75% 100% 100% 0% Articles 3,525 1,556 1,028 736 611 498 411 11 %Free 9% 83% 91% 71% 66% 100% 100% 0% Table 10.31. Journals by region, mathema cs Average cost per article: APC journals $1,272, overall $600. Includes statistics. 98 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Other Sciences: Selected tables 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 Journals 185 186 172 164 142 122 %Free 72% 73% 73% 73% 77% 80% Articles 67,122 65,566 56,226 51,964 44,572 32,788 %Free 10% 10% 10% 9% 8% 10% Table 10.32. Journals and ar cles by year, other sciences Jour. %APC %All Art. %APC %All $1,400+ 14 27% 7% 55,407 91% 83% $600-$1.399 13 25% 7% 3,070 5% 5% $200-$599 11 21% 6% 796 1% 1% $0.20-$199 14 27% 7% 1,307 2% 2% Free 144 73% 6,542 10% Table 10.33. APC levels, other sciences Region APCLand Pacific/English Western Europe Asia Latin America Eastern Europe Africa Middle East Journals 34 9 18 36 44 24 5 15 %Free 32% 56% 72% 67% 98% 88% 100% 80% Articles 55,554 2,368 2,309 1,936 1,793 1,291 989 882 %Free 1% 4% 36% 34% 93% 79% 100% 86% Table 10.34. Journals by region, other sciences Average cost per article: APC journals $1,919, overall $1,732—both up significantly from last year. Includes megajournals and multidisciplinary journals that appear to be mostly biomed and STEM, a small group of journals publishing conference reports and some fields that don’t appear to fit anywhere else. 10. Science, Technology, Engineering and Math 99 Physics: Selected tables 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 Journals 137 141 136 132 113 91 %Free 45% 45% 44% 42% 42% 48% Articles 19,553 15,766 14,544 13,098 9,186 7,451 %Free 47% 51% 52% 55% 50% 52% Table 10.35. Journals and ar cles by year, physics Jour. %APC %All Art. %APC %All $1,400+ 25 29% 16% 6,887 67% 35% $600-$1.399 40 46% 26% 2,422 24% 12% $200-$599 10 11% 7% 677 7% 3% $0.20-$199 12 14% 8% 295 3% 2% Free 66 43% 9,272 47% Table 10.36. APC levels, physics Region APCLand Western Europe Pacific/English Asia Eastern Europe Latin America Middle East Africa Journals 64 18 8 21 17 6 2 1 %Free 33% 33% 25% 52% 88% 67% 100% 0% Articles 12,449 4,063 1,537 558 530 296 109 11 %Free 39% 78% 18% 32% 75% 90% 100% 0% Table 10.37. Journals by region, physics Average cost per article: APC journals $1,537, overall $808. Includes optics. 100 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Technology: Selected tables Journals %Free Articles %Free 2017 2016 2015 177 68% 17,832 64% 177 68% 15,428 66% 173 67% 11,381 63% 2014 161 68% 9,590 67% 2013 134 70% 7,549 65% 2012 113 70% 6,444 63% Table 10.38. Journals and ar cles by year, technology Jour. %APC %All Art. %APC %All $1,400+ 14 22% 7% 4,612 72% 26% $600-$1.399 25 38% 13% 806 13% 5% $200-$599 13 20% 7% 451 7% 3% $0.20-$199 13 20% 7% 493 8% 3% Free 125 66% 11,470 64% Table 10.39. APC levels, technology Region Journals %Free Articles %Free APCLand 44 34% 6,072 14% Western Europe 24 63% 6,062 97% Eastern Europe 46 91% 2,245 91% Asia 27 74% 1,536 76% Latin America 20 95% 1,156 96% Pacific/English 10 60% 621 58% Middle East 4 75% 90 79% Africa 2 50% 50 54% Table 10.40. Journals by region, technology Average cost per article: APC journals $1,598, overall $570. Distinguished from engineering (and chemistry and physics) by journal titles and specific subjects: it’s a fuzzy distinction. 10. Science, Technology, Engineering and Math 101 Zoology: Selected tables 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 Journals 205 208 199 191 173 163 %Free 48% 49% 48% 49% 50% 50% Articles 10,029 9,774 9,269 8,985 8,671 8,557 %Free 31% 31% 33% 31% 32% 31% Table 10.41. Journals and ar cles by year, zoology Jour. %APC %All Art. %APC %All $1,400+ 21 19% 10% 1,738 25% 17% $600-$1.399 25 23% 12% 1,589 23% 16% $200-$599 30 27% 14% 2,301 33% 23% $0.20-$199 35 32% 16% 1,296 19% 13% Free 104 48% 3,105 31% Table 10.42. APC levels, zoology Region APCLand Latin America Eastern Europe Asia Western Europe Middle East Pacific/English Africa Journals %Free 38 38 36 36 33 16 4 4 18% 66% 61% 31% 67% 50% 25% 50% Articles 2,304 2,168 1,680 1,667 1,115 721 240 134 %Free 8% 37% 40% 25% 54% 40% 19% 68% Table 10.43. Journals by region, zoology Average cost per article: APC journals $807, overall $557. Includes veterinary medicine and marine biology. 11. Humani es and Social Sciences The humanities and social sciences (HSS) have more gold OA journals than other segments (nearly 4,800 in all), but they’re mostly smaller journals— and very few charge APCs. Total potential revenue is a tiny fraction of the other segments, less than one-fifteenth that of biomed. (For that matter, 46% of that HSS revenue is in Psychology, which could also be grouped with Medicine, leaving just over 3% as much revenue as biomed). Journals and Ar cles Free Pay Total Free% Journals Active 2017 Articles Art/Jrnl 4,227 3,972 111,155 28 558 539 25,490 47 4,785 4,511 136,645 30 88% 88% 81% Table 11.1. Journals and ar cles, HSS One out of eight journals charges fees; those journals average two-thirds more articles than free journals. 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 Journals 4,511 4,612 4,436 4,116 3,719 3,292 %Free 88% 88% 89% 89% 89% 90% 136,645 135,281 123,038 109,686 98,316 87,705 81% 80% 82% 82% 84% 84% Articles %Free Table 11.2. Journals and ar cles by year, HSS 102 11. Humanities and Social Sciences 103 Figure 11.1. Free and pay ar cles by year, HSS Many HSS journals have been added to DOAJ in 2017, yielding significantly higher article and journal counts. Ar cle Volume Journals Largest: 600+ Large: 150-599 Med.: 60-149 Small: 20-59 Smallest: 1-19 9 78 559 2,691 1,174 %Free Articles %Free 44% 6,465 35% 56% 10,994 49% 80% 34,460 79% 90% 71,035 90% 90% 13,691 90% Table 11.3. Ar cle volume, HSS As usual, larger journals are more likely to have fees, but there are few such HSS journals, where smallish journals dominate. Note that nine out of ten small and smallest journals are free, and free journals publish nine out of ten articles in the smaller journals. 104 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 APC Levels Jour. %APC %All Art. %APC %All $1,400+ 40 7% 1% 3,770 15% 3% $600-$1.399 80 14% 2% 3,319 13% 2% $200-$599 103 18% 2% 5,527 22% 4% $0.20-$199 335 60% 7% 12,874 51% 9% Free 4,227 88% 111,155 81% Table 11.4. APC levels, HSS More than three out of four fee-charging journals have low or nominal fees, and only 5% of HSS articles involve fees of $600 or more. Star ng Date Figure 11.2. Star ng dates, HSS Quite a few OA pioneers (nearly 500 before 2000) and steady growth ever since 2003, with a longer than usual peak from 2010 through 2015. For that matter, 360 new HSS journals emerged in the last two years. 11. Humanities and Social Sciences 105 Regions Region Journals %Free Articles %Free Latin America 1,184 99% 38,149 98% Western Europe 1,203 91% 31,637 88% Eastern Europe 737 85% 26,648 74% Asia 654 76% 13,130 71% Pacific/English 358 93% 9,537 90% Middle East 177 81% 7,892 64% APCLand 148 58% 7,664 36% Africa 50 34% 1,988 20% Table 11.5. Journals by region, HSS Publisher Category Category Journals %Free Articles %Free Univ/college 3,218 91% 93,165 87% Miscellaneous 578 87% 18,053 83% Open Access 304 64% 12,132 41% Society/govt 284 91% 8,890 90% Traditional 127 59% 4,405 46% Table 11.6. Publisher categories, HSS Universities and colleges dominate HSS publishing, with more than twice as many journals and articles as all others combined. Visibility Fee/APC Visible Obscure Free Table 11.7. Visibility, HSS % 3,443 780 Pay 81.5% 18.5% % 521 37 93.4% 6.6% 106 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Growth and Shrinkage Change 2016-17 Grew 50%+ Grew 25-49.9% Grew 10-24.99% Even, ±9.99% Shrank 10-24.99% Shrank 25-49.99% Shrank 50%+ Count 790 477 573 1,222 572 571 580 Percent Cum% 16.5% 10.0% 26.5% 12.0% 38.5% 25.5% 64.0% 12.0% 75.9% 11.9% 87.9% 12.1% Table 11.8. Growth and shrinkage, HSS Subjects Subject Journals %Free Articles %Free Anthropology 396 89% 12,276 79% Arts & Architecture 224 92% 6,170 85% Economics 609 79% 17,175 69% Education 657 84% 19,833 82% History 235 96% 6,933 95% Language & Literature 558 91% 16,860 86% Law 262 93% 6,641 91% Library Science 117 95% 2,969 97% Media & Communications 185 93% 5,379 93% Miscellany 195 86% 8,359 74% Philosophy 148 95% 4,082 96% Political Science 217 91% 6,342 91% Psychology 165 84% 6,894 54% Religion 156 86% 4,449 81% Sociology 387 88% 12,283 80% Table 11.9. Subjects, HSS 11. Humanities and Social Sciences 107 Countries in OAWorld (par al) Country Journals %Free Articles %Free Brazil 686 99% 25,085 98% Spain 431 97% 11,642 94% Indonesia 571 76% 10,958 71% United States 234 92% 6,410 91% Russian Federation 85 82% 5,972 78% Poland 157 92% 5,674 76% Romania 164 79% 5,396 63% Turkey 111 83% 5,199 70% Italy 172 98% 4,877 97% Colombia 160 99% 4,050 99% United Kingdom 115 64% 3,248 52% France 120 98% 3,121 99% Ukraine 46 50% 2,552 51% Argentina 112 99% 2,387 99% Germany 71 89% 1,999 79% Portugal 64 88% 1,802 72% Mexico 65 97% 1,775 99% Canada 69 97% 1,711 96% South Africa 38 21% 1,600 11% Serbia 61 93% 1,552 89% Iran, Islamic Republic of 52 85% 1,491 82% Australia 47 91% 1,296 74% Chile 51 100% 1,203 100% Norway 57 89% 1,088 92% Netherlands 39 82% 1,064 89% Croatia 45 98% 1,044 98% Ecuador 20 100% 988 100% Cuba 16 100% 936 100% Iraq 4 25% 889 7% Czech Republic 38 97% 863 96% Moldova, Republic of 18 61% 747 60% Slovenia 34 100% 738 100% Costa Rica 28 100% 690 100% Table 11.10. Countries in OAWorld with 600 or more HSS tles 108 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Anthropology: Selected tables 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 Journals 396 409 402 368 334 294 %Free 89% 89% 89% 89% 90% 90% Articles 12,276 11,741 11,576 9,686 8,749 8,152 %Free 79% 80% 82% 86% 86% 86% Table 11.11. Journals and ar cles by year, anthropology Jour. $1,400+ $600-$1.399 $200-$599 $0.20-$199 Free 5 8 11 24 378 %APC %All Art. %APC %All 10% 1% 341 13% 3% 17% 2% 147 6% 1% 23% 3% 446 17% 4% 50% 6% 1,654 64% 13% 89% 9,688 79% Table 11.12. APC levels, anthropology Region Western Europe Eastern Europe Latin America Pacific/English APCLand Asia Middle East Africa Journals 141 80 94 28 16 23 13 1 %Free 92% 88% 98% 86% 50% 70% 85% 100% Articles 3,776 3,345 2,851 857 513 472 457 5 %Free 89% 58% 97% 82% 46% 72% 74% 100% Table 11.13. Journals by region, anthropology Average cost per article: APC journals $521, overall $110. Includes archæology and sports sciences. 