307 SpringerOpen titles for which we have data on journals that were fully open at some point from 2010 to the present were studied, with a primary focus on pricing and status changes from 2019 – 2020 and a secondary focus on longitudinal status changes. Of the 307 titles, 226 are active, fully open access and are still published by SpringerOpen, 40 have ceased publication, 19 were transferred to another publisher, and 18 journals that were formerly open access are now hybrid. 6 of these journals transitioned from free to hybrid in the past year. An additional 2 journals were not found. An additional 2 journals were not found. Of the 226 active journals published by SpringerOpen, 51% charge APCs. The average APC is 1,233 EUR, an increase of 3% over the 2019 average. 46.5% of the 101 journals for which we have 2019 and 2020 data did not change in price; 13.9% decreased in price; and 39.6% increased in price. The extent of change in price was substantial, ranging from a 50% price drop to a 94% price increase.
Open access commercial publishing pioneer BMC is now wholly owned by a private company with a portfolio including lines of business that derive revenue from journal subscriptions, book sales, and textbook sales and rentals
Two former BMC fully OA journals, listed in DOAJ from 2014 – 2018 as having CC-BY licenses, are now hybrid and listed on the Springer website and have disappeared from the BMC website
67% of BMC journals with APCs in 2019 and 2020 increased in price and 11% decreased in price.
Journals with price increases had a higher average APC in 2019, i.e. more expensive journals appear to be more likely to increase in price
Abstract
Founded in 2000, BioMedCentral (BMC) was one of the first commercial (OA) publishers and a pioneer of the article processing charges (APC) business model. BMC was acquired by Springer in 2008. In 2015, Springer was acquired by the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group in 2015 and became part of SpringerNature. In other words, BMC began as an OA publisher and is now one of the imprints or business lines of a company whose other lines of business include sales of journal subscriptions and scholarly books and textbook sales and rentals. Of the 328 journals actively published by BMC in 2020, 91% charge APCs. The average APC was 2,271 USD, an increase of 3% over 2019. An overall small increase in average APC masks substantial changes at the individual journal level. As first noted by Wheatley (2016), BMC price changes from one year to the next are a mix of increases, decreases, and retention of the same price. In 2020, 67% of the 287 journals for which we have pricing in USD for both 2019 and 2020 increased in price; 11% decreased in price, and 22% did not change price. It appears that it is the more expensive journals that are more likely to increase in price. The average 2019 price of the journals that increased in 2020 was 2,307 USD, 18% higher than the 2019 average of 1,948 USD for journals that decreased in price. 173 journals increased in price by 4% or more, well above the inflation rate. 39 journals increased in price by 10% or more; 13 journals increased in price by 20% or more. Also in 2020, there are 11 new journals, 11 journals ceased publication, 5 titles were transferred to other publishers, 2 journals changed from no publication fee to having an APC, and 3 journals dropped their APCs. Two journals formerly published fully OA by BMC are no longer listed on the BMC website, but are now listed as hybrid on the Springer website. This is a small portion of the total but is worth noting as the opposite direction of the transformative (from subscriptions to OA) officially embraced by SpringerNature.
Frontier’s comment regarding their pricing transparency below is helpful. It is important for those who support gold OA publishing to understand the cost implications of their demands and expectations. Frontiers states: “As Frontiers’ sole source of income, APCs allow us to subsidize new journals and communities with less research funding, to reinvest in our publishing platform, and to offer a fee support program. More than a third of all articles published in 2017/18 received full or partial waivers as a result of this approach, which we fully intend to continue to offer in the years ahead.” An average APC of $2,170 USD could support hosting a whole journal in North America and could be enough to fund a year or partial year of a highly paid researchers’ salary, in less affluent countries. If granting agencies were to directly subsidize local publishing in both more and less affluent countries, this would probably cost less and do more (by supporting local development) than expecting publishers like Frontiers to subsidize APCs.
It has come to my attention that this post happens to coincide with negotiations on a national agreement between Frontiers and Germany in the context of PlanS / cOAlition S. Details about the agreement can be found:
A third of the journals published by Frontiers in 2019 and 2020 (20 / 61 journals) have increased in price by 18% or more (up to 55%). This is quite a contrast with the .4% Swiss inflation rate for 2019 according to Worlddata.info ; 18% is 45 times the inflation rate. This is an even more marked contrast with the current and anticipated economic impact of COVID; according to Le News, “A team of economic experts working for the Swiss government forecasts a 6.7% fall in GDP”. (Frontiers’ headquarters is in Switzerland).
