Stephen Pinfield, lead investigator on the AHRC-funded Open-Access Mega-Journals (OAMJ) project, presented the initials results of the OAMJ research looking at the characteristics of open-access mega-journals (and their impact on scholarly communication patterns) last Wednesday at the RLUK conference (9th-11th March 2016) in London. Further information about the OAMJ project conducted by Sheffield University and Loughborough University can be found at: http://oamj.org/ Follow us on Twitter at: ‎@OAMJ_Project

1. Open-Access Mega-Journals and the
Future of Scholarly Communication
Stephen Pinfield
University of Sheffield
Acknowledgements to Claire Creaser, Jenny Fry, Valérie Spezi,
Simon Wakeling, Peter Willett

2. The Importance of Mega-Journals?
• Joseph Esposito (2010) argued, “I
think PLoS One points to the
future of academic publishing”
• Richard Wellen (2013) identifies
OA mega-journals as having
(some of) the characteristics of
“disruptive innovation” with the
potential to contribute to major
change
• Jean Claude Guédon (2015) in
commenting on the future of
scholarly communication, stated,
“Subsidized mega-journals would
be the best system…”
• But critics* have seen mega-
journals as a “dumping ground”
for lower quality outputs which
reduce the valuable filtering of
content provided conventional
journals
• Some have even claimed
publishing in them is “career
suicide” for researchers
(particularly ECRs)
• There have been suggestions that
mega-journals are a cynical
money-making venture
(*Often unattributed comments
reporting others)
2

3. Open-Access Mega-Journals Project
http://oamj.org/
• 2-year collaboration between
Sheffield and Loughborough
(Nov 2015-Oct 2017 )
• Funded by AHRC
• Investigating: “The principal
characteristics of the
emergent open-access
‘mega-journal’ phenomenon
and its significance for the
academic research
community and beyond”
• Using quantitative and
qualitative methods
3

4. Defining ‘Mega-Journals’
• Fully-open access
• Wide scope e.g.
– PLOS ONE covers all science, technology and medicine (STM)
disciplines
– AIP Advances covers all of Physics
• Particular approach to quality control
– Pre-publication peer review based on scientific “soundness” rather
than “subjective” assessments of “novelty” or “importance”
– Post-publication metrics – the scientific community ‘decides’ novelty
and importance by use, citation, etc
• Large scale
– e.g. PLOS ONE (launched in 2006) – now the largest journal in the
world, 31,864 articles in 2014
– but many mega-journals are newer and are not large scale (yet)
4

5. Björk Criteria*
• Primary criteria
– Big publishing volume or aiming
for it
– Peer review of scientific
soundness only
– Broad subject area
– Full open access with APC
• Secondary criteria
– Moderate APC
– High-prestige publisher
– Academic editors
– Reusable graphics and data
– Altmetrics, commenting
– Portable reviews
– Rapid publication
• Useful working definition
but clearly some areas
subjective
– What constitutes…
• a “big publishing volume”?
• a “broad subject area”?
• a “moderate APC”?
• “rapid publication”?
– Why exclude sponsored titles?
(*Björk, 2015;
Based on Norman, 2012;
Binfield, 2013)
5

6. Journals Meeting all Primary Criteria
2014 articles
(Scopus)
PLOS ONE 31864
Scientific Reports 3286
BMJ Open 1143
BMC Research Notes 915
SpringerPlus 738
AIP Advances 542
PeerJ 474
Medicine 360
SAGE Open 323
F1000 277
FEBS open bio 120
Biology Open n/a
CMAJ Open n/a
Collabra n/a
Cureus n/a
Heliyon n/a
Journal of Engineering n/a
QScience Connect n/a
Royal Society Open Science n/a
SAGE Open Medicine n/a
Journals Meeting all but Review Criterion
2014 articles
(Scopus)
Scientific World Journal 3617
Nature Communications 2402
Cell Reports 713
eLife 518
G3: Genes | Genomes | Genetics 389
Physical Review X 269
IEEE Access 107
Chemistry Central Journal 70
Open Biology 68
Elementa n/a
Modern Languages Open n/a
Open Library of the Humanities n/a
Open Linguistics n/a
Palgrave communications n/a
Science Advances n/a
Titles and Article Numbers
6