11. Humanities and Social Sciences 109 Arts & Architecture: Selected tables 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 Journals 224 237 225 214 189 164 %Free 92% 92% 92% 93% 93% 93% Articles 6,170 6,043 5,501 5,194 4,499 4,004 %Free 85% 88% 87% 88% 87% 89% Table 11.14. Journals and ar cles by year, arts & architecture Jour. $1,400+ $600-$1.399 $200-$599 $0.20-$199 Free 3 3 6 8 228 %APC %All Art. %APC %All 15% 1% 75 8% 1% 15% 1% 157 17% 3% 30% 2% 390 42% 6% 40% 3% 306 33% 5% 92% 5,242 85% Table 11.15. APC levels, arts & architecture Region Western Europe Latin America Eastern Europe Pacific/English APCLand Asia Middle East Journals 102 45 28 20 7 18 4 %Free 90% 100% 93% 95% 71% 83% 75% Articles 2,467 1,377 1,070 464 339 280 173 %Free 85% 100% 90% 79% 45% 82% 34% Table 11.16. Journals by region, arts & architecture Average cost per article: APC journals $511, overall $77. Includes most journals related to the fine arts and some related to architecture and urban planning—but note two other subjects: language & literature and media & communications. 110 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Economics: Selected tables 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 Journals 609 606 573 520 462 401 %Free 79% 80% 80% 80% 81% 82% Articles 17,175 17,352 15,537 14,660 13,495 12,578 %Free 69% 65% 69% 70% 71% 71% Table 11.17. Journals and ar cles by year, economics Jour. $1,400+ $600-$1.399 $200-$599 $0.20-$199 Free 5 10 24 89 506 %APC %All Art. %APC %All 4% 1% 109 2% 1% 8% 2% 428 8% 2% 19% 4% 1,595 30% 9% 70% 14% 3,110 59% 18% 80% 11,933 69% Table 11.18. APC levels, economics Region Eastern Europe Latin America Asia Middle East Western Europe APCLand Pacific/English Africa Journals %Free 178 139 132 40 53 36 26 5 72% 99% 78% 65% 77% 69% 81% 40% Articles 6,303 3,646 2,582 1,995 1,118 822 550 159 %Free 62% 99% 75% 33% 57% 81% 78% 45% Table 11.19. Journals by region, economics Average cost per article: APC journals $267, overall $82. Includes most business and management topics. 11. Humanities and Social Sciences 111 Educa on: Selected tables 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 Journals 658 654 610 560 495 426 %Free 84% 84% 85% 85% 86% 88% Articles 19,857 19,110 15,852 14,028 12,085 10,622 %Free 82% 82% 84% 83% 85% 85% Table 11.20. Journals and ar cles by year, educa on Jour. $1,400+ $600-$1.399 $200-$599 $0.20-$199 Free 7 10 18 71 569 %APC %All Art. %APC %All 7% 1% 248 7% 1% 9% 1% 398 11% 2% 17% 3% 879 24% 4% 67% 11% 2,099 58% 11% 84% 16,233 82% Table 11.21. APC levels, educa on Region Latin America Asia Western Europe Eastern Europe Pacific/English Middle East APCLand Africa Journals %Free 156 179 141 50 66 38 19 8 98% 72% 89% 80% 94% 82% 53% 38% Articles 6,521 4,203 3,969 1,680 1,451 1,249 546 214 Table 11.22. Journals by region, educa on Average cost per article: APC journals $370, overall $67. %Free 96% 66% 83% 76% 90% 82% 41% 23% 112 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 History: Selected tables 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 Journals 234 249 246 233 217 198 %Free 96% 97% 97% 97% 97% 97% Articles 6,909 7,383 7,149 6,543 5,812 5,529 %Free 95% 96% 95% 96% 96% 97% Table 11.23. Journals and ar cles by year, history Jour. $200-$599 $0.20-$199 Free %APC %All Art. %APC %All 2 22% 1% 164 49% 2% 7 78% 3% 168 51% 2% 248 96% 6,577 95% Table 11.24. APC levels, history Region Journals %Free Articles %Free Western Europe 95 99% 2,413 100% Latin America 77 100% 2,222 100% Eastern Europe 32 91% 1,068 80% Pacific/English 15 100% 908 100% Middle East 7 71% 186 67% Asia 8 63% 112 53% Table 11.25. Journals by region, history Average cost per article: APC journals $157, overall $8. Includes most aspects of cultural research focused on the past and a number of local and regional journals. 11. Humanities and Social Sciences 113 Language & Literature: Selected tables 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 Journals 558 574 569 537 489 438 %Free 91% 91% 91% 92% 93% 93% Articles 16,860 15,534 14,575 12,596 12,322 10,715 %Free 86% 87% 87% 88% 88% 87% Table 11.26. Journals and ar cles by year, language & literature Jour. $1,400+ $600-$1.399 $200-$599 $0.20-$199 Free 3 6 8 35 557 %APC %All Art. %APC %All 6% 0% 75 3% 0% 12% 1% 155 7% 1% 15% 1% 540 23% 3% 67% 6% 1,572 67% 9% 91% 14,518 86% Table 11.27. APC levels, language & literature Region Western Europe Latin America Eastern Europe Pacific/English Asia Middle East Africa APCLand Journals 201 114 93 50 72 14 8 6 %Free 96% 99% 89% 94% 76% 86% 25% 50% Articles 4,868 4,198 3,275 1,464 1,394 1,219 293 149 %Free 96% 99% 70% 81% 71% 96% 9% 42% Table 11.28. Journals by region, language & literature Average cost per article: APC journals $235, overall $33. Includes linguistics and a number of other fields as well as author-specific journals. 114 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Law: Selected tables 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 Journals 262 268 254 215 186 165 %Free 93% 93% 92% 92% 91% 93% Articles 6,641 7,054 6,052 5,220 4,491 3,712 %Free 91% 91% 88% 88% 88% 88% Table 11.29. Journals and ar cles by year, law Jour. $1,400+ $600-$1.399 $200-$599 $0.20-$199 Free 1 3 2 15 258 %APC %All Art. %APC %All 5% 0% 17 3% 0% 14% 1% 72 12% 1% 10% 1% 15 3% 0% 71% 5% 478 82% 7% 92% 6,059 91% Table 11.30. APC levels, law Region Latin America Western Europe Eastern Europe Asia Middle East APCLand Pacific/English Africa Journals 104 54 29 44 8 8 11 4 %Free 99% 94% 93% 82% 88% 63% 100% 75% Articles 2,707 1,378 1,040 774 256 192 183 111 %Free 98% 94% 91% 71% 86% 63% 100% 63% Table 11.31. Journals by region, law Average cost per article: APC journals $237, overall $21. Includes forensics and criminology. 11. Humanities and Social Sciences 115 Library Science: Selected tables 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 Journals 117 120 118 116 108 98 %Free 95% 95% 95% 95% 94% 94% Articles 2,969 2,706 2,593 2,538 2,250 2,036 %Free 97% 96% 97% 97% 96% 96% Table 11.32. Journals and ar cles by year, library science Jour. $200-$599 $0.20-$199 Free %APC %All Art. %APC %All 2 33% 2% 21 26% 1% 4 67% 3% 61 74% 2% 118 95% 2,887 97% Table 11.33. APC levels, library science Region Journals %Free Articles %Free Western Europe 32 94% 793 97% Latin America 25 100% 733 100% Pacific/English 27 96% 686 96% Eastern Europe 13 100% 372 100% Asia 13 85% 210 90% Middle East 5 100% 135 100% APCLand 1 100% 27 100% Africa 1 0% 13 0% Table 11.34. Journals by region, library science Average cost per article: APC journals $143, overall $4. Includes bibliography, archives, museums and some aspects of information science that don’t seem specifically akin to computer science. 116 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Media & Communica ons: Select tables 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 Journals 185 185 179 161 156 139 %Free 93% 92% 93% 93% 93% 93% Articles 5,379 5,083 4,682 3,745 3,558 3,212 %Free 93% 94% 94% 93% 94% 93% Table 11.35. Journals and ar cles by year, media & communica ons Jour. $1,400+ $600-$1.399 $200-$599 $0.20-$199 Free 1 3 2 8 174 %APC %All Art. %APC %All 7% 1% 35 9% 1% 21% 2% 105 28% 2% 14% 1% 59 16% 1% 57% 4% 181 48% 3% 93% 4,999 93% Table 11.36. APC levels, media & communica ons Region Western Europe Latin America Pacific/English Asia Eastern Europe APCLand Middle East Africa Journals 68 53 17 21 18 4 3 1 %Free Articles 94% 98% 100% 81% 94% 50% 100% 0% 2,084 1,845 476 390 333 145 89 17 %Free 92% 99% 100% 72% 95% 59% 100% 0% Table 11.37. Journals by region, media & communica ons Average cost per article: APC journals $578, overall $41. Includes film, journalism, communication theory and some related fields. 