This is similar to our 2019 finding that 40% of Frontier’s journals had increased in price by 18% or more (Pashaei & Morrison, 2019) and our 2018 finding that 40% of Frontier journals had increased in price by 18% – 31% (Morrison, 2018).
The price increases are on top of already high prices. For example, Frontiers in Earth Science increased from 1,900 USD to 2,950 USD, a 55% price increase. Frontiers in Oncology increased from 2,490 to 2,950 USD, an 18% price increase.
This illustrates an inelastic market. Payers of these fees are largely government research funders, either directly or indirectly through university libraries or researchers’ own funds. The payers are experiencing a major downturn and significant challenges such as lab closures, working from home in lockdown conditions, and additional costs to accommodate public health measures, while Frontiers clearly expects ever-increasing revenue and profit.
Following is a list of Frontier journals with price increases. All pricing is in USD.
Pricing trends for 2018 – 2019 were compared on a per-journal and per-publisher basis. In contrast to the relatively unchanging global average APC, per-journal and per-publisher shows a mixture of trends. Most journals did not change in price from 2018 to 2019; 13% increased in price, 25% decreased. Journals included in DOAJ showed a greater tendency to increase in price (37%). Average price changes per publisher ranged from 0 (no change) to a 34% average increase in price. In some cases, price increases and decreases cancel each other out resulting in an average of 0 (no change) masking considerable change at the per-journal level. Only 2 publishers have APPCs; these have similar average prices. Average APC price by publisher ranges from 246 to 2,851 USD. UK-based not-for-profit publisher Ubiquity Press stands out as having the second-lowest average APC of 536 USD with no price increases.
Context
As reported by Singh & Morrison (2019), the global average APC has shown little change between 2010 and 2019, but variation in the mode and a constant increase in maximum APC and APPC, along with case studies by the SKC team, suggests that this does not give the whole picture of what is happening. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether change in APC or APPC is more obvious at the per-journal or per-publisher level.
Research question
Are there observable changes in APC or APPC at the per-journal or per-publisher level from 2018 – 2019?
Method
The data for this study is from the 2019 iteration of the APC longitudinal study; for documentation of the main study, a link to the dataset, and an invitation to open peer review, see Morrison et al. (2019). As reported by Singh & Morrison (2019), the majority of journals do not charge publication fees. Journals from the main spreadsheet were selected for which an APC or APPC amount is available for both 2018 and 2019. This resulted in a sample of 2,471 journals. Currencies were matched and original currency used for calculations wherever the same currency was listed in both years (2,255 APC journals). The reason for matching currency is to avoid conflation of currency fluctuations and pricing changes. For the remaining journals, APC in USD equivalent was done, using June 30, 2019 XE Currency Converter rates. The 2018 price was deducted from the 2019 price and the difference was divided into the 2018 price to determine the percentage of change.
A second sub-selection was drawn from this sample, limiting to journals that were listed in DOAJ on January 31, 2019, resulting in a sample of 1,514 journals. Of these, 1,394 match in currency in 2018 and 2019. Calculation of the numeric and percentage difference in price from 2018 to 2019 was calculated as described above. This eliminates journals by publishers that are no longer listed in DOAJ, newer journals that are not yet listed in DOAJ and other journals that are listed due to not meeting one of the DOAJ criteria, such as minimum number of articles published per year.
Per-publisher analysis was conducted using the second (DOAJ journals only) sample. For each publisher with more than one journal in the sample, the average APC or APPC was calculated as well as the average, minimum and maximum percentage change.
Results
Journals with APC or APPC data in both 2018 and 2019
As illustrated in the table and chart below, pricing trends on a per-journal basis varied. The majority of journals (62%) did not change in price; 13% decreased in price and 25% increased in price.
2018 – 2019 APC or APPC price changes
# journals
% journals
Price decrease
317
13%
No change in price
1,528
62%
Price increase
626
25%
Grand Total
2,471
Journals in DOAJ 2019 with APC or APPC data in both 2018 and 2019
The following table and chart illustrate a somewhat different trend when limiting to journals included in DOAJ. The percentage of journals with price decreases is the same at 13%, but the percentage of journals with price increases in higher at 37%. Half the journals (50%) did not change in price.
