Walt at Random

This chapter covers two groups: megajournals, journals that publish articles in a wide variety of fields and had at least 1,000 articles in 2011, 2012 or 2013, and miscellany, journals so broadly defined as to include most anything (including, for example, student research journals and some interdisciplinary journals) and some fields that I couldn’t find a place for. It includes some but not all journals called “general works” in DOAJ. (Some journals in miscellany could be considered megajournals based on 2014 article counts.)

The first brief section covers megajournals in summary fashion; the rest of Chapter 20 covers miscellany in the usual manner.

Megajournals

Not including 2014 articles, there are four megajournals, all with grade A$, one with a high APC and three with medium APCs, all prolific (by definition). The four journals are all growing, at rates from 1% (but that’s on by far the largest base) to 125% between 2013 and 2014. One journal started in 2003; the others started in 2010-11.

In all, these journals published 15,523 articles in 2011; 26,512 in 2012; 36,673 in 2013; and 40,673 in 2014.

Miscellany

This diverse group includes 87 journals, which published 7,375 articles in 2013 and 8,482 articles in 2014. The rest of this chapter coves these 87 journals.

Grades

Table 20.1. Miscellaneous journals and articles by grade

Table 20.1 shows the number of journals and 2013 articles for each grade; free, pay and unknown numbers (there were no pay journals in grade C); and average 2013 articles per journal. Boldface percentages are percentages of all miscellaneous journals; others are percentages of the grade above.

The A and A$ group is atypical: free journals average more articles than APC-charging journals—but by far the highest numbers are questionable journals, grade C.

D journals include these subgroups: C (apparently ceased), four journals, no 2013 articles; D (dying), one journal, no articles; E (erratic), four journals, 44 articles; H (possible hiatus), two journals, 34 articles; N (new), two journals, 12 articles; S (small), three journals, 19 articles.

Article Volume (including all of 2014)

Table 20.2. Miscellaneous journals and articles by date

Table 20.2 shows the number of free and APC-charging journals that published articles in each year (including all of 2014), the number of articles, and what percentage was free. The six unknown journals (that probably have APCs but don’t state them), with 1,115 articles in 2013, are omitted. Additionally, in any given year some journals don’t publish any issues.

The percentage of free journals is higher than average and reasonably constant during this period, but the percentage of free articles, which starts out strong, declined very rapidly in 2012 and stayed at a bit less than half from then on—also higher than average.

Miscellaneous journals are increasing in OA activity, although if 2014 was included in peak calculation it would move three journals to the megajournal category, resulting in a very slight reduction in 2014 numbers from 2013.

Looked at on a journal-by-journal basis, 35 journals published more articles in 2014 than in 2013; 12 published the same number; 40 published fewer articles in 2014. For significant changes, 32 (37%) published at least 10% more articles in 2014; 22 (25%) were roughly the same; and 33 (38%) published at least 10% fewer articles.

Table 20.3. Miscellaneous journals by peak article volume

Table 20.3 shows the number of journals in each size category (based on 2011-2013 peaks); 2013 articles for journals in that group; and what percentage is or appears in no-fee journals. Almost by definition, prolific journals here are classed as megajournals (and three of the large journals could migrate to megajournals in 2014). This group is unusual in that the large journals dominate article publication to a much greater degree than in most topics—but the percentage trend lines are fairly typical.

Fees (APCs)

Table 20.4. Miscellaneous journals and articles by fee range

Table 20.4 shows the number of journals in each APC range and the number of 2013 articles in those journals. Since fee ranges are based on quartiles of the full study universe, deviations from 25% in the first %Fee column represent differences between miscellaneous journals and DOAJ as a whole—and the differences are extreme, with almost no expensive journals and a predominance of journals with nominal fees. It’s also unusual that journals with higher-than-nominal fees published relatively few articles in 2013.

Given the curiosities above, if there was a correlation between APC and article volume, it should be a negative one—and while the correlation is negative (-0.25), it’s too small to be statistically significant.

Starting Dates and the Gold Rush

Table 20.6. Starting dates for miscellaneous journals

Table 20.6 shows miscellaneous OA journals by starting date, including the percentage of journals started in a given period that don’t currently charge APCs. For DOAJ as a whole, there’s a sense of a gold rush—with many APC-charging journals starting in 2006-2011, slowing down in 2012-2013.

That’s not at all the case here. Quite apart from the huge gap between two very early journals that are now OA and newer journals, with none founded between 1960 and 1995, there’s an overall jump in journals from 2008 through 2013, but the percentage of APC-charging journals, which does jump in 2004, actually declines in recent years.

Figure 20.1 shows essentially the same information as a graph, omitting the two pre-1960 journals and with markers to make journals more visible.

Figure 20.1. Miscellaneous journals by starting date

Table 20.6. Articles per miscellaneous journal by starting date

Table 20.6 shows journals that actually published articles in 2013, when they started and the average 2013 articles per journal. As is usual for this odd group of journals, the table is full of oddities, such as the very high articles per journal for the two journals from 2002-2003 and the 18 started in 2010-2011.

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 and probably some additional analysis added in each chapter), let me know, either in a comment or by email to waltcrawford at gmail dot com.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 10th, 2015 at 7:00 am and is filed under open access. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.