11. Humanities and Social Sciences 117 Miscellany: Selected tables 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 Journals 195 200 189 177 159 137 %Free 86% 87% 86% 87% 88% 91% Articles 8,359 9,454 7,892 6,655 5,616 4,707 %Free 74% 61% 71% 69% 69% 71% Table 11.38. Journals and ar cles by year, miscellany Jour. $1,400+ $600-$1.399 $200-$599 $0.20-$199 Free 1 6 4 16 175 %APC %All Art. %APC %All 4% 0% 16 1% 0% 22% 3% 327 15% 4% 15% 2% 419 19% 5% 59% 8% 1,392 65% 17% 87% 6,205 74% Table 11.39. APC levels, miscellany Region Latin America Eastern Europe Middle East Western Europe APCLand Asia Africa Pacific/English Journals %Free 82 37 7 28 6 18 5 12 99% 78% 71% 89% 50% 61% 40% 100% Articles 3,352 1,576 1,000 780 706 532 219 194 %Free 97% 81% 24% 71% 46% 53% 38% 100% Table 11.40. Journals by region, miscellany Average cost per article: APC journals $302, overall $78. Includes multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary journals that appear to have strong HSS components and a few journals that didn’t fit anywhere else. 118 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Philosophy: Selected tables 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 Journals 148 154 153 149 131 123 %Free 95% 95% 95% 95% 95% 95% Articles 4,082 4,073 3,785 3,544 3,095 2,778 %Free 96% 97% 96% 95% 96% 97% Table 11.41. Journals and ar cles by year, philosophy Jour. $1,400+ $600-$1.399 $0.20-$199 Free %APC %All Art. %APC %All 2 29% 1% 77 43% 2% 2 29% 1% 33 18% 1% 3 43% 2% 70 39% 2% 153 96% 3,902 96% Table 11.42. APC levels, philosophy Region Journals %Free Articles %Free Western Europe 50 98% 1,298 99% Latin America 44 98% 1,259 99% Eastern Europe 27 96% 879 97% Pacific/English 17 100% 375 100% APCLand 5 20% 154 17% Middle East 3 100% 77 100% Asia 2 100% 40 100% Table 11.43. Journals by region, philosophy Average cost per article: APC journals $1,135, overall $50. Includes specific philosophies and philosophers—but note that religion is a separate and larger subject. Note that “zero lines” (APC, region, etc.) are removed from tables. 11. Humanities and Social Sciences 119 Poli cal Science: Selected tables 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 Journals 217 225 218 203 186 164 %Free 91% 91% 91% 91% 91% 91% Articles 6,342 6,328 6,109 5,387 4,708 3,898 %Free 91% 88% 87% 90% 89% 90% Table 11.44. Journals and ar cles by year, poli cal science Jour. $1,400+ $600-$1.399 $200-$599 $0.20-$199 Free 2 3 4 11 212 %APC %All Art. %APC %All 10% 1% 18 3% 0% 15% 1% 124 21% 2% 20% 2% 54 9% 1% 55% 5% 399 67% 6% 91% 5,747 91% Table 11.45. APC levels, poli cal science Region Eastern Europe Western Europe Latin America Asia Pacific/English APCLand Middle East Africa Journals 60 67 52 16 11 4 4 3 %Free 92% 91% 98% 63% 91% 100% 100% 100% Articles 2,403 1,567 1,463 294 273 170 107 65 %Free 88% 90% 99% 55% 97% 100% 100% 100% Table 11.46. Journals by region, poli cal science Average cost per article: APC journals $349, overall $33. Includes military and defense topics and most of governmental affairs. 120 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Psychology: Selected tables 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 Journals 165 169 167 161 150 136 %Free 84% 84% 84% 84% 86% 88% Articles 6,894 6,582 6,495 5,922 5,141 4,354 %Free 54% 56% 59% 62% 68% 76% Table 11.47. Journals and ar cles by year, psychology Jour. $1,400+ $600-$1.399 $200-$599 $0.20-$199 Free 5 9 7 8 144 %APC %All Art. %APC %All 17% 3% 2,460 77% 36% 31% 5% 251 8% 4% 24% 4% 337 11% 5% 28% 5% 145 5% 2% 83% 3,701 54% Table 11.48. APC levels, psychology Region APCLand Latin America Western Europe Eastern Europe Pacific/English Asia Middle East Africa Journals %Free 17 53 39 25 12 13 5 1 53% 100% 74% 92% 67% 85% 100% 0% Articles 2,808 1,683 1,012 784 256 202 124 25 %Free 6% 100% 63% 95% 60% 87% 100% 0% Table 11.49. Journals by region, psychology Average cost per article: APC journals $2,335, overall $1,081. Includes a few journals that might be psychiatry (and in medicine), and you could make a case for including all of this in either STEM or biomed. 11. Humanities and Social Sciences 121 Religion: Selected tables 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 Journals 156 163 148 141 121 110 %Free 86% 87% 86% 87% 85% 85% Articles 4,449 4,437 3,930 3,607 3,306 2,774 %Free 81% 80% 79% 77% 80% 81% Table 11.50. Journals and ar cles by year, religion Jour. $600-$1.399 $200-$599 $0.20-$199 Free %APC %All Art. %APC %All 2 9% 1% 345 41% 8% 8 36% 5% 239 28% 5% 12 55% 7% 263 31% 6% 147 87% 3,602 81% Table 11.51. APC levels, religion Region Journals %Free Articles %Free Asia 66 88% 1,078 85% Western Europe 25 84% 826 89% Latin America 22 95% 723 95% Eastern Europe 18 94% 615 96% Africa 7 0% 521 0% APCLand 1 100% 268 100% Middle East 10 90% 241 94% Pacific/English 7 100% 177 100% Table 11.52. Journals by region, religion Average cost per article: APC journals $554, overall $106. Includes journals devoted to specific religions, religious leaders, and other subjects where the religious aspect is key; also aspects of religious and nonreligious thought (e.g. atheism). 122 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Sociology: Selected tables 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 Journals 387 399 385 361 336 299 %Free 88% 88% 89% 89% 89% 91% Articles 12,283 12,401 11,310 10,361 9,189 8,634 %Free 80% 83% 82% 82% 84% 82% Table 11.53. Journals and ar cles by year, sociology Jour. $1,400+ $600-$1.399 $200-$599 $0.20-$199 Free 5 15 5 24 360 %APC %All Art. %APC %All 10% 1% 299 12% 2% 31% 4% 777 32% 6% 10% 1% 369 15% 3% 49% 6% 976 40% 8% 88% 9,862 80% Table 11.54. APC levels, sociology Region Latin America Western Europe Eastern Europe Pacific/English APCLand Middle East Asia Africa Journals %Free 124 107 49 39 18 16 29 5 100% 86% 86% 97% 50% 88% 72% 20% Articles 3,569 3,288 1,905 1,223 825 584 567 322 %Free 100% 83% 72% 98% 23% 76% 64% 7% Table 11.55. Journals by region, sociology Average cost per article: APC journals $680, overall $134. Includes gender studies, social science and some journals that didn’t fit elsewhere. 12. Regions and APCLand Several earlier chapters have mentioned regions: groupings of countries, usually based on geography. There’s good reason to believe that there are regional differences in OA publishing, especially once the publishers in APCLand are removed from the picture. Region Journals %Free Articles %Free APCLand 1,890 26% 242,313 13% Africa 121 51% 6,686 41% Asia 1,293 68% 41,451 50% Eastern Europe 1,533 83% 62,023 72% Latin America 1,833 94% 73,018 86% Middle East 563 82% 25,220 71% Pacific/English 593 78% 31,032 50% Western Europe 1,842 78% 81,403 64% Table 12.1. Journals and ar cles by region Table 12.1 shows the overall picture, including the huge differences in prevalence of fees. Chapters 13 through 19 focus on each region of OAWorld, using essentially the same format as Chapters 9 through 11, except that there’s no region table, there is a segment table, and there are no sets of selected tables in each chapter. Regions (other than APCLand, where more tables make up the rest of this chapter) are arranged alphabetically. Country and subject tables in these chapters show all journals with any articles 2012-2017, not just journals with 2017 articles. Some tables, including regions as in Table 12.1, continue to show only journals active in 2017. 123 124 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 APCLand Some discussion, some of the tables and both figures for this imaginary Region of the Money have already appeared. The rest of this chapter provides the remaining tables. Journals Active 2017 Articles Art/Jrnl Free 506 496 30,901 62 Pay 1,599 1,394 211,412 152 Total 2,105 1,890 242,313 128 Free% 24% 26% 13% Table 12.2. Journals and ar cles, APCLand While slightly more than one-quarter of APCLand journals with 2017 articles are free, they publish only about one-seventh of the articles. 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 Journals 1,890 1,928 1,871 1,780 1,489 1,225 %Free 26% 26% 24% 21% 19% 19% 242,313 221,780 205,148 189,878 150,650 121,904 13% 14% 13% 13% 11% 11% Articles %Free Table 12.3. Journals and ar cles by year, APCLand APCLand journals publish 8%-9% more articles each year in recent years, with more than 20% annual growth in 2012-2014. Article Volume Journals Largest: 600+ Large: 150-599 Med.: 60-149 Small: 20-59 Smallest: 1-19 %Free 71 296 486 817 220 6% 17% 26% 33% 21% Articles %Free 122,507 4% 62,467 13% 34,254 28% 21,149 39% 1,936 28% Table 12.4. Ar cle volume, APCLand More than half of all APCLand articles appear in the largest journals. 12. Regions and APCLand 125 APC Levels Jour. %APC %All Art. %APC %All $1,400+ 791 49% 38% 179,592 85% 74% $600-$1.399 626 39% 30% 19,693 9% 8% $200-$599 154 10% 7% 10,767 5% 4% $0.20-$199 28 2% 1% 1,360 1% 1% Free 506 24% 30,901 13% Table 12.5. APC levels, APCLand Three-quarters of all APCLand articles appear in the most expensive journals (nearly half of all fee-charging APCLand journals). Average cost per article within APC-charging journals is $1,955; overall, $1,706. Segments Biomed $1,400+ Articles Revenue $600-$1.399 Articles Revenue $200-$599 Articles Revenue $0.20-$199 Articles Revenue Free Articles 595 83,885 $199,047,462 214 8,392 $7,889,319 85 6,172 $2,731,987 19 1,221 $135,760 247 16,229 STEM 154 92,611 $180,701,296 208 10,238 $11,287,109 54 3,858 $1,782,178 3 100 $11,130 163 11,943 HSS 17 3,096 $8,402,057 33 1,063 $1,054,932 10 737 $316,078 2 39 $930 86 2,729 Table 12.6. Ar cles and revenue by segment, APCLand Looking at the revenue figures, note that the two megajournals are in STEM. One small table omitted for space reasons. 