Scientific impact of Open Access journals Gayatri Paul

Scientific impact of Open Access journals Gayatri Paul Swapan Deoghuria Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science Jadavpur, Kolkata – 700032

n Plan of the talk v. Introduction v. Objective of the study v. Methodology v. Results & discussion v. Conclusions

Open Access (OA) Journals v. Anybody with internet access can read the articles free of cost v. Required funds to operate these journals are collected from different sources than charging readers v. Till 2000 OA journals created by individual scientists were not indexed in Web of Science databases v. Different business models are tried v Quality in terms of peer review is not undermined

Attitude of Scientists towards OA Journals Prestige, reputation and recognition were missing that scientists usually expect after publishing their papers in a reputed journal indexed in Web of Science or Scopus Not considered for promotion by the authorities. Sustainability and stability were other issues with many OA journals because they were the brainchild of few individual scientists and enthusiasts. Quality of the articles are compromised due to lack of proper peer review Funding agencies did not favour OA

n OA Journals with Author Processing Charge In 2002 two publishers (Bio. Med. Central and Public Library of Science (PLo. S)) started article processing charges (APCs) as the main source of financing of OA journals that is paid by the authors, their institutions or funders. Over the time the importance of APC business model has grown rapidly. Many OA journals are now indexed in Wo. S and Scopus Funding agencies are mandating in favour of OA

n Objective of this study To see the present scenario of OA journals To analyze the dynamics of OA journals in different subject categories To compare the citation and other metrics of OA journals with that of non OA journals To see which business models and publishers are doing well for different subject categories

Methodology Quantitative Analysis No. of scientific publications Qualitative analysis Citation Analysis 7

Strategy of our study v. Bibliometric data used: Web of Science Core Collection of Thomson Reuters v. Time period of publication activity : 2012 -2014 v. Research Areas Considered: Chemistry Physics Biochemistry Molecular Biology

Strategy of our study Contd… Selection of Journals : 10 most productive journals as per 20122014 data of Wo. S for each subject separately v. Research Areas Considered are not mutually exclusive v. Overlapped data are not manually excluded for simplicity

n OA journals in Physics Name of the Journal Impact Factor H - index Starting Year Pub. Fees(APC) Journal Of High Energy Physics 6. 023 153 2010 European Physical Journal C 4. 912 124 1998 Physics Letters B 4. 787 New Journal Of Physics 3. 57 98 1996 £ 1300, US$2080, EUR 1560 Nanoscale Research Letters 2. 584 53 2006 £ 905/$1420/€ 1155 Progress of Theoretical Physics 2. 294 IEEE Photonics Journal 2. 177 34 2009 Entropy 1. 743 30 1999 250 CHF Physical Review Special Topics Accelerators and Beams 1. 5 25 2006 Free AIP Advances 1. 444 20 2011 1350 USD International Journal of Photoenergy 1. 226 28 1999 $1250 Physics of the Solid State 0. 831 35 1996 Pramana Journal of Physics 0. 692 35 1973 1933 1946

n OA journals in Chemistry Impact Factor H - index Starting Year Pub. Fees (APC) Arabian Journal of Chemistry 3. 613 20 2009 - International Journal of Molecular Sciences 3. 257 64 2000 1800 CHF Beilstein Journal Of Organic Chemistry 2. 7 34 2005 free Chemistry Central Journal 2. 55 25 2007 £ 1210/$1890/€ 1540 Molecules 2. 465 - 1996 1800 CHF Sensors 2. 033 84 2001 1800 CHF Journal Of Saudi Chemical Society 1. 978 17 2009 - Journal of Analytical Methods in Chemistry 1. 369 13 2012 $1500 Acta Chimica Slovenica 1. 167 35 1993 - Croatica Chemica Acta 0. 732 38 1927 free E- Journal Of Chemistry 0. 239 - 2012 - Quimica Nova - 17 1997 Free International Journal Of Photoenergy - 28 1999 $1250 Name of the Journal

n OA journals in Biochemistry Molecular Biology Name of the Journal Impact Factor H - index Starting Year Pub. Fees(APC) Nucleic Acids Research 9. 202 379 2005 £ 1000 -£ 2500 Redox Biology 6. 235 24 2013 - Molecular Cancer 5. 888 78 2002 £ 1370/$2145/€ 1745 International Journal of Biological Sciences 3. 982 52 2005 $AUD 2000 Molecular Medicine 3. 53 24 1994 - International Journal of Molecular Sciences 3. 257 64 2000 free(first few issue) BMC Bioinformatics 2. 435 144 2000 £ 1370/$2145/€ 1745 Lipids in Health and Disease 2. 137 40 2002 £ 1, 370 FEBS Open Bio 2. 101 10 2011 $1350 Proteome Science 1. 746 34 2003 £ 1370/$2145/€ 1745 Genetics and Molecular Biology 1. 341 37 1998 US$700. 00(Abroad) R$ 2, 100 (Brazil) PLOS Computational Biology - 112 2005 US$2250 PLOS Biology - 185 2003 US$2900

Total articles Published Sum of Total citations Avg. citations per article Year Total articles Published Sum of Total citations Avg. citations per article Citation summary of OA journals Year n Chemistry 2012 3957 34730 8. 78 2013 5265 29633 5. 63 2014 5661 24395 4. 31 Physics 2012 3957 34730 8. 78 2013 4560 32113 7. 04 2014 9088 66971 7. 37 Biochemist ry Molecular Biology 2012 4834 100527 20. 80 2013 5089 79629 15. 65 2014 5575 63638 11. 41 Subject

n OA publications during 2012 -2014 10000 9147 9000 Chemistry 8000 Publications 7000 Physics 5661 6000 5265 5000 4444 4016 4383 5575 5089 Biochemistry molecular Biology 4663 3000 2000 1000 0 2012 2013 Year 2014

n Observations OA Journals are gradually more acceptable to scientists More OA journals are now indexed in Wo. S and Scopus No. of publications in OA journals are increasing over years Scientists working in the field of Biochemistry Molecular Biology are adopting OA more Societies involved in scholarly publishing of OA journals are more active in traditional subjects like Physics and Chemistry Professional publishers with APC business model are doing better in Biochemistry Molecular Biology that is related to medical & Health science

n Conclusions Ø Prospect of OA journals are promising Ø APC is a successful business model for OA journals Ø Funding agencies are mandating in favour of OA journals Ø Scientists are getting due prestige and recognition for publishing in OA journals Ø OA journals are as good as non OA journals in respect to citation, h-index and other metrics that are considered as proxy for the quality of scientific research ØThese metrics are generally accepted among scientists and widely available across journals

Acknowledgements Members of the Organizing Committee My colleague and co-author of this paper Dr. Gayatri Paul

Thank you for your attention! Q&A Swapan Deoghuria ccsd@iacs. res. in Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, 700032 Kolkata, India