Archive for March, 2023

Diamond OA 2023: The Landscape of No-Fee Open Access

Tuesday, March 28th, 2023

This is a fleshed-out version of a post from February 2023 and is what currently seems most useful and plausible. I could really use feedback and support (or otherwise).

This book–free as a PDF, probably around $10 as a trade paperback (it would be large) would replace the Countries portion of the Gold Open Access series, and complement GOA8. It would be self-contained, and structured something like this (possibly without part divisions)

Part 1: The Big Picture and Details

  • The big picture: overall figures for no-fee OA 2022-2017, similar to the first chapter of GOA (but without fees and probably without exclusions and special cases.
  • The big differences: major differences from fee-based gold OA.
  • Journals by article volume
  • Publisher category–and who pays? (Based on a suggestion from Jan Erik Frantsvåg, this would offer a quick study of funding sources for diamond journals published by toll publishers and OA publishers that also publish fee journals. Unclear whether this is feasible in a short time frame…
  • Country of publication: Summary

Part 2: Subjects and Segments

31 brief chapters (mostly three pages?), similar to GOA subject/segment chapters but covering only no-fee journals.

Part 3: Countries and Regions

Similar to the chapters in Gold Open Access by Country 2015-2020, but for no-fee journals (see Cuba and Ecuador as examples, since these have no fee journals)–with a chapter for each country with at least ten no-fee journals active in 2022, and a summary for each region for countries with fewer. Based on 2021 activity, there would be 73 country chapters with another 5o-odd countries covered in summary chapters.

That’s about it. I’d guess around 350-400 pages. I’d guess it would be out in July 2023, but it might slop over into August or be ready in late June 2023.

So here’s the question: Would you find this useful–and would you use it? I’m asking folks to spread this around, so I can get more feedback–email to waltcrawford@gmail.com works just fine.

Just to be clear: I am not asking for money and I’m not even asking whether you’d buy the book (which will be priced at the nearest $0.50 over production cost, so…). If I don’t do this, I probably won’t do the Countries portion at all–it’s not a mandatory part of the (paid) project, and there wasn’t much use of either of the last two versions.

 

 

GOA8: Week 12

Saturday, March 25th, 2023

Again, all things considered, this week went better than it might have. Fatigue slowed me down, but not as much as feared–and, with luck, the treatments end on Monday, giving me back about two hours a day and maybe, eventually, some energy. I find the Varian TrueBeam fascinating, but will be happy not to see it any more.

Before the counts, yet another reminder: I need feedback about whether/what to do with countries, and specifically whether a Diamond OA book makes sense. See https://walt.lishost.org/2023/02/goa8-new-direction-on-couIntries/. At the moment I’m inclined to think Diamond Open Access 2022: The Landscape of No-Fee OA (current working title) may be worthwhile (prob. a fairly hefty book, free PDF as always, production-priced paperback), but I could sure use some additional feedback/support for this entirely optional (and unpaid) extra.

The structure of the book is straightforward: an overall Big Numbers chapter, some key contrasts between diamond and gold in general, chapters on journals by article volume, publisher category, subject segments and subjects–all similar to but shorter than those in GOA7. Then, the bulk of the book, chapters for each region and each country with at least ten diamond journals, with summary notes on other countries. To get a pretty good idea what those chapters would/will look like, download Gold Open Access by Country 2015-2020 and look at pages 157-160.

The numbers

1,000 more journals checked.

The overall counts at this point:
14,200 journals checked, of which
12,578 published 1,248,240 articles in 2022 and
13,189 published 1,148,827 articles in 2021.

The rest of the numbers:

  • Fee versus diamond/no-fee: 4,794 journals with fees, 9,406 without. (Notice that only ten of the mWalt at Random ost recent 1,000 journals have fees? That’s university publishing, especially Latin America.)
  • New vs. continuing: 1,708 newly-added, 12,492 continuing (including all of the “x”status below).
  • Status code:
    12,651 “a”–clean.
    343 “bi”– inactive (no articles since at least 2020).
    57 “bx”–done but at a different URL.
    89 “xd”–defunct, no articles since at least 2016.
    217 “xm”–malware (but not last year).
    38 “xn”–not an OA journal (including those removed this year but before I got to them) and ones suddenly requiring a login.
    559 “xx”–unreachable or unworkable.
    And the two oddities:
    200 “xm2”–malware, also malware last year
    46 “xx2”–unreachable or unworkable, as was true last year.
  • Ease of article counting:
    “d” 7,813: easiest, taken directly from DOAJ (sometimes with 2022 count modified)
    “w” 919: easy, journal website provides direct numbers at either volume or issue number (this number was WRONG last week–I used “f” by accident).
    “f”  3,939: middling; numbers calculated using Find function for constants (e.g. “doi.” or “pdf”)
    “c” 496: slowest; articles counted manually.
  • Why the counts of “ease of…” don’t add up to total journals counted: all xd and bi cases, not quite all other non-a cases. If I couldn’t count them at all…

This week: All universities, a bunch more Spanish in Latin America and Spain, then starting the Portuguese in Brazil and Portugal.

 

GOA8: Week Eleven

Saturday, March 18th, 2023

All things considered, this week went better than it might have. Fatigue slowed me down, the change in schedule didn’t help–and during Tuesday’s windstorm we lost power for four hours, exactly during the time I’d normally be working on the project. (Daily count: 40, all done in the pre-medical-visit period.) But we were only out four hours; there are thousands of PG&E customers who still don’t have power.

This coming week may be slow as well, but then I get back around two hours a day…and, maybe, slowly, energy.

