The Macro and Micro Scale of Open Access Predation

Having found a business opportunity in exploiting the open access publishing model, predatory journals and publishers have been spamming authors with emails, inviting them to submit articles for publication. Authors may be misled by the names of prestigious authors and editors that predatory journals and publishers use to advertise their publishing services, either by claims that those scientists serve on the editorial boards or by sending invitations in their names. Given the fact that detailed knowledge of a journal is required to make an informed decision of whether the inviting journal is predatory or not, junior scientists are not likely to possess the knowledge or skill to make such decisions. In addition, analysis of the details of new suspicious journals and publishers can be a lengthy process or even a waste of time. Therefore, in this paper, we provide an analysis of a likely scenario that many authors are facing nowadays when they take on the difficult task of studying the details of suspicious journals as possible venues for the publication of their research findings. The analysis takes the form of an analysis of the Kenkyu Publishing Group, which is listed on Jeffrey Beall’s list of “predatory” open access publishers.     

Using Journal Citation Reports and SHERPA RoMEO to Facilitate Conversations on Institutional Repositories

This article describes a technique using the Thomson Reuters’ Journal Citation Reports and the SHERPA RoMEO Web site to identify a set of core journals in a discipline and determine whether the journals’ publishers allow preprint or postprint archiving in their copyright transfer agreements.     

Project Transfer: A Publisher's Perspective

The Transfer Code of Conduct is designed to improve the process of journal transfer between publishers. It was launched by the UKSG (United Kingdom Serials Group) in May 2007. Taylor & Francis is one of eight publishers to support the project. It is different from previous initiatives in that it was created by publishers, librarians, and intermediaries, and it aims to provide a firmer, more practical set of guidelines than those that have been published previously. Despite a strong initial take-up, the Code has not yet been endorsed by some of the larger publishers and trade bodies. These organizations are now working with Transfer to re-draft the Code of Conduct. Once this is in place, further measures are planned to track journal transfer and monitor compliance. Long-term governance of Transfer is also being considered.     

Profit or access: which is more important for Chinese medical journals?

The Chinese Medical Association, one of the largest and most influential medical journal publishers in China, signed an exclusive copyright transfer agreement with Beijing Wanfang Data Co. Ltd in 2006, which ended the era of cheap transfer of copyrights from journals to full‐text databases. Since then, many journals have chosen the same route to earn more money. However, without generally recognized databases that offer free access to medical abstracts in China, many potential readers are lost. In addition, many Chinese readers do not have adequate literature retrieval skills: more convenient access to journals is therefore far more important than earning immediate profits. Goods in exclusive shops are more expensive than those in ordinary shops. That is why many journals sell exclusive copyrights to databases. However, while obtaining more profits by exclusive copyright transfer, journals may actually lose a large proportion of readers.     

Identifying Scientific High Quality Journals and Publishers

The importance of identifying high quality journals in order to publish scientific achievements is very essential and unavoidable task. In this study, identifying the quality of journals and publishers were introduced and described which can be used as a comprehensive and global training for users and eliminate the challenges in distinguishing high quality journals from poor-quality journals. The authors are considered as the main pillars for journals and publishers progress; aware and conscious authors in identifying offered quality features by journals and publishers are the most important item in order to stop and remove poor-quality journals. Implementation and adherence to the quality principles by journals and publishers will ensure the international progress in scientific researches and publication fields.     

The ALPSP Learned Journals Collection

Selling journals to consortia and other large customers is increasingly difficult for small publishers, and yet libraries want their journals. The ALPSP Learned Journals Collection (ALJC) was put together, after considerable research, as an attempt to overcome this problem for ALPSP member publishers. Working through Swets Information Services, 247 journals from 25 publishers can be sold as a single package. Despite the difficulties, a single publisher agreement, customer licence, and pricing and revenue‐sharing model were all agreed upon. Customer reactions indicate that this is a real win–win solution for publishers and libraries.     

Internationalization of scientific publishing over time: Analysing publishers and fields differences

The changes in journal internationality in mainstream science were examined using 1,398 journals and 2,557,229 papers during 1991–2014. The authors’ country of affiliation in journals’ papers and references of multinational and national publishers were analysed. The results showed that journals’ papers and references have become more globalized over time. On average, older journals are more international than the newer ones. Although multinational publishers publish more international journals than the national ones do, journals from national publishers have internationalized faster than those from multinationals. The difference between these two groups of publishers is much greater in authoring compared to referencing. For both groups of publishers, the most changes in journal internationality occurred between the fourth and sixth year of indexing in Web of Science. Journals and papers in Humanities journals have the highest rate of increase of internationality although Natural Sciences and Engineering and Technology have the most international papers. Agricultural Sciences has the least international papers; however, these papers cite a wider range of countries’ papers compared to other fields. Journals in Medical and Health Sciences, Natural Sciences, and Agricultural Sciences have the most international references.     

