Open-Access Mega-Journals and the Future of Scholarly Communication

Stephen PinfieldUniversity of Sheffield

Acknowledgements to Claire Creaser, Jenny Fry, Valérie Spezi, Simon Wakeling, Peter Willett

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 commentsreporting 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

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)

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)

6

Journals Meeting all Primary Criteria 2014 articles (Scopus)

PLOS ONE 31864Scientific Reports 3286BMJ Open 1143BMC Research Notes 915SpringerPlus 738AIP Advances 542PeerJ 474Medicine 360SAGE Open 323F1000 277FEBS open bio 120Biology Open n/aCMAJ Open n/aCollabra n/aCureus n/aHeliyon n/aJournal of Engineering n/aQScience Connect n/aRoyal Society Open Science n/aSAGE Open Medicine n/a

Journals Meeting all but Review Criterion 2014 articles (Scopus)

Scientific World Journal 3617Nature Communications 2402Cell Reports 713eLife 518G3: Genes | Genomes | Genetics 389Physical Review X 269IEEE Access 107Chemistry Central Journal 70Open Biology 68Elementa n/aModern Languages Open n/aOpen Library of the Humanities n/aOpen Linguistics n/aPalgrave communications n/aScience Advances n/a

Titles and Article Numbers

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

2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 20150

5000

10000

15000

20000

25000

30000

35000

40000 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

volu

me

of a

rticl

es

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- (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

9

Highly-selective title(s)

Potential Tiered System

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?

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

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)

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

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?

15

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 20150

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1600

BMC Public Health

BMC Genomics

BMC Cancer

BMC Bioinformat -ics

BMC Research Notes

Year

Artic

les

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

16

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 500%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Cumulative Frequency of Citations for articles pub-lished 2011-2013

Nature Scientific Reports (3,601) Nature Communications (2,826)Nature (3,180)

Citations

Cum

ulati

ve %

of a

ll ar

ticle

s

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 Factor

17

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 500%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Cumulative Frequency of Citations for Articles Pub-lished 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)

Citations

Cum

ulati

ve %

of a

rticle

sComparing 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”?

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

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

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.981Esposito, 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.htmlNorman, 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