Abstract
The scientific potential of European countries measured by their participation in publication of all peer-review journals as well as open access journals (OAJs) is significant. In this paper we focus on European fully open access journals (OAJs) as a potentially optimal channel of communication in science. We explore fully OAJs (n=1201) indexed by Scopus with several bibliometric indicators: quartile rankings, SJR (SCImago Journal Ranking) and h-index. As countries in our focus have entered EU at different times and have diverse backgrounds, we divide them into three groups: A (members before 1995), B (became members in 2004–2013 period) and C (EU candidate countries). Analysis across country groups is complemented with analysis across major subject fields. Quartile rankings indicate that journals in Q1 dominate in group A, followed by journals in Q2. In the remaining two country groups, journals belonging to Q3 have more than 50% of the share. Analysis by different scientific fields stresses that life and health sciences have the highest shares of OAJs in Q1. In physical sciences the highest share of OAJs is in Q3 while combined shares of Q2 and Q3 are above 50%. Only 10% of all European OAJs in social sciences is in Q1. Furthermore, we find the least difference between journals in group A and groups B and C in social sciences, both in respect to coverage and quality indicators. In all scientific fields median SJR indicators is, in the case of groups B and C, higher for OAJs than non-OAJs as opposed to group A.
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The formal beginning of the OA movement is associated with the Budapest Open Access Initiative (2002) that was followed by two additional declarations: the Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing (2003), and the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities (2003).
The gold route refers to direct payments by authors (who may be subsidised by research grants, university, etc.) to publishers to cover the costs of publication and distribution. The green route, supported by most publishers, permits authors to make available the final, accepted, but unbranded or copyedited version of the article through an institutional repository (Geismar and Küchler 2014).
For details, see national OAJ portals for: Croatia http://hrcak.srce.hr/?lang=en; Hungary http://www.open-access.hu/magyar_oa_folyoiratok; Poland http://pon.edu.pl/index.php/czasopisma-w-owartym-dostepiees; Slovakia http://www.cvtisr.sk/en/support-of-science/open-access/list-of-scientific-slovak-origin-open-access-journals.html?page_id=5175; Slovenia http://www.dlib.si/results/?query=%27keywords%3dSlovanske+revije%27&pageSize=25; Spain http://www.accesoabierto.net/dulcinea/?idioma=en (accessed October 11, 2016).
Authors’ access to Scopus database was allowed by Croatian Ministry of Science and Education.
Group A includes Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Luxemburg is not included as it does not have a fully OA journal indexed in Scopus.
Group B comprises of Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. Note that Cyprus and Malta would belong to this group but Cyprus does not have a single fully OA journal indexed in Scopus while Malta has only one and therefore these two countries are not included in the analysis.
Group C includes 3 former Yugoslav countries and candidates for EU membership: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, and Macedonia. Montenegro is not included as it does not have a fully OA journal indexed in Scopus.
Data referes to 2015 (except for group C where it refers to 2014 for R&D expenditures) and originates from Eurostat.
In alternative versions adjustment was done by population size and GDP generating similar results.
In order to spare space, we are presenting results for all European OAJs and not for each country group separately.
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Acknowledgements
This work has been supported in part from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant agreement No 645884 and by the Croatian Science Foundation under the project IP-09-2014-9351. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of REA (European Commission) or Croatian Science Foundation.
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Jokić, M., Mervar, A. & Mateljan, S. Scientific potential of European fully open access journals. Scientometrics 114, 1373–1394 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-017-2629-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-017-2629-y