126 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Subjects Subject Journals %Free Articles %Free Medicine 1,069 22% 93,696 16% Other Sciences 35 34% 55,554 1% Biology 191 9% 22,203 4% Physics 75 28% 12,449 39% Chemistry 68 16% 8,685 13% Ecology 63 29% 8,579 11% Agriculture 57 23% 6,726 9% Technology 51 31% 6,072 14% Engineering 90 26% 5,973 21% Earth Sciences 73 34% 5,258 20% Computer Science 61 13% 3,625 5% Mathematics 74 16% 3,525 9% Psychology 18 50% 2,808 6% Zoology 42 17% 2,304 8% Sociology 20 45% 825 23% Economics 39 69% 822 81% Miscellany 6 50% 706 46% Education 19 53% 546 41% Anthropology 17 47% 513 46% Arts & Architecture 7 71% 339 45% Religion 1 100% 268 100% Law 9 56% 192 63% Political Science 4 100% 170 100% Philosophy 5 20% 154 17% Language & Literature 6 50% 149 42% Media & Communications 4 50% 145 59% Library Science 1 100% 27 100% Table 12.7. Subjects, APCLand (complete) Even in APCLand, some subjects are entirely free. 12. Regions and APCLand 127 Countries This table is not identical to Table 7.1 because this table includes journals that did not publish articles in 2017 (and is sorted by articles). Country Journals %Free Articles %Free United Kingdom 673 8% 87,542 2% Switzerland 225 22% 56,179 4% United States 108 5% 39,657 1% Egypt 551 9% 18,590 10% Netherlands 169 48% 14,535 40% India 131 71% 10,324 65% Germany 103 51% 6,459 73% China 37 84% 2,278 91% Spain 30 93% 1,618 96% Saudi Arabia 12 100% 1,191 100% Taiwan, Province of China 9 100% 944 100% Korea, Republic of 13 85% 816 90% Hong Kong 7 57% 404 44% Japan 4 25% 390 25% Australia 4 50% 185 73% Mexico 3 100% 173 100% Singapore 4 75% 143 87% Ireland 2 0% 136 0% Iran, Islamic Republic of 4 100% 132 100% Greece 1 100% 92 100% Jordan 2 100% 86 100% Thailand 2 0% 85 0% Georgia 1 100% 80 100% Italy 3 67% 70 63% Argentina 1 100% 68 100% Lithuania 1 100% 48 100% Colombia 2 100% 40 100% Qatar 1 100% 26 100% South Africa 1 0% 22 0% Russian Federation 1 100% 0 Table 12.9. Country of publica on, APCLand (complete) 13. Africa Africa (excluding the Middle East) has a fairly long history of open access publishing, but it’s on a small scale (at least in DOAJ as of 1/1/2018), with by far the fewest journals and articles of any region. Journals and Ar cles Free Pay Total Free% Journals Active 2017 Articles Art/Jrnl 66 62 2,731 44 59 59 3,955 67 125 121 6,686 55 53% 51% 41% Table 13.1. Journals and ar cles, Africa Most journals don’t charge APCs, but most articles appear in those that do. The average APC-charging journal published 52% more articles in 2017 than the average free journal. 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 Journals 121 123 117 113 99 89 %Free 51% 52% 51% 51% 48% 46% Articles 6,686 7,885 6,022 5,371 3,734 3,048 %Free 41% 29% 30% 32% 33% 36% Table 13.2. Journals and ar cles by year, Africa 128 13. Africa 129 Figure 13.1. Free and pay ar cles by year, Africa The percentage of free articles is rising (unusual) and free articles continue to rise, but overall article count dropped in 2017. Ar cle Volume Journals Largest: 600+ Large: 150-599 Med.: 60-149 Small: 20-59 Smallest: 1-19 3 6 27 59 26 %Free Articles %Free 33% 1,744 46% 17% 1,297 11% 37% 1,727 41% 58% 1,616 56% 62% 302 59% Table 13.3. Ar cle volume, Africa Most medium-sized and larger journals charge APCs. Unusually, there are relatively few very small journals. 130 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 APC Levels Jour. %APC %All Art. %APC %All $600-$1.399 20 34% 16% 941 24% 14% $200-$599 17 29% 14% 1,285 32% 19% $0.20-$199 22 37% 18% 1,729 44% 26% Free 66 53% 2,731 41% Table 13.4. APC levels, Africa There are (still) no expensive African OA journals. Average cost per article in APC-charging journals: $417. Overall average: $246. Star ng Date Figure 13.2. Star ng dates, Africa A few African OA journals go back decades. 13. Africa 131 Segments Biomed $600-$1.399 Articles Revenue $200-$599 Articles Revenue $0.20-$199 Articles Revenue Free Articles STEM 4 147 $158,669 3 575 $178,481 3 1,116 $203,416 19 692 HSS 3 95 $77,846 6 229 $112,325 7 201 $19,834 26 1,643 13 699 $642,313 8 481 $196,356 12 412 $58,043 17 396 Table 13.5. Ar cles and revenue by segment, Africa This is a unique case: HSS revenue is higher than biomed or STEM. Publisher Category Category Journals %Free Articles %Free Univ/college 43 65% 2,689 64% Open Access 45 38% 1,794 27% Society/govt 11 55% 1,236 16% Miscellaneous 22 50% 967 33% Table 13.6. Publisher categories, Africa Visibility Fee/APC Visible Obscure Free Table 13.7. Visibility, Africa % 53 12 Pay 81.5% 18.5% % 57 2 96.6% 3.4% 132 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Growth and Shrinkage Change 2016-17 Grew 50%+ Grew 25-49.9% Grew 10-24.99% Even, ±9.99% Shrank 10-24.99% Shrank 25-49.99% Shrank 50%+ Count 30 13 17 24 19 15 7 Percent Cum% 24.0% 10.4% 34.4% 13.6% 48.0% 19.2% 67.2% 15.2% 82.4% 12.0% 94.4% 5.6% Table 13.8. Growth and shrinkage, Africa Much more growth than shrinkage, always a good sign. Countries Country Jour. %Free South Africa 71 38% 2,860 30% Algeria 15 100% 1,165 100% Uganda 1 0% 850 0% Nigeria 5 40% 500 8% Kenya 3 0% 268 0% 10 90% 215 89% Morocco Art. %Free Tunisia 5 60% 179 30% Ethiopia 4 100% 156 100% Congo, the Democratic Republic of the 1 100% 138 100% Libya 3 67% 135 59% Cameroon 1 0% 124 0% Ghana 5 40% 85 48% Mauritius 1 100% 11 100% Table 13.9. Country of publica on, Africa (complete) 13. Africa 133 Subjects Subject Journals %Free Articles %Free Medicine 26 65% 2,346 28% Other Sciences 5 100% 989 100% Religion 8 13% 521 0% Sociology 5 20% 322 7% Agriculture 8 63% 303 54% Language & Literature 9 33% 293 9% Engineering 6 50% 251 43% Ecology 7 71% 230 72% Miscellany 6 50% 219 38% Education 8 38% 214 23% Biology 3 67% 184 23% Economics 5 40% 159 45% Zoology 4 50% 134 68% Law 4 75% 111 63% Chemistry 3 67% 101 76% Computer Science 4 50% 78 15% Political Science 3 100% 65 100% Technology 3 67% 50 54% Psychology 1 0% 25 0% History 1 0% 24 0% Media & Communications 1 0% 17 0% Library Science 1 0% 13 0% Mathematics 1 0% 11 0% Physics 1 0% 11 0% Earth Sciences 1 100% 10 100% Anthropology 1 100% 5 100% Table 13.10. Subjects, Africa (complete) 14. Asia Asia’s presence in DOAJ has changed considerably with Indonesia’s enormous growth in titles. Journals and Ar cles Free Pay Total Free% Journals Active 2017 Articles Art/Jrnl 924 883 20,584 23 425 410 20,867 51 1,349 1,293 41,451 32 68% 68% 50% Table 14.1. Journals and ar cles, Asia More than two-thirds of journals don’t charge fees, but those that do publish more than twice as many articles per journal. 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 Journals 1,293 1,260 1,127 1,005 866 725 %Free 68% 68% 67% 68% 67% 67% Articles 41,451 40,792 34,621 31,973 27,112 21,060 %Free 50% 50% 50% 50% 51% 52% Table 14.2. Journals and ar cles by year, Asia 134 14. Asia 135 Figure 14.1. Free and pay ar cles by year, Asia Ar cle Volume Journals Largest: 600+ Large: 150-599 Med.: 60-149 Small: 20-59 Smallest: 1-19 5 33 135 630 490 %Free 20% 18% 51% 67% 79% Articles %Free 4,100 5% 7,076 18% 8,669 49% 15,367 65% 6,239 78% Table 14.3. Ar cle volume, Asia APC Levels Jour. $1,400+ $600-$1.399 $200-$599 $0.20-$199 Free 1 16 69 339 924 Table 14.4. APC levels, Asia %APC %All Art. %APC %All 0% 0% 70 0% 0% 4% 1% 915 4% 2% 16% 5% 8,614 41% 21% 80% 25% 11,268 54% 27% 68% 20,584 50% 136 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Asia is unusual in that the more expensive journals publish very few articles. Average cost per article: APC-charging $224, overall $113. Star ng Date Figure 14.2. Star ng dates, Asia Rapid growth began in 2008—and, unusually, continues to this day. Visibility Fee/APC Visible Obscure Free Table 14.5. Visibility, Asia % 793 131 Pay 85.8% 14.2% % 382 40 90.5% 9.5% 14. Asia 137 Segments Biomed $1,400+ Articles Revenue $600-$1.399 Articles Revenue $200-$599 Articles Revenue $0.20-$199 Articles Revenue Free Articles STEM 1 70 $105,000 5 339 $343,300 25 4,914 $1,574,898 56 3,393 $281,559 137 4,910 0 0 $0 7 576 $553,080 34 3,431 $1,228,957 127 4,306 $295,193 247 6,382 HSS 0 0 $0 0 0 $0 9 269 $72,523 146 3,569 $212,698 499 9,292 Table 14.6. Ar cles and revenue by segment, Asia Most revenue is from relatively inexpensive journals. Publisher Category Category Univ/college Miscellaneous Society/govt Open Access Traditional Journals %Free Articles %Free 1,035 71% 25,978 60% 123 59% 8,070 31% 111 63% 4,520 45% 17 29% 2,438 7% 7 71% 445 57% Table 14.7. Publisher categories, Asia Changes in the DOAJ landscape since the previous study mean that universities now dominate the Asian OA landscape 138 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Growth and Shrinkage Change 2016-17 Grew 50%+ Grew 25-49.9% Grew 10-24.99% Even, ±9.99% Shrank 10-24.99% Shrank 25-49.99% Shrank 50%+ Count Percent 214 93 150 500 134 126 132 Cum% 15.9% 6.9% 11.1% 37.1% 9.9% 9.3% 9.8% 22.8% 33.9% 70.9% 80.9% 90.2% Table 14.8. Growth and shrinkage, Asia Countries Country Journals %Free Articles %Free Indonesia 1,011 70% 21,006 64% India 65 54% 6,238 22% China 41 41% 4,836 16% Korea, Republic of 46 63% 2,357 