2018 – 2019 APC or APPC price changes, DOAJ journals only
# journals
% journals
Price decrease
191
13%
No change
758
50%
Price increase
565
37%
Grand Total
1,514
Price change 2018 – 2019 by publisher
The following illustrates that pricing changes from 2018 – 2019 varied by publisher. 6 publishers had no price changes from 2018 – 2019. 16 publishers did have price changes from 2018 – 2019. For the publishers with price changes, there were differences in the pattern of change. Nature and Sage’s price increases and price decreases cancel each other out for an average of no change in price. A few publishers either kept prices the same or increased them, however most publishers have a mixture of price increases and decreases. In interpreting the pricing trends, it is important to consider the average price. A publisher with no price increases may have a higher average APC than a publisher with price increases. The average prices will be highlighting in the next table.
Publisher
Average APC 2019 *
Currency
APC or APPC in USD ****
Average price change % 2018 – 2019
Min. price change 2018 – 2019 ***
Max. price change 2018 – 2019
Publishers with no price changes 2018 – 2019
APC
Average APC 2019 *
American Geophysical Union (AGU)
1,800
USD
1,800
0%
De Gruyter
1,045
EUR
1,188
0%
Karger Publishers
2,783
CHF
2,851
0%
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2,428
USD
2,428
0%
Ubiquity Press**
536
USD
536
0%
APPC (per-age not per-article)
Average APPC 2019 *
Copernicus Publications (APPC) per-page not per-article
64
EUR
73
0%
Publishers with price changes 2018 – 2019
APC
Average APC 2019 *
BioMed Central
1,533
GBP
1,947
10%
-42%
123%
Dove Medical Press
1,983
USD
1,983
1%
0%
18%
Elsevier **
1,633
USD
1,633
13%
-50%
567%
Frontiers Media S.A.
2,297
USD
2,297
10%
0%
100%
Hindawi Limited
1,161
USD
1,161
6%
-24%
95%
MDPI AG
848
CHF
869
23%
0%
227%
Nature Publishing Group
2,031
GBP
2,579
0%
-21%
28%
Oxford University Press **
1,572
USD
1,572
22%
-51%
61%
PAGEPress Publications
473
EUR
538
1%
0%
20%
SAGE Publishing **
1,429
USD
1,429
0%
-59%
67%
SpringerOpen
1,205
EUR
1,370
8%
-37%
109%
Taylor & Francis Group **
693
USD
693
6%
-56%
500%
Wiley
2,331
USD
2,331
3%
-27%
100%
Wolters Kluwer
2,433
USD
2,433
1%
0%
6%
Wolters Kluwer Medknow Publications **
246
USD
246
34%
-57%
602%
APPC (per-page not per-article)
AOSIS (APPC) per-page not per-article
1,196
ZAR
85
5%
0%
19%
* Average prices of journals listed in DOAJ in Jan 2019 and for which APC data is available for both 2018 and 2019.
** Prices converted to USD June 30, 2019 as APCs listed in different currencies.
*** Negative numbers reflect price decreases
**** Based on June 30, 2019 currency conversion rate, XE currency
The following table shows the average APC in USD by publisher in ascending order (starting with the lowest price), along with average, minimum and maximum price changes from 2018 – 2019 by percentage.
Publisher
2019 Average APC or APPC in USD
Average price change 2018 – 2019 %
Min. price change 2018 – 2019 ***
Max. price change 2018 – 2019
APC
Wolters Kluwer Medknow Publications **
246
34%
-57%
602%
Ubiquity Press**
536
0%
PAGEPress Publications
538
1%
0%
20%
Taylor & Francis Group **
693
6%
-56%
500%
MDPI AG
869
23%
0%
227%
Hindawi Limited
1,161
6%
-24%
95%
De Gruyter
1,188
0%
SpringerOpen
1,370
8%
-37%
109%
SAGE Publishing **
1,429
0%
-59%
67%
Oxford University Press **
1,572
22%
-51%
61%
Elsevier **
1,633
13%
-50%
567%
American Geophysical Union (AGU)
1,800
0%
BioMed Central
1,947
10%
-42%
123%
Dove Medical Press
1,983
1%
0%
18%
Frontiers Media S.A.