Before the counts, yet another reminder: I need feedback about whether/what to do with countries, and specifically whether a Diamond OA book makes sense. See https://walt.lishost.org/2023/02/goa8-new-direction-on-couIntries/. At the moment I’m inclined to think Diamond Open Access 2022: The Landscape of No-Fee OA (current working title) may be worthwhile (prob. a fairly hefty book, free PDF as always, production-priced paperback), but I could sure use some additional feedback/support for this entirely optional (and unpaid) extra.

The numbers

1,000 more journals checked.

The overall counts at this point:
13,200 journals checked, of which
11,673 published 1,221,244 articles in 2022 and
12,219 published 1,119,815 articles in 2021.

The rest of the numbers:

  • Fee versus diamond/no-fee: 4,784 journals with fees, 8,416 without.
  • New vs. continuing: 1,642 newly-added, 11,558 continuing (including all of the “x”status below).
  • Status code:
    11,745 “a”–clean.
    333 “bi”– inactive (no articles since at least 2020).
    57 “bx”–done but at a different URL.
    86 “xd”–defunct, no articles since at least 2016.
    209 “xm”–malware (but not last year).
    28 “xn”–not an OA journal (including those removed this year but before I got to them).
    509 “xx”–unreachable or unworkable.
    And the two oddities:
    194 “xm2”–malware,also malware last year
    39 “xx2”–unreachable or unworkable, as was true last year.
  • Ease of article counting:
    “d” 7,403: easiest, taken directly from DOAJ (sometimes with 2022 count modified)
    “w” 3,546: easy, journal website provides direct numbers at either volume or issue number
    “f”  3,431: middling; numbers calculated using Find function for constants (e.g. “doi.” or “pdf”)
    “c” 483: slowest; articles counted manually.

 

GOA8: Week Ten

Saturday, March 11th, 2023

Surprisingly, this week was a little better than last (thanks partly to SpringerOpen)–but the side-effects of the therapy are getting worse (as expected), and the next two weeks will see an hour each day moved from a more productive to a less productive time (it’s complicated), so I’ll be happy if I reach 1,000 journals per week for those two weeks. In the long run, unless the fatigue gets a lot worse, I can reasonably predict that the data gathering will be done in spring, and it’s likely that the primary book and dataset will be done in spring.

Before the counts, yet another reminder: I need feedback about whether/what to do with countries, and specifically whether a Diamond OA book makes sense. See https://walt.lishost.org/2023/02/goa8-new-direction-on-couIntries/. At the moment I’m inclined to think Diamond Open Access 2022: The Global Landscape of No-Fee OA (current working title) may be worthwhile (prob. a fairly hefty book, free PDF as always, production-priced paperback), but I could sure use some additional feedback/support for this entirely optional (and unpaid) extra.

So:  1,200 more journals checked.

The overall counts at this point:
12,200 journals checked, of which
10,802 published 1,169,079 articles in 2022 and
10,802 published 1,067,870 articles in 2021.

The rest of the numbers:

  • Fee versus diamond/no-fee: 4,409 journals with fees, 7,791 without.
  • New vs. continuing: 1,516 newly-added, 10,684 continuing (including all of the “x”status below).
  • Status code:
    10,887 “a”–clean.
    296 “bi”– inactive (no articles since at least 2020).
    51 “bx”–done but at a different URL.
    82 “xd”–defunct, no articles since at least 2016.
    190 “xm”–malware (but not last year).
    27 “xn”–not an OA journal (including those removed this year but before I got to them).
    458 “xx”–unreachable or unworkable.
    And the two oddities:
    172 “xm2”–malware,also malware last year
    37 “xx2”–unreachable or unworkable, as was true last year.
  • Ease of article counting articles:
    “d” 6,841: easiest, taken directly from DOAJ (sometimes with 2022 count modified)
    “w” 2,693: easy, journal website provides direct numbers at either volume or issue number
    “f”  3,166: middling; numbers calculated using Find function for constants (e.g. “doi.” or “pdf”)
    “c” 457: slowest; articles counted manually.

 

GOA8: Week Nine

Saturday, March 4th, 2023

As anticipated, between other time requirements and some fatigue, this week was slower than last–but not as much slower as I’d anticipated, thanks to SAGE and Sciendo. Hard to say how next week will be, but the rest of Sciendo will get it off to a reasonable start.

Before the counts, yet another reminder: I need feedback about whether/what to do with countries, and specifically whether a Diamond OA book makes sense. See https://walt.lishost.org/2023/02/goa8-new-direction-on-countries/.

So:  1,100 more journals checked.

The overall counts at this point:
11,000 journals checked, of which
9,723 published 1,16,737 articles in 2022 and
10,198 published 1,013,608 articles in 2021.

The rest of the numbers:

  • Fee versus diamond/no-fee: 4,077 journals with fees, 6,923 without.
  • New vs. continuing: 1,308 newly-added, 9,612 continuing (including all of the “x”status below).
  • Status code:
    9,812 “a”–clean.
    265 “bi”– inactive (no articles since at least 2020).
    44 “bx”–done but at a different URL.
    78 “xd”–defunct, no articles since at least 2016.
    169 “xm”–malware (but not last year).
    21 “xn”–not an OA journal (including those removed this year but before I get to them).
    421 “xx”–unreachable or unworkable.
    And the two oddities:
    161 “xm2”–malware,also malware last year
    29 “xx2”–unreachable or unworkable, as was true last year.
  • Ease of article counting articles:
    “d” 6,146: easiest, taken directly from DOAJ (sometimes with 2022 count modified)
    “w” 1,650: easy, journal website provides direct numbers at either volume or issue number
    “f”  2,848: middling; numbers calculated using Find function for constants (e.g. “doi.” or “pdf”)
    “c” 427: slowest; articles counted manually.