53% Pakistan 34 68% 1,673 33% Malaysia 32 72% 1,241 53% Thailand 19 84% 737 83% Taiwan, Province of China 17 71% 643 30% Bangladesh 17 65% 607 69% Japan 13 46% 565 28% Nepal 15 100% 428 100% Hong Kong 14 43% 358 81% Philippines 5 80% 246 40% Sri Lanka 10 100% 213 100% Singapore 5 40% 204 8% Mongolia 3 67% 61 30% Kyrgyzstan 2 100% 38 100% Table 14.9. Country of publica on, Asia (complete) 14. Asia 139 Subjects Subject Journals %Free Articles %Free Medicine 197 62% 12,626 35% Education 181 71% 4,203 66% Engineering 64 63% 3,024 34% Economics 137 78% 2,582 75% Other Sciences 40 68% 1,936 34% Agriculture 69 51% 1,813 40% Zoology 36 31% 1,667 25% Technology 30 70% 1,536 76% Language & Literature 74 76% 1,394 71% Computer Science 66 64% 1,152 68% Religion 71 89% 1,078 85% Biology 31 61% 1,000 43% Ecology 27 67% 954 37% Earth Sciences 24 54% 813 37% Law 47 81% 774 71% Mathematics 37 70% 736 71% Sociology 33 73% 567 64% Physics 21 52% 558 32% Miscellany 20 65% 532 53% Chemistry 22 68% 506 53% Anthropology 25 72% 472 72% Media & Communications 23 78% 390 72% Political Science 17 65% 294 55% Arts & Architecture 19 84% 280 82% Library Science 14 86% 210 90% Psychology 13 85% 202 87% History 8 63% 112 53% Philosophy 3 100% 40 100% Table 14.10. Subjects, Asia (complete) 15. Eastern Europe The third-largest region in journals and articles, with seven of every eight journals and just under three of every four articles free. Growth here seems to have stalled, declining slightly in 2016 and 2017. Journals and Ar cles Free Pay Total Free% Journals Active 2017 Articles Art/Jrnl 1,351 1,268 44,483 35 268 265 17,540 66 1,619 1,533 62,023 40 83% 83% 72% Table 15.1. Journals and ar cles, Eastern Europe 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 Journals 1,533 1,575 1,548 1,461 1,315 1,107 %Free 83% 83% 83% 83% 83% 83% Articles 62,023 63,078 64,514 60,794 55,602 49,076 %Free 72% 72% 73% 73% 72% 69% Table 15.2. Journals and ar cles by year, Eastern Europe Changes in DOAJ mean that roughly 10,000 more articles appear each year compared to the previous study. The free percentages haven’t changed at all for journals or significantly since 2013 for articles, which is somewhat unusual. 140 15. Eastern Europe 141 Figure 15.1. Free and pay ar cles by year, Eastern Europe Ar cle Volume Journals %Free Articles %Free Largest: 600+ 6 50% 2,727 36% Large: 150-599 85 49% 11,722 46% Med.: 60-149 383 72% 23,474 72% Small: 20-59 807 88% 21,461 87% Smallest: 1-19 252 93% 2,639 93% Table 15.3. Ar cle volume, Eastern Europe APC Levels Table 15.4 is unusual and revealing: roughly two-thirds of the (relatively few) paid articles involve nominal fees. Average cost per article within APC-charging journals was a low $272; including all journals, it comes down to a very low $77. 142 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Jour. %APC %All Art. %APC %All $1,400+ 1 0% 0% 368 2% 1% $600-$1.399 28 10% 2% 2,383 14% 4% $200-$599 60 22% 4% 3,605 21% 6% $0.20-$199 179 67% 11% 11,184 64% 18% Free 1,351 83% 44,483 72% Table 15.4. APC levels, Eastern Europe Star ng Dates Figure 15.2. Star ng date, Eastern Europe Visibility Fee/APC Visible Obscure Free % 1,162 189 Table 15.5. Visibility, Eastern Europe Pay 86.0% 14.0% % 236 32 88.1% 11.9% 15. Eastern Europe 143 Segments Biomed $1,400+ Articles Revenue $600-$1.399 Articles Revenue $200-$599 Articles Revenue $0.20-$199 Articles Revenue Free Articles STEM 0 0 $0 8 464 $407,896 15 1,194 $441,618 25 2,193 $140,790 199 8,471 1 368 $684,848 17 1,765 $1,434,389 28 1,622 $618,298 59 3,114 $281,047 444 16,184 HSS 0 0 $0 3 154 $105,140 17 789 $251,365 92 5,877 $406,303 625 19,828 Table 15.6. Ar cles and revenue by segment, Eastern Europe Very little biomed revenue, with most revenue being in STEM, specifically medium-priced STEM. There are almost as many fee-based articles in HSS as in STEM, which is also unusual. Publisher Category Category Univ/college Open Access Miscellaneous Society/govt Traditional Journals %Free Articles %Free 826 84% 34,996 72% 369 86% 11,912 77% 201 73% 8,756 61% 115 81% 5,261 73% 22 82% 1,098 75% Table 15.7. Publisher categories, Eastern Europe 144 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Growth and Shrinkage Change 2016-17 Grew 50%+ Grew 25-49.9% Grew 10-24.99% Even, ±9.99% Shrank 10-24.99% Shrank 25-49.99% Shrank 50%+ Count Percent 180 149 195 457 211 228 199 Cum% 11.1% 9.2% 12.0% 28.2% 13.0% 14.1% 12.3% 20.3% 32.4% 60.6% 73.6% 87.7% Table 15.8. Growth and shrinkage, Eastern Europe Significantly more shrinkage than growth. Countries Poland does the most OA publishing, three-quarters of it free; Romania is second for journals, but the Russian Federation publishes more articles than Romania. Only two countries, both with small gold OA publishing programs, have more articles in APC-charging journals than in free ones: Macedonia and (with a single journal) Kazakhstan. 15. Eastern Europe 145 Country Poland Russian Federation Romania Ukraine Serbia Czech Republic Croatia Bulgaria Slovenia Slovakia Moldova, Republic of Lithuania Hungary Latvia Macedonia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Belarus Bosnia and Herzegovina Montenegro Estonia Cyprus Georgia Albania Kazakhstan Turkmenistan Journals %Free Articles %Free 463 87% 16,485 74% 193 89% 12,229 83% 280 81% 8,495 69% 119 61% 6,945 55% 126 90% 4,005 73% 81 84% 2,624 71% 85 91% 2,604 75% 36 53% 1,891 37% 49 96% 1,356 87% 38 76% 1,020 69% 23 65% 875 62% 34 79% 686 68% 25 92% 684 82% 10 80% 387 69% 8 75% 354 34% 6 13 6 15 4 1 2 1 1 100% 77% 67% 100% 75% 100% 100% 0% 100% Table 15.9. Country of publica on, Eastern Europe (complete) 328 323 287 244 90 46 42 13 10 100% 76% 70% 100% 72% 100% 100% 0% 100% 146 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Subjects Subject Journals %Free Articles %Free Medicine 211 81% 10,144 71% Economics 184 72% 6,303 62% Engineering 96 77% 4,912 62% Agriculture 86 77% 4,104 63% Anthropology 87 87% 3,345 58% Language & Literature 100 90% 3,275 70% Political Science 63 92% 2,403 88% Technology 46 91% 2,245 91% Biology 42 83% 2,178 56% Computer Science 56 82% 2,036 86% Earth Sciences 74 91% 1,941 87% Sociology 53 87% 1,905 72% Education 53 81% 1,680 76% Zoology 39 64% 1,680 40% Ecology 49 82% 1,657 59% Miscellany 38 79% 1,576 81% Mathematics 55 87% 1,556 83% Other Sciences 26 88% 1,291 79% Chemistry 30 73% 1,101 67% Arts & Architecture 32 94% 1,070 90% History 36 92% 1,068 80% Law 34 94% 1,040 91% Philosophy 29 97% 879 97% Psychology 26 92% 784 95% Religion 20 95% 615 96% Physics 22 91% 530 75% Library Science 14 100% 372 100% Media & Communications 18 94% 333 95% Table 15.10. Subjects, Eastern Europe (complete) 16. La n America Latin America (including the Caribbean) has the most gold OA journals of any OAWorld region and the highest percentage of free (no-fee) journals and articles. Seven of every ten articles come from Brazil. Journals and Ar cles Free Pay Total Free% Journals Active 2017 Articles Art/Jrnl 1,793 1,714 62,556 36 124 119 10,462 88 1,917 1,833 73,018 40 94% 94% 86% Table 16.1. Journals and ar cles, La n America The average APC-charging journal published 2.4 times as many articles in 2017 as the average no-fee journals, but there are so few APC journals that it doesn’t make much difference. 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 Journals 1,833 1,889 1,854 1,763 1,674 1,557 %Free 94% 93% 94% 93% 93% 92% Articles 73,018 70,757 66,616 62,456 57,835 55,854 %Free 86% 85% 84% 82% 81% 79% Table 16.2. Journals and ar cles by year, La n America Additions to DOAJ make these numbers considerably higher than in the previous study—and gold OA continues to grow in Latin America. 147 148 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Figure 16.1. Free and pay ar cles by year, La n America Ar cle Volume Journals Largest: 600+ Large: 150-599 Med.: 60-149 Small: 20-59 Smallest: 1-19 2 70 362 1,149 250 %Free Articles %Free 50% 148 23% 56% 11,578 55% 85% 25,296 83% 98% 32,909 98% 97% 3,087 97% Table 16.3. Ar cle volume, La n America Small and medium-sized journals dominate Latin American OA. The top row of Table 16.3 needs clarification: journals are split into groups based on their peak volume, 2012-2017; both of the once-largest journals have been declining ever since 2012. APC Levels Expensive journals account for less than 0.5% of articles. Average cost per article in fee journals: $341. Overall: a very low $49. 