Walt at Random

Anthropology includes archæology and sports science. This topic includes 132 journals, which published a total of 2,663 articles in 2013

Grades

Table 3.1. Journals and articles by grade and price

Table 3.1 shows the number of journals and 2013 articles for each grade; the free, pay and unknown numbers; and average articles per journal. Boldface percentages (grades) are percentages of all anthropology journals, while others (free, pay, unknown) are percentages of the particular grade (so, for example, 9% of the journals were grade B, and 75% of those journals were free).

All A$ journals have APCs of $1,000 or more, so they’re all by definition in the Pay category, so the separate line is omitted. It’s fairly typical for these journals to have more articles per journal than ones with lower or no APCs—but in this case, there’s the oddity that the three journals to be avoided, all because of unknown APCs, have even more articles.

D journals—which, as is usually the case, have very few articles overall—include these subgroups: C: three journals, no articles in 2013 or 2014; D: one journal, 6 articles; E: four journals, 50 articles; H: three journals, 36 articles; N: one journal, no articles; S: 12 journals, 48 articles. Two of the three H journals have returned from hiatus, with significant numbers of 2014 articles, and the one apparently-dying journal may be returning to life.

Article Volume (including all of 2014)

Table 3.2. Journals and articles by date

Table 3.2 shows the number of free and APC-charging journals that published articles in each year, including all of 2014; how many articles those journals published; and what percentage was free.

The three “unknown” journals (with 190 articles in 2013 and 162 in 2014) are omitted. The journal numbers don’t add up to 129 because there are some journals that don’t publish articles in any given year—seven of them in 2013, for example.

Percentages of free journals and articles from those journals are typical of the social sciences, with free journals dominating. The percentage of articles from free journals has declined slightly, as has the percentage of free journals, but in neither case is the decline major.

OA activity in anthropology is up slightly from 2013—but not quite up to 2012 levels for this set of journals. (There may be new journals that emerged after May 7, 2014.)

Looked at on a journal-by-journal basis (and including the three “unknown” journals), 68 journals published more papers in 2014 than in 2013; 11 had the same number; 53 published fewer articles. In terms of significant change, 67 (51%) increased article volume by at least 10%; 47 (36%) had at least a 10% decline; and 18 (14%) were relatively unchanged. Of the 47 journals with significantly fewer articles, 11 had no 2014 articles and may yet post them on a delayed basis.

Table 3.3. Journals by peak article volume

Table 3.3 shows the number of journals in each size category, 2013 articles for journals in that group, and what percentage is no-fee. There are no prolific or even large anthropology journals; most are sparse. Only three journals published more than 100 articles in their peak year (161 the highest), and the peak for 2014 was 118 articles.

As expected, even with the dominance of no-fee journals for this topic (or cluster of topics), the percentage of no-fee articles and journals goes down as the volume goes up.

Fees (APCs)

Table 3.4. Journals and articles by fee range

Table 3.4 shows the number of journals in each fee range (High: $1,451+; Medium: $601 to $1,450; Low: $201-$600; Nominal: $8 to $200) and the number of 2013 articles for those journals.

Since the fee ranges are based on quartiles of the OA universe, deviations from 25% in the first %Fee column represent differences between anthropology/archaeology journals and OA as a whole: almost no very expensive journals, with most of the fee-charging journals showing fairly modest fees. Of course, there are so few fee-charging journals in all in this topic that Table 3.4 may not be terribly meaningful. The base line here: Only three journals charge more than $600.

While there’s no significant correlation (0.25) between peak article volume and APC level, there is a modest correlation (0.41) for 2013 articles—but that correlation drops to insignificant levels (0.27) for 2014 article volumes, so it’s not particularly meaningful.

Starting Dates

Table 3.5. Starting dates for anthropology OA journals

Table 3.5 shows anthropology/archaeology OA journals by starting date, including the percentage of journals started in a given date range that currently don’t charge APCs. While I get the sense from DOAJ as a whole that there has been a gold rush of fee-charging journals from 2006 through 2012, that’s not evident here—but there are so few fee-charging journals that any pattern would be hard to spot. Note that there weren’t any very early journals that are now OA.

Figure 3.1 shows essentially the same information as Table 3.5, but in a graph with lines for free and APC-charging journals. I’ve added markers for pay journals, since the 1990-91 and 2002-03 cases would otherwise disappear (since there’s no line).

Figure 3.1. Anthropology journals by starting date

Table 3.6. Articles per journal by starting date

Finally, Table 3.6 shows journals that published articles in 2013, when they started, and the average articles per journal. Since all of the average articles per journal figures are quite low, it’s hard to suggest anything terribly significant here, although it’s interesting that the journals established in 2002 and 2003 seem to have more articles per journal than older and newer ones—and also that the largest number of articles is in journals that began in 2010 and 2011.

Comments

Anthropology (including archæology and sports sciences) OA journals are reasonably typical of those in humanities and social sciences—predominantly free, mostly lower APCs for those journals that do have APCs, generally smaller numbers of articles per journal.

At this point, excluding journals founded in 2014, it’s a relatively stable field since 2012, with less than a 4% variation in article totals for 2012, 2013 and 2014.

Definitions and notes

See The Open Access Landscape: 1. Background for definitions and notes

If you’d be interested in a book combining all of the topical views, with an additional graph added for each topic, please let me know–in a comment here or in mail to waltcrawford at gmail dot com.

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