Walt at Random

Physics includes optics—a critical point given at least one of the most prolific journals. This group includes 125 journals, which published 10,509 articles in 2013 and 11,165 articles in 2014.

Grades

Table 23.1. Physics OA journals and articles by grade

Table 23.1 shows the number of journals and 2013 articles for each grade; free, pay and unknown subsets within each grade (there are no D journals with unknown APCs, and A$ journals are necessarily pay); and the average 2013 articles per journal. Boldface percentages are percentages of the whole group; others are of the grade above.

The 16 A$ journals, those charging at least $1,000 APC, are startling in their publication levels, with 13% of the journals publishing 46% of the articles. Note that APC-charging B journals (those raising some mild questions) also publish many more articles than free counterparts.

The small number of D journals (with almost no articles) includes these subgroups: C (probably ceased), four journals with 10 articles; D (dying), one journal with eight articles; E (erratic), one journal with 29 articles; H (hiatus?), three journals with 77 articles; S (small), seven journals with 29 articles.

Article Volume (including all of 2014)

Table 23.2. Physics OA journals and articles by date

Table 23.2 shows the number of free and APC-charging journals (omitting journals with unknown APCs) that actually published articles each year (including all of 2014), the number of articles, and what percentage was free. Journal counts don’t add up to 123 (that is, 125 minus the two unknowns) because some journals didn’t publish articles in any given year (or were new within the period)—although that count is tiny for 2013.

These numbers are atypical, in that the percentage of free journals—actually higher than most STEM areas—rose slightly from 2011 to 2013, then held steady for 2014, and the percentage of articles in those journals (somewhat lower than most STEM areas) also rose from 2011 to 2012, then declined, but only back to 2011 levels. Article volume rose each year, with a slightly higher percentage rise from 2013 to 2014.

Looked at on a journal-by-journal basis, 58 journals published more articles in 2014 than in 2013; six published the same number (for three of those, that number was zero); 62 published fewer articles in 2014. In terms of significant change, 50 (40%) published at least 10% more articles in 2014; 21 (17%) published roughly the same number; and 54 (43%) published at least 10% fewer articles in 2014, including nine that have not yet published any articles in 2014 (but did publish some in 2013).

Table 23.3. Physics journals by peak article volume

Table 23.3 shows the number of journals in each size category, 2013 article counts, and the percentage in no-free journals. There’s one prolific physics (optics) journal, and it charges a fairly hefty APC. The only real oddity in this chart is that sparse journals have lower no-fee percentages than you’d expect.

Fees (APCs)

Table 23.4. Physics journals and articles by fee range

Table 23.4 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 overall quartiles, the difference between the first %Fee column and 25% represents changes from the usual—namely, fewer high-fee and nominal-fee journals and more in the middle.

There’s a mild (0.44) correlation between the actual APC and number of 2013 articles. Correlation between APC and peak volume is lower (0.40).

Starting Dates and the Gold Rush

Table 23.5. Starting dates for physics OA journals

Table 23.5 shows physics OA journals by starting date, including the percentage of journals started in each time period that currently doesn’t charge APCs. Although journals that do charge APCs go back to the early days (noting that there were no physics OA journals in 1990-91 or 1994-95), there’s definitely a gold rush: most journals began after 2005, and until 2012, most of those new journals were APC-charging. Figure 23.1 shows much the same information (omitting the unknown journals) in graphic form; it’s a striking graph.

Figure 23.1. Physics journals by starting date

Table 23.6. Physics articles per journal by starting date

Table 23.6 shows journals that published articles in 2013, when they started, and average 2013 articles per journal. The two highest-volume journals began in 1996-97, and it’s generally interesting that journals at the end of the century have many more articles per journal than those founded more recently.

Overall, physics journals tend to charge (high) fees, publish reasonably large numbers of articles and, despite arΧiv, show a relatively low level of no-charge publishing.

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. If you’d like to see this research continued, please contribute to Cites & Insights.

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