7. Output
• Output dominated by PLOS ONE but PLOS ONE showing a decline 2013-15
• Nature Scientific Reports increasing over the same period
• Other titles growing more slowly
0
5000
10000
15000
20000
25000
30000
35000
40000
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
Elementa
Journal of Engineering
IEEE Access
Royal Society Open
Science
FEBS Open Bio
Biology Open
SageOpen
G3
PeerJ
AIP advances
Springer plus
BMJ Open
Scientific reports
PLOS ONE
volumeofarticles
Total number of
articles
published in
Björk's 14 mega-
journals
• PLOS ONE,
exemplar
mega-journal,
launched in
2006
• Large number
of other titles
launched 2011-
7
(Source: Björk, 2015)

8. Mega-Journals as a Disruptive
Innovation: Economics?
• Economies of scale created by a single set of
processes and technologies replacing multiple ones
• Enables a tiered scholarly publishing system
• Addresses the problem of funding the costs of high
selectivity in OA an environment
• Potentially reduces the ‘submission-rejection spiral’
(benefits the wider research community)
• Low barriers to entry but creating recognised brands
challenging
8

9. Highly-selective
title(s)
Potential Tiered System
9
Moderately-
selective mega-
journal
Financial
subsidy
Reputational
subsidy

10. Economics: Questions
• Are mega-journals necessary to create economies of
scale?
• Are not multiple tiers likely with mega-journals
occupying the lower tiers?
• Does the tiered model create particular conditions
for conflict of interest?
• Is there a particular danger of ‘Predatory’ journals in
the mega-journal space?
• Will not mega-journals rely on pre-existing publisher
brands?
10

11. Mega-Journals as a Disruptive
Innovation: Quality Control?
• Emphasis on pre-publication assessment of
scientific “soundness” – reduces subjectivity
of judgements of “novelty” and “importance”
• Necessitates role of post-publication metrics
to assess “importance”
• Shifts in the role and power of gatekeepers in
the scientific community
11

12. Quality Control: Questions
• Peer review ‘lite’? Leading to lower quality standards?
• Is there an equivalent of “soundness” in the Humanities?
• What are post-publication metrics telling us currently
about “importance”?
• Is there a danger of increasing (over) reliance on metrics
as part of creeping managerialism in HEIs?
• Dispensing with the ‘wisdom of the expert’ for the
‘wisdom of the crowd’? ie assessment of gatekeepers
replaced by metrics of subject community behavioural
responses (usage, citations etc)
12

13. Mega-Journals as a Disruptive
Innovation: The Role of the Journal?
• Reverses the 50-year trend of greater
specialisation in journal scope
• Creates new potential for interdisciplinarity
• Points away from the journal to the article
• Creates the potential for ‘overlay’ or ‘meta’
journal service
• Improves knowledge exchange beyond the
research community
13

14. The Role of the Journal: Questions
• Are these developments (encouraging
interdisciplinarity, de-emphasising the
importance of the journal, creating the
potential for overlay services, and enhancing
KE) likely to occur regardless of mega-
journals?
• Are there fundamental disciplinary differences
in relation to mega-journals?
14

15. 0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
1600
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
Articles
Year
BMC Public
Health
BMC Genomics
BMC Cancer
BMC
Bioinformatics
BMC Research
Notes
How big is ‘Mega’?
• BMC Research
notes is broader in
scope, and reviews
only for scientific
soundness, yet has
a lower output
since its launch
than four other
BMC journals
• Many mega-
journals are still
comparatively
small
15

16. 0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Cumulative%ofallarticles
Citations
Cumulative Frequency of Citations for articles
published 2011-2013
Nature Scientific Reports (3,601) Nature Communications (2,826)
Nature (3,180)
Mega-journals and Quality
• Nature: Very Highly
Selective: JIF* = 41.456
• Nature Communications:
Highly Selective: JIF =
11.474
• Nature Scientific Reports:
Mega-Journal: JIF = 5.578
• Over half of all Nature articles
have been cited >50 times,
compared to only 3.5% of
Nature Scientific Reports
articles
• Illustrates the impact of
selectivity on citation frequency
*JIF = Journal Impact Factor16

