1. 1st International Conference on Academic
Communication Journals (Barcelona, 27/02/2015)
Communication journals
and open access
Ernest Abadal
Facultat de Biblioteconomia i Documentació
Universitat de Barcelona
abadal@ub.edu

2. Contents
2
1. Introduction
2. Open access journals
1. Some data
2. How to finance OA journals?
3. Predatory journals
3. Situation in Spain
4. Conclusions
5. Bibliography

3. 1 Introduction
 “Open-access literature
is digital, online, free of
charge, and free of
most copyright and
licensing restrictions”
(Suber, 2006).
 Open access is a
“vision”.
• We are convinced that
the scientific
communication system
will work better with this
model.
3

4. 1 Introduction (ii)
 Maturity of the movement
•10+ years from first declarations: Budapest
(2002), Berlin (2003), Bethesda (2003).
•Well known by academics, publishers, librarians,
etc.
 Institutional support
•European Union: Horizon 2020.
•Spain: Ley de la Ciencia y la Tecnología (2011).
•Universities: mandates.
4

5. 1.1 How much OA?
 Several studies, based on inferences from
samples.
 20,4% of the total (Bjork, 2010)
•8,5%, in publishers’ portals (“gold” route)
•11,9% in repositories (“green” route)
 37,8% (Chen, 2014)
•Same methodology as Bjork (2010)
5 5

6. 1.2 Authors’ perspective
 Several advantages
•More visibility.
•More audience (downloads).
•More impact (citations).
 Obligation to publish in OA.
•H2020, universities’ mandates, etc.
•They have to know the conditions of their
publications’ copyright licences for archiving
them in repositories.
6

7. 1.3 Publishers’ perspective
 They are adapting their business model to
the OA framework.
•Introducing APC (Article Processing Charges) [v.
2.2.1].
•Seeking economic support (universities, funding
bodies, etc.). [v. 2.2.2].
 They are adapting copyright licences to
make it easier for authors to include their
publications in personal webpages and
repositories.
7

8. 1.4 Objectives
1. Analyse the main challenges of open
access journals.
•To increase quantity.
•To consolidate new business models (or means
of financing).
•To be recognized for quality.
1. Analyse the situation of Spanish
communication journals in relation to open
access.
8

9. 2 Open access journals
 Their quality and recognition are similar to
commercial ones.
•Based on peer review.
 But … they have to:
Increase their proportion in the academic
journals scenario. [v. 2.1]
Consolidate their business models and
economic sustainability. [v. 2.2]
Avoid “contamination” from predatory
journals. [v. 2.3]
9

10. Fig. 1. Main sources of data
10

11. 2.1 Some data about OA journals
 By “quality”: (Source: Ulrich’s)
• 9 % journals in JCR (930 of 10,036)
• 13 % of peer review journals (8,703 of 67,495)
 By country: (Source: Ulrich’s)
• Brazil: 63%
• Spain: 37%
• USA: 9%
 By fields: (Archambault, 2013)
• Biomedicine: 61%
• Social sciences: 32%
• Communication & Textual Studies: 21% (21st of 22
fields).
11

12. Fig. 2. Communication journals in DOAJ (108 titles)
12

13. 2.2 How to finance OA journals?
 [Subscription]
 Article processing charges (APC)
 Public financing
 Consortia of users
 Other ways
13

14. 2.2.1 Article Processing Charges (APC)
 Publishing charge payment by the author
using research funds.
 Cost: from 400 to 3.000 euros per paper.
 Common in health sciences and in countries
with well-financed research.
 Some data (from DOAJ):
•32% of journals use APC.
•Mainly in Medicine, Science, etc.
•Low presence in Social sciences and, especially,
in Communication journals.
14

15. Fig. 3. APC journals by subject
15

16. Fig. 4. Non APC journals by subject
16

17. 2.2.1 APC (ii)
 Finch report (2012) adopts / defends this
kind of author-side payment.
 It permits the reconversion of the publishing
industry (ex., OpenChoice, de Springer).
 New publishers have appeared: PLOS,
BioMedCentral, Hindawi, etc.
 H2020 and other research programs permit
APC.
17

18. 2.2.2 Public financing
 Processing charges are paid by public
administration (universities, research
centers, etc.).
 Very common in Humanities and Social
sciences (little funding for research).
 Prevalent in countries from the scientific
periphery.
18

19. 2.2.2 Public financing (ii)
 Best example: Brazil (Rodrigues, Abadal, 2014)
•More than 90% of high quality journals are OA.
•More than 250 journals in WoS and Scopus.
 How? (mechanisms)
•Public administration (CNPq, CAPES): annual
call of 2 M euros (for 200 best journals)
•Scielo: Dissemination platform.
•Universities: technical support, training, human
resources, etc.
19

20. 2.2.3 Users’ consortia
 Agreement between big users for making
centralized payments which finance
publishers costs.
•Libraries (and consortia).
•Funder agencies and research institutes.
 Feasible in special and well defined fields
(for example, High energy physics).
 The individual payment is assigned
according to several indicators (scientific
production, uses, etc.)
 Example: SCOAP3 (begun January 2014).
20

21. 2.2.4 Other ways
 Advertising
 Sale of services
•Print copies.
•Reprints (for authors).
 Comments:
•These complement the other ways mentioned
above.
•Options more often used for books than for
journals.
21

