Seminar presented at the European Summer School for Scientometrics (ESSS 2018) held at Vienna on july 27, 2018

1. Disentangling Gold Open Access
Disciplinary and Country Effect

2. Objectives
➢ Learn on differences by country on Gold OA publication
patterns
➢ Discuss and reflect on impact differences derived from
Gold OA, publisher type and specialization field
➢ Reflect on the changes in the publication industry derived
from the emergence of OA megajournals and implications for
research assessment

3. Agenda
I. Open Access and academia
➢ Beliefs and controversies
➢OA and Open Science
II. Journals and publishers
➢The APC model
➢ Predatory journals and OA detractors
➢ The new and the old oligopolies of publishers
III. Publication patterns worldwide
➢ Differences by country and discipline
➢ Three models of Gold OA publishing

4. Open Access and academia

5. Open Access and academia
“[…] it is up to the scientific
community to change the
system in a similar fashion and
in paralell to the open Access
and open science movements”
Larivière et al., 2015

6. Open Access and academia

7. Open Access and academia
1. OA = OA journals
2. All OA journals charge publication fees
3. The authors have to pay these fees
4. Publishing in non-OA journals = no OA
5. OA journals are low quality
6. OA mandates infringe academic freedom

8. Open Access and academia
EU Open Science
Monitor
2018
Data: Scopus

9. Open Access and academia
EU Open Science
Monitor
2018
Data: Scopus

10. Open Access and academia
EU Open Science
Monitor
2018
Data: Scopus
GOLD 39.7% | GREEN 26.1%

11. Open Access and academia
Data: Google Scholar, CrossRef

12. Open Access and academia
Data: WoS
Period: 2007-2015
Data sources, period
frame, OA definitions and
subject classifications are
important!!

13. Open Access and academia
Data: WoS
Period: 2007-2015
Data sources, period
frame, OA definitions and
subject classifications are
important!!

14. Open Access and academia
Open Access is one of the many
pillars by which Open Science
practices are supported

15. Journals and publishers
FIRST WAVE − LATE 1990s
• OA publishing dominated by individual initiatives
• Journal of of Medical Internet Research main exponent
SECOND WAVE − 1990s and 2000s
• Movement led by scientific societies
• Some examples: British Medical Journal | Scielo
THIRD WAVE − 2000s
• Birth of OA publishers: BMC and PLOS ONE
• Introduction of the APC (Article Processing Charges) business model
Björk & Solomon, 2012

16. Journals and publishers
THE APC MODEL AND PEER REVIEW SYSTEM
• Most sustainable solution to maintain
journals as a profitable business
• It allows ‘savings up to 30%’
compared to subscription model
• Ensure wide accessibility and visibility
to sci literature
• Speed of publication
• Peer review sloppy
• Opens door to predatory journals
• Journals have a monetary interest on
accepting and publishing manuscripts
• OA journals tend to have lower
Journal Impact Factor

17. “The open-Access movement has been a blessing to anyone
who has unscientific ideas and wants to get these ideas into
print”
Jeffrey Beall, 2013
Journals and publishers

18. Journals and publishers
• 2013 –Science Magazine publishes ‘Who’s afraid of peer review?’ by John
Bohannon, a scientific journalist
• He submitted 304 versions of a bogus paper to OA journals, 157 were accepted
• This was seen as an attack by Science Magazine to OA, as it sent the subtle
message that OA and poor quality were related.

19. Journals and publishers
• OA journals are not of a lesser quality than traditional ones but are younger
Björk & Solomon, 2012
• In fields such as Biomedicine OA journals with APC model have similar citation
rates than subscription-based journals
Solomon, Laakso & Björk, 2013
• “[O]verall positive impact trend for Top Open Access journals”.
Gumpenberger et al., 2013

20. Journals and publishers

21. Journals and publishers
Nature Springer, Plos One,
Hindawi and Frontiers are
the new oligopoly of OA
publishers

22. Journals and publishers
Author pays model
JOURNAL JIF 2017 € / article Pubs 2017 Benefits 2017
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS 12.35 3,850 € 4,511 1,736,735 €
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS 4.12 1,370 € 25,333 34,706,210 €
PLOS ONE 2.77 1,373 € 21,083 28,946,959 €
BIOMED RESEARCH INTERNATIONAL 2.58 1,679 € 2,050 3,441,950 €
BMC PUBLIC HEALTH 2.42 1,745 € 1,070 1,867,150 €
BMJ OPEN 2.41 1,514 € 2,630 3,981,820 €

23. Publication patterns worldwide
• Does research ouput published in OA journals have less impact?
→ OA journals of lesser quality
• Are there differences by fields?
→ Concentration of OA journals in specific areas
• Are there differences by countries?
→ Differing country profiles
• Is it really OA what is driving these differences?
→ Characterization of publishers