2,297
10%
0%
100%
Wiley
2,331
3%
-27%
100%
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2,428
0%
Wolters Kluwer
2,433
1%
0%
6%
Nature Publishing Group
2,579
0%
-21%
28%
Karger Publishers
2,851
0%
APPC (per-age not per-article)
Copernicus Publications (APPC) per-page not per-article
73
0%
AOSIS (APPC) per-page not per-article
85
5%
0%
19%
Discussion and conclusions
The data clearly demonstrate that the volume and direction of pricing changes varies by journal and by publisher. From 2018 to 2019, most journals did not change in price, some decreased in price, and others increased in price. Different APC based publishers display different tendencies and a wide range of average APCs, from 246 to 2,851 USD. The two APPC based publishers had similar pricing. The lowest average APC of 246 USD was for Wolters Kluwer Medknow. As noted by Avashti & Morrison (2019), most Medknow journals do not charge APCs; the average APC is likely impacted by the area served, as Medknow originated in India. It is not surprising that the 3 highest average APCs are associated with European based publishers (Wolters Kluwer, Nature, and Karger). However, the low average APC of UK based Ubiquity Publishing at 536 USD, combined with no price increases, is in marked contrast with Oxford University Press’ average APC of 1,572 USD and average price increase of 22%. This evidence of differences in APC / APPC and pricing trends by publisher supports, and is supported by, Shi & Morrison’s (2019) comparison of 4 pairs of publishers and sub-publishers.
This post features 4 comparisons between publishers and sub-publishers of fully open access journals that are included in our longitudinal APC study. Traditional publisher Wolters Kluwer owns two sub-publishers (or imprints). Wolters Kluwer Medknow journals tend not to charge APCs, and have low prices when they do charge. Wolters Kluwer Lippincott journals tend to charge, and prices are high. Indonesian-based Universitas Negeri Semerang is now one of the world’s largest OA journal publishers by the number of journals and appears to be new to online publishing using open-source software. Very few of their journals have APCs. The traditional Oxford University Press tends to have APCs, and their APCs are more than twice as high as a new UK-based not-for-profit OA journal publisher, Ubiquity Press. MDPI and Hindawi are very similar, both are fairly new, APC based commercial OA journal publishers; but Hindawi’s average APC is 44% higher than MDPIs. To understand the economics of OA journal publishing, it is necessary to take into account the strategies of particular publishers and even sub-publishers.
Research Question: are publishers and sub-publishers of fully open access journals pursuing observably different strategies with respect to publication fees (charging / non-charging, pricing strategies).
Method: 4 pairs of publishers or sub-publishers (imprints) were selected for comparison using the data from OA Main 2019, based on what appear to be differences in approach by publishers that are otherwise similar: Wolters Kluwer’s Medknow (India-based, OA in origin) & Lippincott (U.S. based, traditional subscriptions in origin); university-based publishers Universitas Negeri Semarang (Indonesia) & University of Oxford (U.K.); University of Oxford & Ubiquity (both U.K. based, traditional subscriptions v. OA origin) and MDPI & Hindawi (both commercial, OA in origin based on the APC model). Status of fully OA journals published by each publisher was compared, focusing on the tendency to charge (or not) and the amount of APC for charging journals.
Detail
1.Wolters Kluwer Medknow & Lippincott
Wolters Kluwer is one of the world’s oldest commercial scholarly publishers, having been established in 1836 in the Netherlands, where the company’s global headquarters is still located (Wolters Kluwer,2019a).
After acquiring Medknow in 2011, Wolters Kluwer focuses on develop strategic partnerships and leverage global brand and strengthen go-to-market (Wolters Kluwer,2019a). However, in Wolter Kluwer 2019 half-year financial report says: “Recurring revenues accounted for 80% of total revenues and grew 5% organically (HY 2018: 5%). Recurring revenues include subscriptions and other renewing revenue streams”. In the report, they also publish their major revenue (85.5%) comes from digital and service subscription and open access APC does not show as a certain type of revenues below (Wolters Kluwer,2019b).
Medknow & Lippincott are different sub-publishers (imprints) belonging to Wolters Kluwer.
In 2019, Wolters Kluwers Medknow publishes 527 journals among which 99 journals (18.8%) have an APC, over half of journals do not charge a publication fee (66.6%). It is also important to notice that a few journals are redirecting to risky URL which is concerning as there are chances, it has been stolen by some other company (Avasthi, N & Morrison, H, 2019). Among the 99 journals with an APC that were studied, the highest APC is 1,500 USD and the minimal price is 9 USD. The average APC is 200 USD per article and, the most common publication fee (mode) is 150 USD per article.