22. 2.3 Predatory journals
 Journals without quality (in peer-review,
originality, scientific advisors, etc.).
 Priority: to obtain APCs paying no attention
to scientific content.
 Jeffrey Beall (librarian at Univ. Colorado)
•Blog (http://scholarlyoa.com/)
•Denounces bad practices and bad practitioners.
 List 2015
•More than 500 journals and 650 publishers
(“potential, possible, or probable”).
22

23. Fig. 5. Journal home page
23

24. Fig. 6. Publisher’s portal web
24

25. 3 Situation in Spain
 Source: Dulcinea database
 Journals
•1,711 Spanish academic journals (active)
• 61 Communication journals (4%)
 Aspects
•Type of publisher
•Type of access
•Self-archiving permission
•Open access
25

26. Fig. 7. Source of data
26

27. 3.1 Publisher type
27
Communication Total journals
Private non-profit 18 % 23 %
Commercial 7 % 17 %
Government 3 % 7 %
Academic 72 % 50 %

28. 3.2 Type of access
28
Type of access Examples
Gratis Publisher pays the cost
(universities, etc.)
Gratis after an
embargo
Content can be accessed
after a period of time.
Hybrid Subscription journals with
OA articles (via APC).
Restricted to
subscribers

29. 3.2 Type of access (ii)
29
Type of access Communication Total of journals
Gratis 88 % 70 %
Gratis after an
embargo
7 % 11 %
Hybrid 2 % 1 %
Restricted to
subscribers
3 % 15 %

30. 3.3 Self-archiving
 Publishing policies of journals with regard to
granting permission for self-archiving in open
access repositories (Sherpa-Romeo).
 Important for facilitating green route.
30

31. 3.3 Self-archiving
31
Communication Total journals
White (not permitted) 5 % 13 %
Blue (post-print) 61 % 57 %
Green (pre- and post-
print)
23 % 20 %
Unknown 11 % 10 %

32. 3.4 Open access
 How we can define an open access journal?
We will consider only the journals which are:
• gratis
• self-archiving (blue or green) is permitted
 Communication OA journals: 44 (77%).
 Spanish OA journals: 43%.
32

33. 3.4 Open access (ii)
33
Green Blue White Unknown
Gratis 13 34 0 7 54 (88%)
Gratis after
an embargo
0 2 2 0 4 (7%)
Hybrid 0 1 0 0 1 (2%)
Restricted 1 0 1 0 2 (3%)
14 (23%) 37
(61%)
3 (5%) 7 (11%)

34. 4 Conclusions
 The main challenge to OA journals now is,
probably, to find sustainability models and
also battle for quality against predatory
journals.
 In Spain, communication journals have
adopted by a large majority the open access
model.
• 88 % are gratis immediately
• 84 % grant permission to self-archive
• 77 % open access (crossing both conditions).
3434

35. 4 Conclusions (ii)
 These figures are over the average and the
explanation lies in the proportion of
academic and governmental publishers
(90% for communication respect to 57% for
all journals).
3535

36. 5 References
 Abadal, E. (2012). Acceso abierto a la ciencia. Barcelona: UOC.
(http://diposit.ub.edu/dspace/handle/2445/24542)
 Abadal, E. (2012). "Retos de las revistas en acceso abierto: cantidad,
calidad y sostenibilidad económica". Hipertext.net.
(http://www.upf.edu/hipertextnet/numero-10/retos-revistas-en-acceso-
abierto.html)
 Archambault, Eric; Amyot, D.; Deschamps, P.; Nicol, A.; Rebout, L.;
Roberge, G. (2013). Proportion of open access peer-reviewed papers at
the European and world levels—2004-2011. Brussels: European
Comission, 2013, http://www.science-
metrix.com/pdf/SM_EC_OA_Availability_2004-2011.pdf
 Björk, B-C et al. “Open access to the scientific journal literature:
situation 2009”. PLoS ONE, 2010, v. 5, n. 6.
(doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0011273).
 Budapest Open Access Initiative: Ten years on from the Budapest Open
Access Initiative: setting the default to open (2012).
http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/openaccess/boai-10-
recommendations
36

37. 5 References (ii)
 Chen, Xiaotian (2014). “Open access in 2013: reaching the 50%
milestone”. Serials Review, 40:1, 21-27, DOI:
10.1080/00987913.2014.895556
 Finch, Janet (2012). Accessibility, sustainability, excellence: how to
expand access to research publications.
(http://apo.org.au/sites/default/files/Finch-Group-report-FINAL-
VERSION.pdf)
 - Melero, R.; Rodríguez-Gairín, J.M.; Abad-García, F.; Abadal, E. (2014).
"Journal author rights and self-archiving: the case of Spanish journals",
Learned Publishing, vol. 27, no. 2, p. 107-120. (
http://dx.doi.org/10.1087/20140205)
 Rodrigues, R.; Abadal, E. (2014). "Scientific journals in Brazil and
Spain: alternative publishing models". Journal of the Association for
Information Science and Technology, Volume 65, Issue 10, pages
2145–2151, October 2014. (http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/asi.23115)
 Suber, Peter (2012). Open access. Massachussets: MIT Press.
http://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/titles/content/9780262517638_
Open_Access_PDF_Version.pdf
37

38. Acknowledgements
 Alice Keefer (revises slides and my taught).
 Miguel Navas (prepares data from Dulcinea).
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39. 39
Thanks for your attention