24. Publication patterns worldwide
Data: WoS
Period: 2005-2014

25. Publication patterns worldwide
Data: WoS
Period: 2005-2014
Pilot analysis:
Spain as a case
study

26. Publication patterns worldwide
Data: WoS
Period: 2005-2014
Pilot analysis:
Spain as a case
study

27. Publication patterns worldwide
Data: WoS
Period: 2005-2014
Pilot analysis:
Spain as a case
study

28. Publication patterns worldwide
Data: WoS
Period: 2005-2014
Pilot analysis:
Spain as a case
study

29. Publication patterns worldwide
Data: WoS
Period: 2007-2016

30. Publication patterns worldwide
Data: WoS
Period: 2007-2016

31. Publication patterns worldwide
Data: WoS
Period: 2005-2014
Pilot analysis:
Spain as a case
study

32. Publication patterns worldwide
Data: WoS
Period: 2017
SPAIN
SOC SCI & HUM MATHS & COMP SCI

33. Publication patterns worldwide
Data: WoS
Period: 2017
SPAIN

34. Publication patterns worldwide
Data: WoS
Period: 2017
AUSTRIA

35. Publication patterns worldwide
Data: WoS
Period: 2017
BRAZIL

36. Publication patterns worldwide
Data: WoS
Period: 2017
UNITED KINGDOM

37. Publication patterns worldwide
Data: WoS
Period: 2007-2016
Distribution of OA
journals by scientific
area and impact

38. Publication patterns worldwide
OA journals by country:
output and impact

39. Publication patterns worldwide
COUNTRY PROFILES
MODEL I
United
Kingdom
Publication in English language
High JIF OA journals
Focused on Biomedical Sciences and Life Sciences
Main venues are OA megajournals for profit
OA publishers from USA, United Kingdom
Top OA journals: PLOS One, Scientific Reports, Nature
Communications, BMJ Open

40. Publication patterns worldwide
COUNTRY PROFILES
MODEL II
Brazil
Publication in national language
Low JIF OA journals
Diversified OA disciplinary profile
Main venues are OA small publishers publicly funded
OA publishers from Brazil
Top OA journals: PLOS One, Semina-Ciencias Agrarias, Ciencia Rural,
Ciencia & Saude Coletiva

41. Publication patterns worldwide
COUNTRY PROFILES
MODEL III
Spain
Publication in both English and national languages
Diversified publication profile based on JIF
Focused on Biomedical Sciences and Social Sciences & Humanities
Venues by field: OA megajournals for Biomed, small publishers for SSH
OA publishers from USA, United Kingdom, Spain
Top OA journals: PLOS One, Scientific Reports, Nutrición Hospitalaria,
Sensors, Journal of High Energy Physics

42. Publication patterns worldwide
MODEL I
• Big OA publishers
and megajournals
• Concentration of OA
pubs in Life Sciences
• Main language of
publication is English
MODEL II
• Small national
publishers
• Diversified
disciplinary
publication profile
• Main language of
publication is
national language
MODEL III
• Diversified
publication profile
with special focus on
SSH and Life and
Biomed Sci.
• Both national and
English language
• SSH small publishers,
Life Sci, large
publishers.

43. FORTHCOMING
D. Torres-Salinas, N. Robinson-Garcia & H.F. Moed.
Disentangling Gold Open Access.
Glanzel, W., Moed, H.F., Schmoch U., Thelwall, M. (2018). Handbook of
Science and Technology Indicators. Springer
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1311536

44. Disentangling Gold Open Access
Disciplinary and Country Effect
Nicolas Robinson-Garcia Daniel Torres-Salinas

45. References
Beall, J. (2013). The open-access movement is not really about open access. TripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique.
Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society, 11(2), 589–597.008
Björk, B.-C., & Solomon, D. (2012). Open access versus subscription journals: a comparison of scientific impact. BMC Medicine,
10, 73. doi:10.1186/1741-7015-10-73
Bohannon, J. (2013). Who’s Afraid of Peer Review? Science, 342(6154), 60–65. doi:10.1126/science.342.6154.60
Gumpenberger, C., Ovalle-Perandones, M.-A., & Gorraiz, J. (2013). On the impact of Gold Open Access journals. Scientometrics,
96(1), 221–238. doi:10.1007/s11192-012-0902-7
Larivière, V., Haustein, S., & Mongeon, P. (2015). The Oligopoly of Academic Publishers in the Digital Era. PloS One, 10(6),
e0127502.
Martín-Martín, A., Costas, R., van Leeuwen, T., & López-Cózar, E. D. (2018). Evidence of Open Access of scientific publications in
Google Scholar: a large-scale analysis. ArXiv Preprint ArXiv:1803.06161.
Solomon, D. J., Laakso, M., & Björk, B.-C. (2013). A longitudinal comparison of citation rates and growth among open access
journals. Journal of Informetrics, 7(3), 642–650. doi:10.1016/j.joi.2013.03.
Torres-Salinas, D., Robinson-Garcia, N., & Aguillo, I. F. (2016). Bibliometric and Benchmark Analysis of Gold Open Access in
Spain: Big Outpu... Profesional de La Informacion, 25(1), 17–24. doi:10.3145/epi.2016.ene.03