16. Latin America 149 Jour. $1,400+ $600-$1.399 $200-$599 $2-$199 Free 3 14 43 64 1,793 %APC %All Art. %APC %All 2% 0% 334 3% 0% 11% 1% 1,355 13% 2% 35% 2% 4,070 39% 6% 52% 3% 4,703 45% 6% 94% 62,556 86% Table 16.4. APC levels, La n America Star ng Date Figure 16.2. Star ng dates, La n America Gold OA has a long tradition in Latin America, with 54 journals before 1980 and another 73 by 1991. New journals peaked in 2010-2011, but continue to appear at a healthy rate. 150 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Segments Biomed $1,400+ Articles Revenue $600-$1.399 Articles Revenue $200-$599 Articles Revenue $0.20-$199 Articles Revenue Free Articles STEM 2 283 $440,500 7 650 $524,216 20 1,984 $690,915 12 1,370 $152,890 215 12,463 1 51 $71,400 6 705 $598,033 18 1,843 $660,242 40 2,957 $283,716 328 12,563 HSS 0 0 $0 0 0 $0 4 243 $115,920 9 376 $25,538 1,171 37,530 Table 16.6. Ar cles and revenue by segment, La n America What’s interesting about Table 16.6 is what’s missing, given that Latin America publishes so much OA: not a single Revenue cell of $700,000 or higher—and the most revenue comes from fairly modest fees. Publisher Category Category Journals %Free Articles %Free Univ/college 1,523 95% 55,993 89% Society/govt 185 82% 11,568 73% Miscellaneous 116 89% 4,777 76% Open Access 5 100% 516 100% Traditional 4 100% 164 100% Table 16.6. Publisher Categories, La n America 16. Latin America 151 Growth and Shrinkage Change 2016-17 Grew 50%+ Grew 25-49.9% Grew 10-24.99% Even, ±9.99% Shrank 10-24.99% Shrank 25-49.99% Shrank 50%+ Count 269 237 265 514 240 223 169 Percent Cum% 14.0% 12.4% 26.4% 13.8% 40.2% 26.8% 67.0% 12.5% 79.6% 11.6% 91.2% 8.8% Table 16.7. Growth and shrinkage, La n America Significantly more growth than shrinkage (40.2% to 33%). Visibility Fee/APC Visible Obscure Free % 1,469 324 Pay 81.9% 18.1% % 114 9 92.7% 7.3% Table 16.8. Visibility, La n America An unfortunately large number of no-fee Latin American journals fail to say they lack fees in a visible way. 152 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Countries Country Jour. %Free Articles %Free Brazil 1,095 92% 51,227 82% Colombia 264 99% 7,002 98% Argentina 159 94% 3,356 91% Mexico 95 88% 2,831 84% Chile 80 94% 2,031 83% Cuba 47 100% 1,952 100% Ecuador 36 100% 1,326 100% Costa Rica 47 100% 1,230 100% Peru 35 97% 1,096 96% Venezuela, Bolivarian 22 86% 371 60% Republic of Uruguay 14 100% 307 100% Paraguay 5 100% 100 100% Bolivia, Plurinational State of 4 100% 57 100% Barbados 1 100% 32 100% El Salvador 1 100% 26 100% Nicaragua 4 100% 20 100% Puerto Rico 2 100% 19 100% Guatemala 3 100% 15 100% Bahamas 1 100% 10 100% Guam 1 0% 5 0% Jamaica 1 0% 5 0% Table 16.9. Country of publica on, La n America (complete) Some of these countries may be Anglophile or Francophile, but not enough to justify separate treatment. 16. Latin America 153 Subjects Subject Journals %Free Articles %Free Medicine 236 86% 14,646 79% Education 159 98% 6,521 96% Agriculture 94 68% 5,281 52% Language & Literature 123 99% 4,198 99% Economics 142 99% 3,646 99% Sociology 128 100% 3,569 100% Miscellany 82 99% 3,352 97% Anthropology 100 97% 2,851 97% Law 107 99% 2,707 98% History 80 100% 2,222 100% Earth Sciences 69 90% 2,191 84% Zoology 38 66% 2,168 37% Engineering 59 97% 2,133 96% Biology 25 60% 2,104 45% Media & Communications 54 98% 1,845 99% Other Sciences 47 98% 1,793 93% Ecology 51 88% 1,778 74% Psychology 57 100% 1,683 100% Political Science 57 98% 1,463 99% Arts & Architecture 52 98% 1,377 100% Philosophy 49 98% 1,259 99% Technology 21 95% 1,156 96% Library Science 26 100% 733 100% Religion 23 96% 723 95% Chemistry 8 50% 644 13% Mathematics 14 100% 411 100% Physics 6 67% 296 90% Computer Science 10 100% 268 100% Table 16.10. Subjects, La n America (complete) 17. Middle East The second least prolific region, mostly free, with OA publishing dominated by Iran and Turkey. Journals and Ar cles Free Pay Total Free% Journals Active 2017 Articles Art/Jrnl 487 464 17,814 38 101 99 7,406 75 588 563 25,220 45 83% 82% 71% Table 17.1. Journals and ar cles, Middle East 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 Journals 563 580 547 498 427 341 %Free 82% 83% 82% 81% 81% 79% Articles 25,220 26,178 23,742 21,321 17,737 14,605 %Free 71% 70% 72% 69% 71% 68% Table 17.2. Journals and ar cles by year, Middle East Both free and pay OA grew each year through 2016 (free growing faster than pay), and both declined slightly in 2017. 154 17. Middle East 155 Figure 17.1. Free and pay ar cles by year, Middle East Ar cle Volume Journals Largest: 600+ Large: 150-599 Med.: 60-149 Small: 20-59 Smallest: 1-19 5 28 115 348 67 %Free Articles %Free 60% 2,132 41% 50% 4,437 36% 76% 7,676 77% 86% 10,061 85% 91% 914 93% Table 17.3. Ar cle volume, Middle East APC-charging journals are never a majority—and paid articles are only a majority in the relatively few large and largest journals. APC Levels Another region where, if there are fees at all, they’re almost always nominal or low. Average cost is a low $203 for fee journals, a very low $60 for all journals 156 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Jour. $1,400+ $600-$1.399 $200-$599 $2-$199 Free 2 1 24 74 487 %APC %All Art. %APC %All 2% 0% 122 2% 0% 1% 0% 10 0% 0% 24% 4% 3,127 42% 12% 73% 13% 4,147 56% 16% 83% 17,814 71% Table 17.4. APC levels, Middle East Star ng Date Figure 17.2. Star ng dates, Middle East Visibility Fee/APC Visible Obscure Free % 387 100 Table 17.5. Visibility, Middle East Pay 79.5% 20.5% % 95 6 94.1% 5.9% 17. Middle East 157 Segments Biomed $1,400+ Articles Revenue $600-$1.399 Articles Revenue $200-$599 Articles Revenue $0.20-$199 Articles Revenue Free Articles 1 42 $91,770 0 0 $0 12 1,760 $514,653 13 724 $60,759 211 8,612 STEM 0 0 $0 1 10 $9,950 3 201 $82,750 35 1,817 $109,513 110 4,162 HSS 1 80 $144,000 0 0 $0 9 1,166 $377,450 24 1,606 $109,938 143 5,040 Table 17.6. Ar cles and revenue by segment, Middle East Publisher Category Category Journals %Free Articles %Free Univ/college 402 85% 16,594 76% Miscellaneous 96 79% 4,685 74% Open Access 28 64% 1,988 42% Society/govt 36 81% 1,889 48% Traditional 1 100% 64 100% Table 17.7. Publisher categories, Middle East Another region where universities and colleges dominate OA publishing. 158 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Growth and Shrinkage Change 2016-17 Grew 50%+ Grew 25-49.9% Grew 10-24.99% Even, ±9.99% Shrank 10-24.99% Shrank 25-49.99% Shrank 50%+ Count 89 64 66 173 66 70 60 Percent Cum% 15.1% 10.9% 26.0% 11.2% 37.2% 29.4% 66.7% 11.2% 77.9% 11.9% 89.8% 10.2% Table 17.8. Growth and shrinkage, Middle East More growth than shrinkage, and a large stable group. Countries Country Journals %Free Articles %Free Iran, Islamic Republic of 312 84% 12,364 72% Turkey 229 90% 10,393 80% Iraq 17 12% 1,380 6% United Arab Emirates 6 0% 268 0% Saudi Arabia 2 50% 264 10% Oman 5 100% 191 100% Egypt 7 43% 158 49% Qatar 4 75% 85 88% Israel 3 100% 82 100% Lebanon 1 100% 23 100% Yemen 1 100% 12 100% Palestine, State of 1 0% 0 Table 17.9. Country of publica on, Middle East (complete) Iran and Turkey dominate. Iraq, UAW and Saudi Arabia stand out for having predominantly fee-based OA publishing (although the numbers are too small to be significant except, possibly, in Iraq). 17. Middle East 159 Subjects Subject Journals %Free Articles %Free Medicine 233 91% 10,766 77% Economics 42 67% 1,995 33% Agriculture 28 54% 1,552 43% Education 40 83% 1,249 82% Language & Literature 15 87% 1,219 96% Miscellany 7 71% 1,000 24% Other Sciences 15 80% 882 86% Engineering 23 83% 809 89% Zoology 17 53% 721 40% Sociology 16 88% 584 76% Mathematics 18 100% 498 100% Earth Sciences 10 60% 486 42% Chemistry 14 86% 463 89% Anthropology 14 86% 457 74% Ecology 14 79% 433 77% Biology 17 71% 372 76% Law 8 88% 256 86% Religion 10 90% 241 94% History 8 75% 186 67% Arts & Architecture 4 75% 173 34% Computer Science 8 75% 147 63% Library Science 5 100% 135 100% Psychology 5 100% 124 100% Physics 2 100% 109 100% Political Science 5 100% 107 100% Technology 4 75% 90 79% Media & Communications 3 100% 89 100% Philosophy 3 100% 77 100% Table 17.10. Subject, Middle East (complete) 18. Pacific/English This “region” is composed of Australia, Canada (with apologies to Québec), New Zealand and the United States. The United States is the largest OAWorld factor. Journals and Ar cles Free Pay Total Free% Journals Active 2017 Articles Art/Jrnl 504 463 15,475 33 137 130 15,557 120 641 593 31,032 52 79% 78% 50% Table 18.1. Journals and ar cles, Pacific/English APC journals average more than 3.5 times as many articles per journal as free journals. 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 Journals 593 613 600 558 497 432 %Free 78% 79% 79% 79% 83% 87% Articles 31,032 25,902 21,636 18,696 15,718 13,096 %Free 50% 55% 59% 63% 67% 74% Table 18.2. Journals and ar cles by year, Pacific/English Article count—both free and pay—continues to grow at a healthy rate, but the growth is faster in APC-charging journals. 160 18. Pacific/English 161 Figure 18.1. Free and pay articles by year, Pacific/English Ar cle Volume Journals Largest: 600+ Large: 150-599 Med.: 60-149 Small: 20-59 Smallest: 1-19 %Free 8 33 73 297 182 25% 45% 62% 82% 87% Articles %Free 9,383 18% 7,246 41% 4,700 60% 7,903 80% 1,800 89% Table 18.3. Ar cle volume, Pacific/English APC Levels With very few low-priced journals and a fair number of expensive ones, Pacific/English has the highest average cost per article: $1,656 for articles in APC-charging journals and $830 averaged among all journals. 162 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Jour. $1,400+ $600-$1.399 $200-$599 $0.20-$199 Free 41 27 41 28 504 %APC 30% 20% 30% 20% %All Art. 6% 8,863 4% 4,554 6% 1,591 4% 549 79% 15,475 %APC %All 57% 29% 10% 4% 29% 15% 5% 2% 50% Table 18.4. APC levels, Pacific/English Star ng Date Figure 18.2. Star ng dates, Pacific/English Somewhat unusually, new APC-charging journals peaked later (20142015) than free ones (2010-2013 with a gradual decline in 2014-2015). There are 29 OA journals established before 1994. 