17. 0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Cumulative%ofarticles
Citations
Cumulative Frequency of Citations for Articles
Published 2011-2013
AIP Advances (1,041) BMC Research Notes (1,894)
BMJ Open (1,784) PLOS ONE (69,539)
SAGE Open (391) Nature Scientific Reports (3,601)
Comparing Citation
Rates of Mega-Journals
• Among mega-journals
publishing between 2011-
13, Nature Scientific Reports
has the lowest proportion of
infrequently cited articles
• Is there a correlation with
publisher reputation?
• To what extent are mega-
journals “dumping
grounds”?
• How do we measure
“quality”?
17

18. 2011-13 (120 Articles) June 2014-Current (2065 Articles)
Institution n % Institution n %
1 The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine 8 6.7% China Medical University Taichung 171 8.2%
2 Universite Pierre et Marie Curie 8 6.7% Chang Gung University 65 3.1%
3 Hospital Universitari de Bellvitge 8 6.7% National Yang-Ming University Taiwan 60 2.9%
4 Universite Paris Descartes 8 6.7% Sun Yat-Sen University 56 2.7%
5 Universite Paris 7- Denis Diderot 7 5.8% Chang Gung Memorial Hospital 53 2.6%
6 Inserm 6 5.0% Peking Union Medical College 49 2.4%
7 Hopital Pitie Salpetriere 6 5.0% Sichuan University 43 2.1%
8 Hopital Henri Mondor 6 5.0% Veterans General Hospital-Taipei 40 1.9%
9 Massachusetts General Hospital 6 5.0% National Taiwan University Hospital 39 1.9%
10 Universitat de Barcelona 5 4.2% China Medical University Shenyang 36 1.7%
Country n % Country n %
1 United States 45 37.5% China 847 40.9%
2 France 31 25.8% Taiwan 329 15.9%
3 Spain 20 16.7% United States 217 10.5%
4 Japan 9 7.5% South Korea 167 8.1%
5 Canada 5 4.2% Japan 113 5.5%
6 Taiwan 4 3.3% Italy 87 4.2%
7 Switzerland 3 2.5% France 76 3.7%
8 United Kingdom 3 2.5% Spain 69 3.3%
9 India 2 1.7% United Kingdom 54 2.6%
10 Italy 2 1.7% Germany 50 2.4%
Top 10 Contributing Author Institutional Affiliations and
Nationalities for Medicine • Medicine (Kluwer)
transitioned from a
highly- selective
subscription journal to OA
mega-journal in 2014
• Comparing contributing
author institutions and
nationalities before and
after the change, the
number of contributions
from Western authors
increased
• But this increase is
dwarfed by contributions
from Chinese authors.
The dramatic increase in
publishing output is
primarily driven by
Chinese academics
• Initial analysis suggests
this is true for a majority
of mega-journals 18

19. Project Next Steps
http://oamj.org/
• Complete literature review
and bibliometrics analysis
• Carry out interviews of
publishers and editors
• Set up disciplinary focus
groups (your help would
be appreciated)
• Prepare large-scale
author survey
• Continue to interact with
different stakeholder
communities and tease out
the implications for different
groups
19

20. Acknowledgements: Open-Access
Mega-Journals Project
University of Sheffield
• Stephen Pinfield (PI)
• Simon Wakeling (RA)
• Peter Willett (Co-I)
Loughborough University
• Claire Creaser (Co-I)
• Jenny Fry (Co-I)
• Valérie Spezi (RA)
http://oamj.org/
@OAMJ_Project

21. References
Binfield, P. (2013). Open access megajournals: Have they changed everything? In UBC
Open meeting. PowerPoint presentation.
Björk, B.-C. (2015). Have the “mega-journals” reached the limits to growth? PeerJ, 3,
e981. http://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.981
Esposito, J. (2010). Comment: PLoS’ squandered opportunity — Their problems with
the path of least resistance. Retrieved from
http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2010/04/27/plos-squandered-opportunity-the-
problem-with-pursuing-the-path-of-least-resistance/
Guédon, J.-C. (2015). [GOAL] Re: Elsevier: Trying to squeeze the virtual genie back into
the physical bottle. Retrieved November 24, 2015, from
http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/pipermail/goal/2015-May/003377.html
Norman, F. (2012). Megajournals. Retrieved November 23, 2015, from
http://occamstypewriter.org/trading-knowledge/2012/07/09/megajournals/
Wellen, R. (2013). Open access, megajournals, and MOOCs: On the political economy
of academic unbundling. SAGE Open, 3(4), 2158244013507271–.
http://doi.org/10.1177/2158244013507271
21