Walt at Random

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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Economics includes most business topics. It’s the second largest group of journals (and by far the largest group in the humanities and social sciences)—but not the second largest collection of articles. This topic includes 345 journals, which published a total of 10,663 articles in 2013 and 10,217 in 2014.

Grades

Table 10.1. Journals and articles by grade

Table 10.1 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 economics journals; others (free, pay, unknown) are percentages of the grade above. Since A$ requires an APC of $1,000 or more, the “pay” line is redundant and omitted.

These numbers are somewhat unusual. Typically, A$ journals have the highest number of articles per journal; here, they’re the lowest of any A-C group—and among B journals, free and pay journals have roughly the same number of articles. Still, the A figures are fairly typical, with fee-charging journals publishing more than twice as many articles per journal as free journals (but fewer articles overall).

There are quite a few D journals here, including these subgroups: C (apparently ceased), 20 journals with a total of 36 articles in 2013; D (dying), four journals with 22 articles; E (erratic), three journals with three articles; H (hiatus?), 13 journals with 387 articles; N (new), one journal with five articles; S (small), 12 journals with 37 articles.

Article Volume (including all of 2014)

Table 10.2. Journals and articles by date

Table 10.2 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 eight “unknown” journals (with 397 articles in 2013) are omitted. The journal numbers still don’t add up to 345 because some journals (12 in 2013) didn’t publish any articles in any given year.

The percentage of free journals is on the low side for social sciences but better than average for all of OA, declining slightly over the past few years. The percentage of articles in free journals is also on the low side for social sciences but considerably better than average for OA in general—and, again, declined slightly over the past few years.

The numbers here are unusual—showing a large decline in OA publishing from 2012 to 2013 and a small decline in 2014, albeit one that brings 2014 numbers below 2011 numbers. These numbers don’t include journals that entered DOAJ after May 7, 2014 and some journals that post articles online very late. It appears to be a real decline, but one that largely involves a few journals. For example, one journal dropped from 1,220 articles in 2012 to 480 in 2013 and a mere 100 in 2014: that alone accounts for 85% of the 2013-2014 decline and more than half of the decline from 2012 to 2014.

Looked at on a journal-by-journal basis, 140 journals published more articles in 2014 than in 2013; 46 published exactly the same number; and 159 published fewer articles. In terms of significant change, 121 (35%) published at least 10% more articles in 2014 than in 2013; 91 (26%) published roughly the same number; and 133 (39%) published at least 10% fewer articles in 2014—including 30 that, to date, haven’t published any 2014 articles. (That last number includes six journals that were unreachable.)

Table 10.3. Journals by peak article numbers

Table 10.3 shows the number of journals in each size category (based on the largest number of articles in 2011, 2012, or 2013); 2013 articles for that group; and what percentage is (or is in) no-fee journals. The single prolific journal was only prolific in 2011 and 2012: it’s now down to the Small category for 2014.

There are quite a few sparse economics journals, primarily free, and the field also has a fairly high percentage of free small journals.

Fees (APCs)

Table 10.4. Journals and articles by fee range

Table 10.4 shows the number of journals in each fee range and the number of 2013 articles for those journals. The %Fee percentages are of all fee-charging journals. “Unknown” journals are omitted.

Since the fee ranges are based on quartiles, deviations from 25% in the first %Fee column represent differences between economics OA journals and OA journals as a whole—and they’re big differences. There are no high-priced economics journals (that is, among the top 25% of all fee-charging journals), with the most expensive being $1,350, and there are very few medium-priced journals. More than half of APC-charging journals charge nominal fees, $8 to $200—and those journals publish more than half of the articles in APC-charging journals. It’s also interesting that the more expensive journals publish relatively fewer articles than their less-expensive competitors.

There’s no correlation (-0.02) between APC size and number of 2013 articles. That’s hardly surprising.

Starting Dates and the Gold Rush

Table 10.5 Starting dates for economics OA journals

Table 10.5 shows economics OA journals by starting date, including the percentage of journals started in a given date range that currently don’t charge APCs. For DOAJ journals as a whole, there’s a sense of a gold rush for APC-charging journals starting in 2006 and possibly declining in 2012. Economics is different: startups were slow until 2008, and that’s also the point at which significant numbers of APC-charging journals appeared. The rate of new journals slowed significantly in 2013, but half of the new ones were still APC-charging. Note that there are no OA economics journals dating back prior to 1970, and that none began in 1990-91.

Figure 10.1 shows essentially the same information as Table 10.5, but in a graph with lines for free and APC-charging journals. Note the wide gap until 2010.

Figure 10.1. Economics OA journals by starting date

Table 10.6. Articles per journal by starting date

Table 10.6 shows journals that published articles in 2013, when they started, and the average 2013 articles per journal. Note that there were no new economics OA journals in 1990-91 and that those started in 1992-93 didn’t publish any articles in 2013. The most interesting item in this table may be that the two journals started in the 1980s publish more articles per journal than for any period since then, but with only two journals, that may not be very meaningful.

In general, economics OA journals aren’t all that unusual for social sciences: proportionally fewer APC-charging journals than in STEM or biomed, and with relatively lower APCs.

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