Finished subject analysis, which was faster than expected.
Also finished parsing APCs for the (first) currency and (first) amount, determining the set of currencies used, determining plausible conversion values for those currencies, and preparing the fee values.
Not including journals added or deleted after 12/14/2024, 7,342 of the journals have fees–and 1,621 of those have more than one currency. Using only the first currency encountered for each journal, there are 46 different currencies (including USD). For 31 of those currencies, I’m using OFX averages for the year through December 14. For another five (not in OFX), I’m using Xrates averages for the first 19 days of December. Finally, for ten other currencies, I’m using either Xe or MSN conversion rates for December 19.
The lowest fee, likely a conversion problem, is $0.0126 per article. Eight others show fees of less than $1, and all might be problems: I’m not in a position to judge. At the other extreme, sixteen journals have fees greater than $6,000 per article, with four of those above $7,000 and two at $8,900. (Both Elsevier.)
I don’t study fee change as part of the study, partly because so many changes are due to currency fluctuation. Informally, however:
- Seventeen journals saw fee increases of more than 300% (some of these possibly due to currency issues)
- Twenty increased by 200 to 300% and 56 by 100% to 199%.
- 124 increased by 50% to 99% and 730 by 10% to 49%.
- The vast majority–5,135 of 7,342–were either unchanged or had minor changes: 1,781 unchanged, 1,518 increasing by less than 10%, and 1,836 decreasing by less than 10%.
- 275 journals had fees fall by 10% to 49.9%, and 13 had drops greater than 50% (but still had fees)
That’s about it for now. I’ll catch up with late changes in either one or two batches. Between December 14 and 22, DOAJ saw 52 new journals and dropped 15–so I’m guessing around 100 new and 30 lost in total.