2019 APC Wolters Kluwers Medknow website
For Wolters Kluwers Lippincott’s fully OA journals, over two-thirds of its journals (71.9%) have a publication fee. Among the 23 journals, the average APC is 1,756 USD per article, the range of APC (article proceeding cost) starts from 1,000 USD to 2,250 USD, and most common APC (mode) is 1,500 USD per article. Compare to Medknow, Lippincott has a much higher average APC. Lippincott’s average publication fee is almost 9 times the average of Medknow which is 200 USD. A lower standard deviation of Medknow indicates that the publication fees tend to be close to the mean (200 USD) of the set, while a high standard deviation of Lippincott indicates that the publication fees are spread out over a wider range.
2019 APC Wolters Kluwers Lippincott website
2. Universitas Negeri Semarang & University of Oxford
Oxford University Press is one of the oldest scholarly publishers officially established in 1668. From the late 1800s, Oxford University Press began to expand significantly and makes most of its revenue from subscription and book sales.
Universitas Negeri Semarang , it appears to be fairly new to online publishing; in DOAJ the first year of online publication is 2009 or later for all the journals (column IO). Most of the journals appear to be published in Indonesian and/or English. The platform used is OJS – open source journal publishing software developed by the Public Knowledge Project. In other words, we have contrasted a very old, traditional, UK-based publisher with a new approach. (Note the size of OA journal publishing by UNS – see Appendix A.)
Universitas Negeri Semarang, based in Indonesia, is among the largest fully open access publishers with 96 journals. According to DOAJ webpage, Indonesia becomes the second largest country of publisher by number of journals ( see Appendix B.) and Indonesian rupiah becomes the 6th among all the original currencies for OA journals which accounts for 1.86%. The University of Oxford is a very well-known traditional scholarly publisher. These two university publishers have different approaches to APC. After comparing these two publishers we found Universitas Negeri Semarang has no publication fee for 88.5% of its journals while the University of Oxford has a fee for 80.3% of its fully open access journals.
3. University of Oxford and Ubiquity
As mentioned before, Oxford University Press is one of the oldest scholarly publishers which has a rich history which can be traced back to the earliest days of printing.
Ubiquity Press as an open access publisher of peer-reviewed academic journals and books was founded by researchers at University College London (UCL) in 2012. As a highly cost-efficient press, it provides access to the platform to give universities and societies the infrastructure and services they need to run their own presses through the Ubiquity Partner Network and allow societies to earn income from open access.
The average price of Ubiquity journals that only charge in GBP is 469 GBP (596 USD) and the most common price among those journals (mode) is 300 GBP (381 USD). The average price of Oxford University Press journals that only charge in GBP is 4543 GBP (5769 USD) and the most common price among those journals (mode) is 1250 GBP (1587 USD). The chart below shows the differences between Ubiquity and Oxford University Press on the APC that charged in GBP.
The overall average APC of Ubiquity journals that have a fee is 577 USD while the overall average APC of the University of Oxford is 1,549 USD. The average APC difference between these two publishers is 972 USD.
2019 APC Ubiquity publisher website
4.MDPI and Hindawi
Hindawi is one of the world’s largest publishers of peer-reviewed, fully Open Access journals. Built on an ethos of openness, it works with the global academic community to promote open scholarly research to the world. Based in institutions around the globe, it focuses on serving authors while preserving robust publishing standards and editorial integrity.
MDPI has supported academic communities since 1996 as a non-profit institute for the promotion and preservation of the diversity of chemical compounds. Based in Basel, Switzerland, MDPI has the mission to foster open scientific exchange in all forms, across all disciplines. Mr. Dietrich Rordorf joined MDPI as Dr. Shu-Kun Lin’s assistant in August 2005. As an experiment, a modified version of the online submission and editorial system based on the Open Journals System (http://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs/) was launched by Dietrich for IJMS. Nowadays, MDPI has become the 7th largest publisher in number of articles published in 2018, and the largest publisher of open access articles in DOAJ in 2018.
MDPI and Hindawi charge fees for all the journals they published in 2019. However, their publication fees are different as the charts show below. Even though the highest APC are quite close for both publisher (2,049 USD for MDPI and 2,300 USD for Hindawi), the average APC for MDPI is 822 USD and 1,186 USD for Hindawi. We can also see the difference through mode. The most common price of Hindawi is 950 USD per article (Shi, A., 2019) while the most most common APC for MDPI journals is 350 CHF (359 USD) in 2019.
