Investigation of the degree to which articles supported by research grants are published in open access health and life sciences journals

Abstract

In the scientific publication world, there are an increasing number of open access (OA) journals. Many OA journals are financed by the article processing charges (APCs) that they charge authors. There is considerable interest in the funding source of such APCs. In 255 health and life sciences OA journals that charge APCs (APC OA journals) and 183 health and life sciences OA journals that do not charge APCs (free OA journals) that are indexed in the Thomson Reuters Web of Science, this study uses a bibliometric method to examine the relationship between two journal characteristics during 2009–2013: APCs and the percentage of published articles based on work that is supported by grants (grant-funded articles). According to the data collected, the percentage of grant-funded articles increases as the associated APCs increase. Average APCs of APC OA journals are higher in Europe and North America than elsewhere. The study also investigated the top ten countries in the number of scientific publications in the OA journals investigated. All ten countries had lower percentages of grant-funded articles in free OA journals than in APC OA and subscription journals. Of the ten countries, six in Europe and North America have higher percentages of grant-funded articles in APC OA journals than in subscription journals. The other four countries that have lower percentages of grant-funded articles in APC OA journals than in subscription journals are in Asia and South America, which are places where APC OA journals have low average APCs.

Appendix

Most journals charge a fixed publication fee per article. These journals are indicated by the letter “F” in the column headed “APC so,” for APC value source, in Table 5.

Table 5 The ISSN, title, year published of articles inspected (period), APC (USD), number of articles investigated in this study (N_ai) and the type of APC value source (APC so) of the 255 APC OA journals

Other journals charge a fee per article page. The APCs for these journals were estimated by multiplying the average number of pages per article by the charge per page. WoS provides the page count (in the field labeled “PG”) of articles in full record files for users who wish to download information on these articles. The average number of pages per article can be estimated from this information. These journals are indicated by the letter “P” in the column headed “APC so” in Table 5. Some of these journals charge a fixed publication fee when the article is no more than a certain number of pages, with an additional fee for extra pages. For example, “Korean J. Parasitol.” charges 200 USD for articles of up to six pages and an extra 50 USD per additional page. If the length of an article in one of these journals is within the range of the fixed publication fee, we count its length as the maximum number of pages permissible for the fixed publication fee in estimating the average number of pages per article.

In addition to the above approaches of fixed and page length APCs, some journals charge different fees according to whether the authors are members of affiliated organizations. We estimated the APCs of these journals as the average of the APCs for members and non-members, because we do not know which authors are members nor the percentage of authors who are members. The estimated and true average APCs of such journals surely differ, but the error is hard to determine. Such journals are indicated by the letter “A” in the column headed “APC so” in Table 5.

Moreover, some journals set several different fee levels. In these cases, we chose the median value. For example, “Acta Derm.-Venereol.” charges €800 for articles of up to 4000 words and 4 tables or figures, €1100 for articles of 4000–6000 words and a maximum of 4 tables or figures, and €1300 for articles of more than 6000 words and 4 tables or figures. We therefore used €1100 as the journal’s APC. Such journals are indicated by the letter “M” in the column headed “APC so” in Table 5.

Other fees, such as those for color figures or commercial use, fast-track review fees and premium publishing fees were not taken into account.

Finally, some journals charge fees expressed in currencies other than USD. These were converted into USD using the published exchange rate for 31 December 2013. These journals are indicated by the letter “E” in the column headed “APC so” in Table 5. If a journal published its fees in several currencies, including USD, we used the USD fees as its APCs.