Walt at Random

Technology journals were distinguished from engineering journals based on broader subject coverage or the word “technology” in the title. As with engineering, it’s a somewhat fuzzy group. The group includes 138 journals, which published 9,738 articles in 2013 and 10,718 articles in 2014.

Grades

Table 28.1. Technology journals and articles by grade

Table 28.1 shows the number of journals and 2013 articles for each grade; free, pay and unknown numbers; and average articles per journal. There are no free C journals or unknown D journals. Boldface percentages are of the whole group; others are of the grade above.

These journals are unusual in that, other than the high-priced A$ journals, free A and B journals actually average more articles than those charging APCs—and unfortunate in that the handful of questionable C journals published lots of articles.

D journals include these subgroups: C (apparently ceased), six journals with no 2013 articles; D (dying?), five journals with 28 articles; E (erratic), four journals with 183 articles; H (hiatus?), six journals, 156 articles; S (small), three journals, 19 articles.

Article Volume (including all of 2014)

Table 28.2. Technology journals and articles by date

Table 28.2 shows the number of free and APC-charging journals that actually published articles each year, including all of 2014; how many articles those journals published; and what percentage was free. Journals with unknown APCs are omitted, and there are always some journals not publishing in any given year.

The percentage of free journals is fairly typical of STEM—but unusual in that it hasn’t changed significantly. The percentage of articles in those journals is high for STEM, and has actually increased since 2012, the only year in which a majority of articles involved APCs.

Technology OA is clearly increasing, at a reasonably brisk rate that has slowed down slightly since 2012. Looked at on a journal-by-journal basis (and including unknowns), 67 journals published more articles in 2014 than in 2013; 13 published the same number (in five cases, no articles in either year); 58 journals published fewer articles in 2014. For significant changes, 59 journals (43%) published at least 10% more articles in 2014 than in 2013; 28 (20%) published roughly the same number; 51 (37%) published at least 10% fewer articles in 2014, including six that published articles in 2013 but not (yet) in 2014.

Table 28.3. Technology journals by peak article volume

Table 28.3 shows the number of journals in each size category (based on peak articles in 2011-2013), articles for journals in that group, and what percentage doesn’t involve APCs. There were no prolific technology journals in 2011-2013, but one journal has passed the 1,000-article mark in 2014. APC-charging large journals published proportionally more articles than free ones, where APC-charging sparse journals published slightly fewer articles than free ones—but these numbers don’t particularly follow typical patterns except for the lower free percentages in large journals.

Fees (APCs)

Table 28.4. Technology journals and articles by fee range

Table 28.4 shows the number of journals in each fee range and 2013 articles for those journals. For this study as a whole, the first %Fee column will be about 25% in each cell, as the fee ranges are based on actual quartiles. Here, very few journals charge the highest fees—but those journals publish a disproportionately large number of articles. Oddly enough, journals with nominal fees also publish a disproportionately large number of articles.

There’s a slight positive correlation between peak article levels and APC amount and a slight negative correlation between 2013 article counts and APC amounts. Neither correlation is large enough to be statistically meaningful (0.21 and -0.18 respectively).

Starting Dates and the Gold Rush

Table 28.5. Starting dates for technology OA journals

Table 28.5 shows technology OA journals by starting date, including the percentage of journals started in a given date range that currently charge APCs. Note that there were only three journals prior to 1998, all of them free. The gold rush for APC-charging journals isn’t terribly evident in Table 28.5 (for DOAJ as a whole, the percentage of APC-charging journals rises considerably in 2006 through 2011), but there is a surge of sorts later on, as shown in Figure 28.1. Note that there are very few APC-charging journals until 2008-09—but more new APC-charging journals than free journals after that. (Figure 28.1 omits 1960-69 and 1990-97.)

Figure 28.1. Technology journals by starting date

Table 28.6. Technology articles per journal by starting date

Table 28.6 shows journals that published articles in 2013, how many articles they published, and average articles per journal. The anomalies are obvious: the very large journal from the ’70s and large journals from the turn of the century.

Overall, OA technology journals tend to have a higher percentage of articles in free journals than most of STEM, but a fairly typical percentage of non-fee journals. The topic shows continuing gains in article count (with article counts in non-fee journals actually increasing faster than in APC-charging journals since 2012).

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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