Publishers in DOAJ in descending order of number of journals
As of Nov. 19, 2019, Universitas Negeri Semarang is the 12th largest publisher by number of journals listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
Elsevier (339) BMC (328) Sciendo (326) Hindawi Limited (238) SpringerOpen (202) Wolters Kluwer Medknow Publications (194) MDPI AG (191) SAGE Publishing (165) Taylor & Francis Group (163) Wiley (109) Dove Medical Press (103) Universitas Negeri Semarang (90)
Appendix B
Country of publisher in DOAJ in descending order of number of journals
As of Nov. 21, 2019, Indonesia becomes the second largest country of publisher by number of journals listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
United Kingdom (1,609) Indonesia (1,565) Brazil (1,445) Spain (755) United States (741) Poland (619) Iran, Islamic Republic of (511) Turkey (404) Italy (387) Russian Federation (367)
Abstract – Open access journals have been developing in India for several decades for promoting the visibility of research done in various streams. OA to science has been encouraged by government sponsored repositories of student and doctoral proposals, and numerous Indian journals are distributed with OA. There is a need to build mindfulness among Indian scholastics with respect to publication practices, including OA, and its potential advantages, and use this methodology of distribution at whatever point doable, as in openly supported research. This research also showed that a well doing publisher in India gets acquired by European publisher Wolters Kluwer and becomes commercialised. The number of journals with “title not found” or “risky URL”, for example leading to a scam website, is surprising as one might assume that the motivation for this publisher’s society, university and commercial partners is that such partnership would result in high quality services. Most Medknow journals do not charge publication fees. The journals with publication fees are increasing the cost up to 50%. For documentation and a link to the underlying dataset, see Morrison et al. (2019).
According to the Medknow website, Medknow Publications was founded in 1997 in Mumbai, India by Devkumar Sahu. Sahu opted for the open access model of publishing services. Open access publishing means that research outputs and analysis are available online free of cost. In 2006, Medknow had 33 scientific technical and medical journals in its portfolio, at the time, one of the largest open access publishers of medical content in the world. They became the largest open access publishers of medical content till 2006. It was then acquired by Wolters Kluwer in Dec 2011. Medknow now provides publishing services to over 500 medical society journals in over 40 specialties. These are open access journals. Open access increases the visibility and accessibility of the published content. Medknow publishes journals in partnership with societies (affiliations), universities or other commercial partners for the most part. Most of the publications offer free access to the full text of papers immediately. Authors can self-archive articles that have been published. Journals are available freely online but also available through value-added subscriptions.
Chart 1 : Medknow 2019 count of publisher type
Code
Meaning
% of total
C/S
Commercial / society (Medknow publishes in partnership with a scholarly society)
56%
C/U
Commercial / university (Medknow publishers in partnership with a university)
25%
No Partnership
Owned outright by Medknow
10%
C/C
Commercial / Commercial (Medknow publishes in partnership with another commercial publisher
9%
531 Medknow journals were analysed in this research. This is an increase of approximately 7% in the count of journals in 2018. It is a significant growth however lesser as compared to that from 2017-2018. Out of these 531 journals, almost 65% of the journals do not charge publication cost. It is also important to notice that a few journals are redirecting to risky URL which is concerning as there are chances, it has been stolen by some other company. For the analysis I looked at each journal from Medknow’s website on an alphabetical basis. The charges for each journal are mentioned in a different manner. Some of the journals directly states the cost they charge however; few charges are based of the article type as mentioned below:
Short communications
Case Reports
Original Articles
Qualitative Research
Review Articles
Number of words
The below graph shows the representation of charges being taken by Medknow for 2019.
Out of 104 journals that are charging APC, below table shows the distribution of charges based on different currencies for the year 2019.
Most journals are charging in INR and USD. It is to be noticed as the journal originally started from India, but they started taking the publication cost in various other currencies as well which could be confusing for potential authors. Even for INR, there is no fixed cost and it is varying depending on each journal. There are few journals who are not charging for Indian authors but have mentioned publication costs for writers outside India. Have a look at the chart below:
This is a variation and we cannot suggest on a pattern of the publication cost. Below table shows the numbers currency wise:
If we look at the data from 2018, we can see that there has been both increase and decrease in the publication cost for the journals. There has been an increase of 16% in the journals whose title were not found, and this is subsequent to notice as Medknow being one of the well-known publishers does not have websites for so many journals! These journals have not been listed as ceased or nothing specific has been mentioned related to them. There are just 3% journals who showed a price drop but 4% increased the cost. At one side most journals are not charging publication fees but few of them have relatively increased their cost.
Please refer the below table for APC statistics comparison based on different currencies
Looking at the above table, I feel that it is relatively high cost to take for publishing a journal. In todays world, 8000 – 10000 INR would be a week’s salary of a corporate employee in a non metro city. Again, it depends from author to author, but the charge should be in a cap where its not too high. USD, EGP and IRR seem to be balanced as compared to charges being taken in INR globally.