国外学术期刊OA出版论文处理费(APC)调查

调查了国际知名出版商Elsevier、Springer、Taylor & Francis、Wiley-Blackwell、NPG和国际知名OA期刊社BMC、PLoS、Hindawi、MDPI等OA期刊的论文处理费(APC)的收费标准.2015年度主要商业性出版社完全OA期刊的APC主要分布在1 000 ～5 000美元之间,混合型OA期刊的APC相对高些,分布较窄,基本在3 000美元左右.以瑞士MDPI公司为案例,分析该公司OA期刊的创办、期刊载文量、期刊经营、APC收取策略等.还简要讨论APC和OA出版机制,以期为我国的科研管理部门和期刊管理部门提供参考.     

The extent of concentration in journal publishing

This study examines the extent of concentration in the journal publishing industry. A number of aspects are considered: publishers, journal impacts, countries, and languages. For journals indexed in JCR from 1997 to 2009, just 0.2% of publishers produce 50% of journals and articles, and 0.3% of publishers account for the top 50% of citations, impact factors and immediacy indices. More than a half of publishers in JCR are from four countries: USA, UK, Germany and Japan. In addition, more than a half of journals come from the USA and UK. Examining the publishers' interactions in terms of buying and selling journals shows the extent of change by acquisition, and the acquisition links between publishers. The findings confirm that the international market of journal publishing is essentially dominated by a few publishers.     

Effect of cooperation between Chinese scientific journals and international publishers on journals’ impact factor

Growing cooperation between Chinese journals and international publishers invites an investigation of the effect of this cooperation, based on an analysis of journal IF changes. Data from 23 Chinese academic journals were chosen from about 50 English-language academic journals indexed by SCI or SCIE and with a long history of cooperation. The data do not suggest that cooperation has improved the journals’ IF thus far. It appears that cooperation is generally limited to international distribution, and this has a weak influence on the quality of the journal and its IF, even though the papers can be accessed by worldwide users through publishers’ international distribution networks. Cooperation with international publishers is one step, but actively working on the quality of the journals is a more important step.     

Green and gold open access in India

This paper examines the characteristics of 462 open access (OA) journals being published in India under the green, gold and hybrid models. The sample of journals was selected from DOAJ, IndianJournal.com and Open J‐Gate. Journal characteristics were measured in terms of growth, subjects, publishers, and citations under each model. While characteristics such as growth, subject, and publisher have been identified by exploring the journal's website only, the citation count of these journals has been calculated by using Google Scholar and the Indian Citation Index. The gold road is now the most popular form of OA publishing in the subcontinent. There is a great variation in the size of OA journals and in their publishers. One publisher has more than 77 journals, but 264 publishers publish a single journal only. Overall, the OA journal landscape is greatly influenced by a few key publishers and journals. While 43% of journals charge publication fees and the fees vary from as low as US$10 to as high as US$400, the highest impact factor of the gold OA journals has been noted as 0.58. The data presented here suggest that publication fees are not a major barrier to authorship within the fields of computer science, pharmacy, and medicine.     

数字出版时代科技期刊利用电子商务平台营销的构想

科技期刊出版业由传统的出版与经营管理转变为数字化出版,利用电子商务平台进行数字化、网络化营销已成为科技期刊的发展方向.认为:可开展基于科技期刊自建网站的电子商务营销;通过专业的电子商务平台开通科技期刊的旗舰营销店,实现科技期刊的多元化、多渠道的电子商务营销;通过手机付费平台进行科技期刊的网络化营销.科技期刊利用电子商务平台营销过程中需重视多方合作并加强管理,加强电子商务平台的内容建设及服务营销,加大培养电子商务专业化营销与管理人才的力度,不断扩大科技期刊的社会效益与经济效益.     

Hybrid Journals: Ensuring Systematic and Standard Discoverability of the Latest Open Access Articles

An important current challenge for research information providers is ensuring the automated discovery of Open Access (OA) content in hybrid journals. We found no evidence of discovery services that are able to systematically identify the crucially important free full-text availability of OA articles regardless of where and how such articles have been published (i.e., in fully OA journals or in hybrid journals). A solution is important because hybrid journals are proliferating and consequently the chances of missing OA articles is real and is happening. Nearly all of the major publishers now provide such journals in order to take advantage of recent changes in research funder requirements, and to be competitive in the new OA business model. By working with a group of scholarly publisher partners and by using standard metadata elements that publishers are already familiar with, we show a systematic and standardized manner to identify OA at the article level. Our proposal is to embed OA-related elements in the metadata freely exposed by publishers for aggregators and discovery services. For example, in the Table of Content (TOC) Really Simple Syndication feeds the publishers use to announce new journal issues and content. Based on the initial results obtained, we discuss the capabilities of our solution, and evaluate the impact produced by our application in the systematic discoverability of OA content from the participating hybrid journals, using an implementation done with the freely available journal current awareness service—JournalTOCs.     