18. Pacific/English 163 Segments Biomed $1,400+ Articles Revenue $600-$1.399 Articles Revenue $200-$599 Articles Revenue $0.20-$199 Articles Revenue Free Articles STEM 19 3,453 $7,833,720 15 1,610 $1,724,145 18 696 $283,635 8 153 $18,790 61 3,464 19 5,260 $12,126,173 10 2,905 $3,163,966 13 435 $134,321 4 92 $5,976 68 3,427 HSS 3 150 $272,950 2 39 $38,225 7 460 $129,537 12 304 $28,293 334 8,584 Table 18.5. Ar cles and revenue, Pacific/English STEM has the most revenue, up considerably from the previous report. Publisher Category Category Journals %Free Articles %Free Society/govt 122 68% 13,581 28% Univ/college 257 94% 6,685 92% Miscellaneous 143 83% 5,964 82% Open Access 62 31% 4,360 13% Traditional 9 22% 442 14% Table 18.6. Publisher categories, Pacific/English 164 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Growth and Shrinkage Change 2016-17 Grew 50%+ Grew 25-49.9% Grew 10-24.99% Even, ±9.99% Shrank 10-24.99% Shrank 25-49.99% Shrank 50%+ Count 140 80 64 119 66 81 91 Percent Cum% 21.8% 12.5% 34.3% 10.0% 44.3% 18.6% 62.9% 10.3% 73.2% 12.6% 85.8% 14.2% Table 18.7. Growth and shrinkage, Pacific/English A relatively small stable group, and more growth than shrinkage. Visibility Fee/APC Visible Obscure Free % 412 90 Pay % 82.1% 17.9% 127 10 92.7% 7.3% Table 18.8. Visibility, Pacific/English Countries Country United States Canada Australia New Zealand Journals 437 122 69 13 %Free Articles 75% 85% 88% 92% Table 18.9. Country of publica on, Pacific/English (complete) 24,052 4,197 2,611 172 %Free 46% 64% 63% 93% 18. Pacific/English 165 Subjects Subject Journals %Free Articles %Free Medicine 106 52% 6,675 49% Biology 22 41% 2,701 7% Engineering 10 60% 2,590 4% Other Sciences 9 56% 2,368 4% Physics 8 25% 1,537 18% Language & Literature 57 95% 1,464 81% Education 71 94% 1,451 90% Chemistry 4 50% 1,392 18% Sociology 42 98% 1,223 98% Ecology 24 54% 1,030 41% Mathematics 16 81% 1,028 91% History 19 100% 908 100% Anthropology 31 87% 857 82% Computer Science 18 78% 825 84% Library Science 29 97% 686 96% Technology 10 60% 621 58% Economics 27 81% 550 78% Media & Communications 17 100% 476 100% Arts & Architecture 23 96% 464 79% Philosophy 18 100% 375 100% Agriculture 8 50% 285 37% Political Science 13 92% 273 97% Psychology 13 62% 256 60% Zoology 4 25% 240 19% Earth Sciences 8 63% 203 62% Miscellany 12 100% 194 100% Law 13 100% 183 100% Religion 9 100% 177 100% Table 18.10. Subject, Pacific/English (complete) 19. Western Europe Western Europe has the most journals and articles of any OAWorld region. It’s about midway in free percentage of both. Journals and Ar cles Journals Free Pay Total Free% Active 2017 Articles 1,540 409 1,949 79% 1,441 401 1,842 78% 51,766 29,637 81,403 64% Art/Jrnl 36 74 44 Table 19.1. Journals and ar cles, Western Europe 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 Journals 1,842 1,869 1,817 1,698 1,532 1,397 %Free 78% 79% 79% 80% 81% 83% Articles 81,403 77,124 65,170 59,733 54,737 49,123 %Free 64% 63% 64% 63% 64% 66% Table 19.2. Journals and ar cles by year, Western Europe While growth slowed somewhat in 2017, there’s been healthy growth each year. 166 19. Western Europe 167 Figure 19.1. Free and pay ar cles by year, Western Europe Ar cle Volume Journals Largest: 600+ Large: 150-599 Med.: 60-149 Small: 20-59 Smallest: 1-19 %Free 16 63 272 1,006 485 Articles 44% 46% 58% 83% 85% 20,742 11,527 17,783 26,371 4,980 %Free 55% 41% 54% 82% 87% Table 19.3. Ar cle volume, Western Europe It’s unusual for articles in the largest journals to be mostly free and for paid articles to be the majority only in large journals. APC Levels Medium-priced journals publish slightly more articles than either expensive or inexpensive ones. Average cost per article in APC-charging journals is $1,281; across all journals, that drops to $466. 168 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Jour. $1,400+ $600-$1.399 $200-$599 $2-$199 Free 110 153 97 49 1,540 %APC 27% 37% 24% 12% %All Art. 6% 11,192 8% 11,408 5% 4,160 3% 2,877 79% 51,766 %APC %All 38% 38% 14% 10% 14% 14% 5% 4% 64% Table 19.4. APC levels, Western Europe Star ng Date Figure 19.2. Star ng dates, Western Europe Western Europe is rich in early OA, with 112 journals before 1994. 19. Western Europe 169 Segments Biomed $1,400+ Articles Revenue $600-$1.399 Articles Revenue $200-$599 Articles Revenue $0.20-$199 Articles Revenue Free Articles STEM 68 8,990 $19,515,336 45 2,926 $2,942,156 30 1,113 $485,820 4 154 $21,373 127 6,011 HSS 24 1,758 $3,448,431 79 7,118 $7,567,315 28 1,665 $609,614 17 2,032 $171,726 217 17,999 18 444 $1,066,546 26 1,364 $1,620,415 36 1,382 $452,217 26 691 $70,536 1,097 27,756 Table 19.5. Ar cles and revenue by segment, Western Europe Expensive biomed journals and medium-priced STEM journals bring in the most money and have the most articles. Visibility Fee/APC Visible Obscure Free % 1,224 314 Pay 79.6% 20.4% % 392 17 Table 19.6. Visibility, Western Europe Too many free journals fail to make their status clear. 95.8% 4.2% 170 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Publisher Category Category Journals %Free Articles %Free Univ/college 885 94% 25,550 86% Traditional 174 18% 22,554 47% Miscellaneous 361 82% 13,211 65% Open Access 243 50% 11,600 42% Society/govt 179 88% 8,488 66% Table 19.7. Publisher categories, Western Europe As with several other regions, universities publish the most articles and have by far the most journals. Growth and Shrinkage Change 2016-17 Grew 50%+ Grew 25-49.9% Grew 10-24.99% Even, ±9.99% Shrank 10-24.99% Shrank 25-49.99% Shrank 50%+ Count Percent 366 205 197 425 272 232 252 Cum% 18.8% 10.5% 10.1% 21.8% 14.0% 11.9% 12.9% Table 19.8. Growth and shrinkage, Western Europe Almost as many journals shrank (38.8%) as grew (39.4%). 29.3% 39.4% 61.2% 75.2% 87.1% 19. Western Europe 171 Countries Country Journals %Free Articles %Free United Kingdom 302 40% 19,977 18% Spain 546 96% 14,714 94% France 194 90% 14,480 95% Germany 168 70% 10,240 48% Italy 280 83% 7,950 78% Switzerland 47 53% 3,276 46% Portugal 85 88% 2,485 74% Sweden 48 60% 1,890 37% Netherlands 48 83% 1,254 90% Norway 70 91% 1,216 93% Greece 29 69% 1,079 64% Austria 40 85% 920 68% Belgium 33 94% 602 93% Finland 19 84% 532 72% Iceland 6 100% 313 100% Denmark 18 94% 229 84% Ireland 12 100% 205 100% Malta 2 100% 25 100% Luxembourg 2 100% 16 100% Table 19.9. Country of publica on, Western Europe (complete) The UK has the most articles, Spain the most journals. 172 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Subjects Subject Journals %Free Articles %Free Medicine 253 49% 15,054 37% Technology 25 60% 6,062 97% Language & Literature 225 96% 4,868 96% Ecology 46 52% 4,517 34% Earth Sciences 92 61% 4,304 58% Biology 32 34% 4,140 11% Physics 18 33% 4,063 78% Education 143 90% 3,969 83% Anthropology 151 92% 3,776 89% Sociology 112 87% 3,288 83% Arts & Architecture 111 91% 2,467 85% History 106 99% 2,413 100% Chemistry 12 42% 2,343 57% Other Sciences 19 74% 2,309 36% Media & Communications 68 94% 2,084 92% Computer Science 39 72% 2,012 28% Engineering 24 46% 1,638 25% Agriculture 43 60% 1,598 48% Political Science 70 90% 1,567 90% Law 57 95% 1,378 94% Philosophy 53 98% 1,298 99% Economics 58 79% 1,118 57% Zoology 35 69% 1,115 54% Psychology 40 75% 1,012 63% Religion 27 85% 826 89% Library Science 34 94% 793 97% Miscellany 31 90% 780 71% Mathematics 25 76% 611 66% Table 19.10. Subjects, Western Europe (complete) Appendix A. Methods, Changes and Caveats The Inves ga on This research began with the master dataset prepared for GOAJ2: Gold Open Access Journals 2011-2017 and the downloaded DOAJ metadata as of 0:30 a.m., January 1, 2018 (half an hour after midnight, as timestamped in the filename). The 2016 dataset included 9,366 journals. The 2017 dataset (the DOAJ download) includes 10,711 journals (of which five had disappeared from DOAJ and the internet by the time I tested them, so the dataset size is 10,706 journals). Matching proceeded as follows:  For 6,195 journals, the URL and journal title in the 2016 and 2017 files were exact matches (according to Excel’s Vlookup and equality tests).  For 1,272 journals, the URL in both datasets was an exact match, and manual inspection said that these were the same journals but with changes in titles or publisher. That adds up to 7,467 unambiguous matches.  For 341 journals, the URLs were different, the journal titles were identical, and the publishers were either identical or represented normal changes. That adds up to 7,808 matches.  Manual comparison of titles yielded 159 more journals that changed both URLs and titles (the latter usually in small ways). That adds up to 7,967 total matches. 173 174 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017  Inspecting datasets of journals previously removed from DOAJ or in the “gray OA” groups yielded 201 “restored” journals, yielding 8,168 matches.  The new dataset includes 2,538 journals added to DOAJ during 2017 that had not been in one of the other datasets. These are not mostly brand-new journals: only 185 of the 2,538 began in 2017.  Thus, the dataset for 2017 begins with 10,706 journals. (More than 1,300 journals were dropped from DOAJ during 2017.)  