Fernandez, L. (2006). Open Access Initiatives in India – an Evaluation. Partnership: The Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research, 1(1). https://doi.org/10.21083/partnership.v1i1.110
481 Hindawi journals were analyzed. 226 (47%) journals published at some point from 2010 – 2019 have ceased publication, 7 cannot be found on the Hindawi website anymore and 1 has been transferred to another publisher. In 2019, there are 247 journals actively publishing on the Hindawi website. All the journals are charging APCs. The average price is 1186.44 USD, an increase of 14% over the 2018 APC (1040.30 USD). Compared to the US inflation rate for 2018 of 2.44%(“U.S. Inflation Rate 1960-2019” n.d.), the publication fee rises more than 5 times. Among active journals, 17% of the 217 journals did not change in price; 30% journals decreased their price while more than half (53%) of the journals increased price. The amount of price increase starts from 25 USD up to 1350 USD. 14 journals appear to have switched from “no fee” to “fee”, with different APCS from 750 USD to 1350 USD.
Most journals that not found on the website in 2018 now been illustrated ceased on the web page with the specific ceased year and where to find previous publication articles which could be good practice for authors who are trying to find the latest information about specific journals. it also benefits other publishers to follow the lead.
Detail:
Table 1: 2019 Hindawi Journal Publication and APC status summary
Hindawi has 481 journals in 2019. Among these journals, 226 of them were reported ceased on Hindawi’s website. In 2018, most of the ceased journals cannot be found in the website but they have been specified on the webpage about when this journal is ceased and where can readers find previous articles published in the journal. This is a good practice. Here is a example of one of the ceased title.
screenshot from Hindawi website
Price changes 2018-2019
Hindawi has 232 active journals listed on its website in 2018. In 2019, there are 247 journals actively publishing on the Hindawi website. There are 15 journals that cannot be found on the website now can be searched which represents a 6.47% increase in journal numbers of Hindawi.
The average publication fee we found from the Hindawi’s website in 2018 is 1040.30 USD. There are 14 journals that had no publication fee in 2018 in contrast with no journals with no publication fee in 2019 and for most journals the publication fee is 1000 USD per article. The range of APC (article proceeding cost) starts from no publication fee which is zero to 2250 USD.
This average takes into account the 15 journals’ APC for the year 2019. This year, the majority of journals have a publication fee of 950 USD per article. Obviously, every journal found on the Hindawi website does have a publication fee from this year. The minimum cost is 650 USD up to 2300 USD. Graph 1 and Graph 2 below shows the frequency of APC for different prices in two years.
Table 2 2018 & 2019 Hindawi active titles APC status summary
Graph 1: price distribution for 2018
Graph 2: price distribution for 2019
Of the 247 journals total:
15 “new” journals are added in 2019 (including in 2019 overall analysis but not 2018-2019 change analysis)
Journals with status: no publication fee coded as 0 in change analysis.
Total journals included in the price change analysis:
2019 overall: 232
2018-2019 comparison: 217
Of the 217 titles, as illustrated in the chart and table below, a majority of these journals (53%) increased in prices in USD from 2018 to 2019, while a third (30%) decreased in price and a few (17%) did not change in price.
For the 116 journals that increased in price, the increases in percentages ranged from 2.22% to 95% (slightly under double in price).
Among the 65 journals with APC price decreases, the drop in percentage ranged from 5% to 24%.