The Future of Academic Journals

Academic journals have traditionally provided disciplinary forums for scholarly communication (i.e., vetting, legitimating, and disseminating new ideas). Digitization is affecting scholarly communication and academic journals. Two effects are the bundling of journals by publishers and the growing variety of formats that open up new avenues of dissemination. Both effects have disrupted the traditional roles and relationships of scholars and their institutions, publishers and libraries in the processes of scholarly communication, including the significance of academic journals as a format.     

Thousands of Australian academics on the editorial boards of journals run by predatory publishers

A total of 966 allegedly ‘predatory’ open access publishers were examined to determine the nature of their ethical or unethical practices and the extent to which Australian academics were included on the editorial boards of their journals. An estimated 4,000 Australian academics (ca. 7% of the academic population) are on these journal boards. Of the publishers, 240 proved to be overtly fraudulent, the ethical status of the others remaining unresolved. About 86% of the Australian academics identified appeared on the editorial boards of journals belonging to those 240 publishers. Despite two decades of advocacy from librarians, there remains widespread ignorance of the existence of such fraudulent publishers, and more severe action is required. Reform proposals include naming the publisher in all references and in academic profiles and curriculum vitae. Universities are encouraged to take responsibility for publishing journals that replace those currently causing the problem. Institutions are urged to augment their current warnings and advice with formal policies, which will probably require a blacklist of unacceptable publishers. New formal policies for dealing with predatory publishers are currently being developed in some Australian universities.     

Mapping the journal publishing landscape: how much do we know?

In debates about journals, their publishers and the future of both, it is important to be clear about what we are discussing. In this article, the sparse existing literature is surveyed, and original sources examined to provide further detail. The membership lists of six leading publishing associations, and the websites of their members, were also studied. More than half of all peer‐reviewed journals in Ulrich's are published by or on behalf of/in association with nonprofit organizations. Other than the top few commercial publishers, there is little difference in size between the two types; the ‘long tail’ of publishers are small and therefore vulnerable, and yet most are not represented by any trade association. The majority of journals come from the USA or the UK. Nonprofits launch fewer new journals, but are also less likely to close journals. The quality advantage of nonprofit journals may be reducing, but nonprofit journals still predominate among the most highly cited journals.     

AND A FEW MORE

Much of the recent library literature related to scholarly communication and predatory publishers has focused on faculty concerns regarding publishing in questionable journals for tenure or promotion purposes. However, little attention has been paid to predatory publishers in the context of student research and library instruction. The presence of predatory journals in library databases may put students at risk of including questionable content in their academic output. While the results of this study reveal that the number of predatory publishers and their associated journals are fairly small in the three article database packages and one directory that were examined, predatory journal content was more prevalent in one particular resource and in certain subject areas.     

Scholarly publishing and open access in the Nordic countries

This study examines aspects of scholarly journal publishing in the Nordic countries. On average half of Nordic journals publish online. In most Nordic countries, commercial publishers predominate; however, in Finland the majority are society publishers. The number of open access journals is low, in line with international figures. There is concern to maintain local languages in journal publishing. A majority of the journals publishing in local languages are within social science, humanities, and arts; the STM sector publishes in English. English‐language publications are favoured in research assessments, international recognition, and impact, while the visibility of local‐language scholarly journals in international databases is low. The Nordbib program supports Nordic scholarly journals and fosters co‐operation with publishing companies and learned societies over migration to e‐publishing; it also supports open access. The article discusses future challenges for journal publishing, pointing out the problems of small journal publishers and the need for co‐operation between stakeholders.     

中国近现代读书类报刊整理与研究

文章以上海图书馆馆藏中国近现代读书类报刊为样本,统计其创刊数量、创刊时间、出版地分布,整理了出版机构及其重要报刊,并分析了中国近现代读书类报刊的特点。统计得到中国近现代读书类报刊231种,创刊数量随时间的推移而增加,出版地居前的为上海、四川、江苏、北京、浙江,出版机构有报刊社、书局、图书馆、协会和学校等。研究认为,中国近现代读书类报刊具有创刊时间较早、刊物数量较多、出版机构以报刊社与书局为主、出版地域分布不均及红色报刊微光初现等特点。