Walt at Random

Chemistry as a subject doesn’t seem to require much clarification (noting that most biochem ended up in Biology). This subject includes 136 OA journals that published 12,258 articles in 2013 and almost exactly the same number (12,429) in 2014.

Grades

Table 6.1. Journals and articles by grade

Table 6.1 shows the number of journals and 2013 articles for each grade, the free, pay and unknown numbers, and average articles per journal. Note that boldface percentages (grades) are percentages of all chemistry journals, while others (free, pay, unknown) are percentages of the particular grade (so, for example, 8% of the journals are grade C, highly questionable, and 36% of those eight journals require APCs and say what they are).

Since A$ means an APC of $1,000 or higher, all A$ journals are in the Pay category and the redundant line is omitted. Chemistry is an extreme case of the expensive journals having many more articles than other journals—with 10% of the journals, this group published 42% of the articles, more than twice as many per journal as less expensive apparently-good journals. Note that most apparently-good journals that don’t cost $1,000 or more per article don’t charge APCs at all—79% of them, publishing a majority of the articles in that group.

The group of D journals includes these subgroups: C: seven journals, publishing 85 articles in 2013 and 59 in 2014; no D journals; E: two journals publishing seven articles in 2013—but 41 in 2014; H: four journals publishing 242 articles in 2013 but only 113 in 2014; N: one journal, no articles in either year; S: ten journals publishing 35 articles in 2013 but only 17 in 2014 (noting that S journals are sometimes annuals and publish on a delayed basis).

Article Volume (including all of 2014)

Table 6.2. Journals and articles by date

Table 6.2 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 were free.

The five “unknown” journals (with 238 articles in 2013) are omitted from all figures and percentages. The numbers may still not add up because there are some journals that don’t publish articles in any given year—five of them in 2013, for example.

The percentage of free journals is fairly typical of OA in general and, somewhat oddly for STEM, actually increased over the past few years. On the other hand, the percentage of articles appearing in free journals is quite low (although higher than biology) and has declined significantly since 2011.

These journals published slightly more articles in 2014 than in 2013, after mild growth from 2012 and significant growth from 2011. Note that, as always, journals that began in 2014 (or appeared in DOAJ after May 7, 2014) are not included; you might expect 5% more journals based on past history, but most of them probably wouldn’t publish a lot in the first year.

Looked at on a journal-by-journal basis, 64 journals published more articles in 2014 than in 2013; eight published the same number; and 64 published fewer articles in 2014—a nicely symmetric set of results. In terms of significant change, 53 journals (39%) published at least 10% more articles in 2014 than in 2013; 33 (24%) were relatively unchanged; and 50 (37%) published at least 10% fewer articles, including six that have not yet published any 2014 articles.

Table 6.3. Journals by peak article volume

Table 6.3 shows the number of journals in each size range, 2013 articles for journals in that group, and what percentage is in no-free journals. The picture here is a bit unusual: Although, as usual, prolific journals charge APCs and larger journals tend to charge APCs, with the percentage of free journals getting larger as the volume of articles gets smaller, small chemistry journals (20 to 59 articles in the peak year) mostly do charge APCs, unlike medium-size and sparse journals.

Fees (APCs)

Table 6.4. Journals and articles by fee range

Table 6.4 shows the number of journals in each fee range and the number of 2013 articles for those journals. Since the fee ranges are based on quartiles of this universe, deviations from 25% in the first %Fee column represent differences between chemistry journals and OA as a whole—considerably fewer high-fee journals ($1,451 and up) and considerably more medium-fee ($601 to $1,450). Most fee-paid articles are in journals with medium or high fees. There is a modest correlation (0.31) between APC level and peak volume of articles.

Starting Dates and the Gold Rush

Table 6.5. Starting dates for chemistry OA journals

Table 6.5 shows OA journals by starting date, including the percentage of journals started in each date range that currently don’t charge APCs. There are very few old chemistry journals that are currently OA—none before 1970 and only five total prior to 1996—and in this case the gold rush, such as it is, appears to run from 2008 to 2011. Figure 6.1 shows essentially the same information as Table 6.5, but as a graph with lines for free and APC-charging journals. I’ve included markers for APC-charging journals, since otherwise nothing would appear before 2006. Note gaps in dates in the graph—and the empty space for 1970-79 is because the single OA journal started in that period has an unknown APC.

Figure 6.1. Chemistry journals by starting date

Table 6.6. Articles per journal by starting date

Table 6.6 shows journals that published articles in 2013, when they started, how many articles they published in 2013 and the average articles per journal. The numbers are all over the place, with notably prolific journals starting in the 1980s, 1996-97 and 2000-2001.

Definitions and notes

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

If you’re interested in a book-form version of this material (with an additional bonus graph added in each chapter), let me know, either in a comment or by email to waltcrawford at gmail dot com

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