Selected previous posts on Hindawi: Morrison, H. (2018). Recent APC price changes for 4 publishers (BMC, Hindawi, PLOS, PeerJ). Sustaining the knowledge commons. https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2018/04/13/recent-apc-price-changes-for-4-publishers-bmc-hindawi-plos-peerj/ In brief: Hindawi April 2016 – November 2017: mixed picture, price increases a bit concerning Brutus, W. (2017). Hindawi: comparaison 2016 – 2017. Soutenir les savoirs communs. https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2017/04/22/hindawi-comparaison-2016-2017/ In brief: French – highlights: the mode (most common APC) was $600 USD in 2016, $1,000 in 2017 Salhab, J. (2016). Hindawi publisher: 2016 findings and longitudinal comparison of APC rates. Sustaining the knowledge commons. https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2016/04/27/hindawi-publisher-2016-findings-and-longitudinal-comparison-of-apc-rates/ In brief: Hindawi previously used a strategy of rotating free publication in journals, mentioned in this post; the most common APC in both 2015 and 2016 was $600; comparing 2010 and 2016 data, we see a mixed picture with some prices increasing and others decreasing. Salhab, J. & Morrison, H. (2015). Who is served by for-profit gold open access publishing? A case study of Hindawi and Egypt. Sustaining the knowledge commons. https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2015/04/10/who-is-served-by-for-profit-gold-open-access-publishing-a-case-study-of-hindawi-and-egypt/ Highlights: as reported by Poynder (2012), Ahmed Hindawi, (from Egypt) founder of Hindawi, confirmed a revenue of millions of dollars from APCs alone – a $3.3 net profit on $12 million in revenue, a 28% profit rate. Hindawi is highly regarded as a leading reputable open access publisher. This commercial Egyptian success story is contrasted with high APC for the most prestigious journals and English-language- only journals that suggest that this approach is not helpful for Egypt’s researchers.
OpenEdition (formerly Revues.org) publishes 21 African journals. Only one of these journals is published in an African country (Kenya). In this post Kakou illustrates a gap in dissemination of African scholarship, particularly francophone African scholarship. For example, of the 524 journals included in African Journals Online (AJOL), 465 (89%) are published in English speaking countries and only 39 (7%) in French speaking countries. Only 12 of the 24 African countries where French is an official or co-official languages are represented in AJOL. This research illustrates the African and particularly Francophone African knowledge gap that is the focus of Kakou’s doctoral research.
According to the Asian Network for Scientific Information (ANSInet) website, the article processing charges (APCs) for almost all the listed journals dropped from 625 USD in 2018 to 325 USD in 2019 which is 48 percent decrease. Only the ‘International Journal of Pharmacology’ dropped from 1000 USD to 625 USD, about a 38 percent decrease. On the contrary, two journals experienced a slight increase for their article processing charges (APCs) from 250 USD to 275 USD. This is good news for authors who do not have enough funding but try to publish through Asian Network for Scientific Information (ANSInet). From the journal number perspective, 3 new journals have been added in the Asian Network for Scientific Information (ANSInet).
ANSInet is included in our study as this publisher was formerly in DOAJ. ANSInet no longer listed in DOAJ now; we do not know whether this publisher did not complete the re-application process or if ANSInet applied and was not accepted.
Abstract De Gruyter is a well-known traditional academic publisher with 270 years of experience. We first noted the dramatic expansion of De Gruyter into open access publishing in 2016 (French: Dumais-DesRosiers, M. & Brutus, W. (2016); English: Morrison (2016). In 2014, there were no De Gruyter titles listed in DOAJ; by the end of 2015, De Gruyter was the third largest publisher in DOAJ. In 2019, De Gruyter’s expansion into open access is even more remarkable, primarily through De Gruyter’s new imprint Sciendo, which has added more than 300 OA journals in 2019. The majority of De Gruyter / Sciendo journals (57%) do not charge APCs. In many cases we were not able to ascertain whether or not there is a fee.
Details Both De Gruyter and Sciendo publish journals through either Open Access or Paid access model.
The analysis of Open Access journals for these two publishers reveal that especially Sciendo is expanding its number of open access journals significantly, as almost 300 new journals were added to their database in 2019 alone.
Out of the new journals, 33 titles were published for the first time in 2019.
A deeper glance into the list of Sciendo journals shows that most of them are published through collaboration with different universities and academic societies and institutions in Europe.
There is not a clear pattern for pricing model of open access journals for authors by Sciendo. About 57 percent of the open access journals published by Sciendo are free of charge to publish in for authors, while almost 14 percent charge processing fees to publish articles. We were unable to find information regarding the rest of the journals.
For the open access journals with article processing charge (APC) model, the range of processing fees was approximately 50 Euros to 1000 Euros, depending on the journals in which the authors want to publish their articles (To write this blog post, we converted the cost from local currencies to Euros).
On the other, there were less changes in De Gruyter open access journals, though we found 21 new journals in the list of their journals comparing to the previous year. The data regarding their publishing model could be seen in the following chart.
For the journals with article processing charge model, the range was almost between 500 to 2000 Euros, with the average cost about 1000 Euros.
On a side note, there were some journals that were transferred between De Gruyter and Sciendo as the publisher, so it could be beneficial to authors and people who are interested in finding journals if De Gruyter was more clear in pointing out this on their website.
Sustaining the Knowledge Commons / Soutenir les savoirs communs 