During the course of testing, a few dozen duplicates appeared, and comparisons yielded a few more—primarily cases where the same journal (with the same or an equivalent URL) appears with the title in two different languages or with other minor changes. These were coded as “XD,” combined with other cases where a journal has no articles throughout the 2012-2017 period. Unlike last year’s study, these are included in the Figshare spreadsheet, which includes all 10,706 rows.  As discussed in Chapter 3, 413 journals were excluded for various reasons (“X” codes). That leaves 10,293 journals that published at least one article between 2012 and 2017 and were accessible during the testing period (January 4, 2018-May 3. 2018). All “X” journals were tested twice; all “XM” journals were checked three times. Changes from Gold Open Access Journals 2011-2016 Some codes have been added or combined in order to provide a clearer picture in Chapters 1 and 3 (the only chapters where codes come into play—except that “X” codes are excluded from all other chapters). Changes in B Codes Two codes have been added and several eliminated:  BI: No articles since 2015. All of these were rechecked in late April 2018. I’m sure that rechecking later in 2018 would yield 2017 arti- Appendix A. Methods, Changes and Caveats 175 cles for some of these. This code—the “I” is for “Inactive”—combines former codes B2, B3, B4, B5, and portions of BC (ceased journals with 2016-2017 articles are now coded A).  BM: Outbound malware, but could measure the journal. Think of this as a yellow flag—Malwarebytes flagged some site called by the journal as containing malware and blocked access to the subsite, but without that access I could examine journal policies and archives. I would be loath to go to any of these journals without strong active antivirus/antimalware software running.  In addition to dropping B2-B5 and BC, BF (few 2016 articles) has been dropped as not providing useful information (it’s easy enough to determine from the spreadsheet), and BS has been dropped because it’s not allowed by DOAJ standards. Changes in Other Codes  CA has been eliminated, as the DOAJ rules don’t allow it. (Two journals didn’t yet submit their information, but both were pretty clearly free.)  XU and XP have been merged into XX.  The new XD combines the old XE and other cases where examination shows that a journal is, in effect, a duplicate or earlier version (and 2012-2017 counts are in the other version).  XT has been eliminated thanks to help from my friends, as noted in the Preface. Caveats The same caveats apply as in GOAJ2: Gold Open Access Journals 20112016. Briefly, article counts are (generally) inclusive of reviews, short reports and (sometimes) editorials, especially when counting shortcuts were available. I used every counting shortcut I could find; and there are very few estimates (I have 15 journals marked as approximate counts, but only nine for 2017). I’m certain that manual counts are off by one or two in some cases Index Index to tables and figures. All known gold OA articles 2013-2017, 8 APC levels: Africa, 130; agriculture, 91; anthropology, 108; APCLand, 125; arts & architecture, 109; Asia, 135; biology, 83; biomed, 79; chemistry, 92; computer science, 93; detailed breakdown, 34; earth sciences, 94; Eastern Europe, 142; ecology, 95; economics, 110; education, 111; engineering, 96; history, 112; HSS, 104; language & literature, 113; Latin America, 149; law, 114; library science, 115; mathematics, 97; media & communications, 116; medicine, 84; Middle East, 156; miscellaneous, 55; miscellany, 117; open access publishers, 41; other sciences, 98; Pacific/English, 162; philosophy, 118; physics, 99; political science, 119; psychology, 120; religion, 121; society-published, 51; sociology, 122; STEM, 87; technology, 100; traditional publishers, 48; university-published, 45; Western Europe, 168; zoology, 101 APCLand articles, 15 APCLand starting dates, 16 Article volume: Africa, 129; APCLand, 124; Asia, 135; biomed, 78; Eastern Europe, 141; HSS, 103; Latin America, 148; Middle East, 155; miscellaneous, 55; open access publishers, 41; Pacific/English, 161; society-published, 51; STEM, 86; traditional publishers, 48; universitypublished, 44; Western Europe, 167 Articles and revenue by segment: Africa, 131; APCLand, 125; Asia, 137; Eastern Europe, 143; Latin America, 150; Middle East, 157; miscellaneous, 56; open access publishers, 42; overall, 35; Pacific/English, 163; society-published, 53; traditional publishers, 49; university-published, 46; Western Europe, 169 Articles by segment: 2017, 27; APCLand, 29; OAWorld, 30 176 Index 177 Articles per year and special codes, 3 Countries in APCLand, 60 Countries in OAWorld (partial), STEM, 90 Countries in OAWorld with 600 or more HSS titles, 107 Countries in OAWorld, alphabetic, 63 Countries with four or more OA journals ranked by free journal %, 69 Countries with more than 600 articles, biomed, 82 Country of publication: Africa, 132; APCLand, 127; Asia, 138; Eastern Europe, 145; Latin America, 152; Middle East, 158; Pacific/English, 164; Western Europe, 171 Excluded journals, 21 Free and pay articles by year: Africa, 129; Asia, 135; biomed, 78; Eastern Europe, 141; HSS, 103; Latin America, 148; Middle East, 155; miscellaneous, 54; open access publishers, 41; overall, 7; society-published, 51; STEM, 86; traditional publishers, 47; university-published, 44; Western Europe, 167 Free and pay journals by starting date, overall, 6 Growth and shrinkage: Africa, 132; APCLand, 17; APCs $0.20 to $199, 37; APCs $1,400 and up, 36; APCs $200 to $599, 37; APCs $600-$1,399, 36; Asia, 138; biomed, 81; Eastern Europe, 144; free (nofee) journals, 37; HSS, 106; Latin America, 151; Middle East, 158; OAWorld, 18; overall, 7; Pacific/English, 164; STEM, 89; Western Europe, 170 Journals and articles by detailed peak volume, 25 Journals and articles by region, 123 Journals and articles by segment, 26 Journals and articles by year: Africa, 128; agriculture, 91; anthropology, 108; APCLand and OAWorld, 13; APCLand, 124; arts & architecture, 109; Asia, 134; biology, 83; biomed, 77; chemistry, 92; computer science, 93; earth sciences, 94; Eastern Europe, 140; ecology, 95; economics, 110; education, 111; engineering, 96; history, 112; HSS, 102; language & literature, 113; Latin America, 147; law, 114; library science, 115; mathematics, 97; media & communications, 116; medicine, 84; Middle East, 154; miscellaneous, 54; miscellany, 117; open access publishers, 40; other sciences, 98; Pacific/English, 160; philosophy, 118; physics, 99; political science, 119; psychology, 120; religion, 121; society-published, 50; sociology, 122; STEM, 85; technology, 100; traditional publishers, 47; university-published, 43; Western Europe, 166; zoology, 101 178 GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 Journals and articles: Africa, 128; APCLand, 124; Asia, 134; biomed, 77; Eastern Europe, 140; HSS, 102; Latin America, 147; Middle East, 154; overall, 3; Pacific/English, 160; STEM, 85; Western Europe, 166 Journals by region: agriculture, 91; anthropology, 108; arts & architecture, 109; biology, 83; biomed, 80; chemistry, 92; computer science, 93; earth sciences, 94; ecology, 95; economics, 110; education, 111; engineering, 96; history, 112; HSS, 105; language & literature, 113; law, 114; library science, 115; mathematics, 97; media & communications, 116; medicine, 84; miscellaneous, 56; miscellany, 117; open access publishers, 43; other sciences, 98; philosophy, 118; physics, 99; political science, 119; psychology, 120; religion, 121; society-published, 53; sociology, 122; STEM, 88; technology, 100; traditional publishers, 50; university-published, 46; zoology, 101 Journals by segment: 2017, 27; APCLand, 28; OAWorld, 29 Maximum potential 2017 revenue by publishers, not normalized, 33; OA journals by starting year, 5; OAWorld articles, 16; OAWorld countries with 200+ 2017 articles, ranked by article count, 72; OAWorld countries with 200+ 2017 articles, ranked by free %, 74; OAWorld countries with four or more journals, ranked by journals, 66; OAWorld starting dates, 17; Partial article counts for excluded journals, 22; Publisher categories: Africa, 131; Asia, 137; biomed, 80; Eastern Europe, 143; HSS, 105; Latin America, 150; Middle East, 157; overall, 40; Pacific/English, 163; STEM, 88; Western Europe, 170 Revenue by journal, detailed breakdown, 32; Revenue* and cost per article by year, 2012-2017, 4; Starting dates: Africa, 130; Asia, 136; biomed, 79; Eastern Europe, 142; HSS, 104; Latin America, 149; Middle East, 156; miscellaneous, 55; open access publishers, 42; Pacific/English, 162; society-published, 52; STEM, 87; traditional publishers, 49; university-published, 45; Western Europe, 168 Subjects: Africa, 133; APCLand, 126; Asia, 139; biomed, 81; Eastern Europe, 146; HSS, 106; Latin America, 153; Middle East, 159; Pacific/English, 165; Western Europe, 172 Index 179 Visibility: Africa, 131; APCLand, 18; Asia, 136; biomed, 81; Eastern Europe, 142; HSS, 105; Latin America, 151; Middle East, 156; miscellaneous, 56; OAWorld, 18; open access publishers, 43; overall, 8; Pacific/English, 164; society-published, 53; STEM, 89; traditional publishers, 50; university-published, 46; Western Europe, 169