Abstract
The article processing charge (APC) provides economic sustainability for scientific journals that publish in open access (OA). In this work, documents published in OA between 2012 and 2016 by authors with Brazilian affiliation are identified, the profile of these publications is analyzed and the cost of APC is estimated. In order to do so, data from 930 journals and 63,847 documents were collected from the Web of Science Core Collection. It was found that 59% of these documents were published in journals that charge APC. The total expenditures for the 5-year period were estimated at approximately USD 36 million, the weighted average cost per document at USD 957.75 and the average cost per journal at USD 1492.27. The profile of these publications shows that journals indexed by SciELO represent 67% of the 63,847 documents. The use of mega-journals increased over the period, which implies an increase in expenditure in publications, since the average APC per journal was USD 2059.77. It was observed that the OA Brazilian scientific production is characterized by an endogenic profile and has a preference for the Gold road with APC. These results suggest that policies for funding charges are required to stimulate a more international attitude.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Source: Research data
Source: Research data
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alperin, J. P., & Fischman, G. E. (2015). Scientific journals made in Latin America. In J. P. Alperin & G. E. Fischman (Eds.), Made in Latin American: open access, scholarly journals, and regional innovations (pp. 103–112). Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires: CLACSO. http://biblioteca.clacso.edu.ar/clacso/se/20150921045253/MadeInLatinAmerica.pdf. Accessed 18 April 2017.
Archambault, E., et al. (2014). Proportion of open access papers published in peer-reviewed journals at the European and world levels—1996–2013. [S.l]: European Commission. http://science-metrix.com/en/publications/reports/proportion-of-open-access-papers-published-in-peer-reviewed-journals-at-the. Accessed 14 October 2017.
Björk, B.-C., & Solomon, D. (2012). Pricing principles used by scholarly open access publishers. Learned Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1087/20120207.
Björk, B.-C. & Solomon, D. (2014). Development an effective market for open access article processing charge. London: Welcome Trust. https://wellcome.ac.uk/sites/default/files/developing-effective-market-for-open-access-article-processing-charges-mar14.pdf. Accessed 28 Septrmber 2017.
CAPES. (2017a). Notícias. Conselho Consultivo do PAAP se reúne na CAPES para debater temas importantes. http://www.periodicos.capes.gov.br/?option=com_pnews&component=NewsShow&view=pnewsnewsshow&cid=533&mn=0. Accessed 20 August 2017.
CAPES. (2017b). Relatório de gestão do exercício de 2016. Brasília, 2017. http://www.capes.gov.br/images/stories/download/acessoainformacao/Relatorio_de_Gestao_CAPES_2016.pdf. Accessed 20 August 2017.
Clarivate Analytics. (2017). Source publication list for Web of Science. http://ip-science.thomsonreuters.com/mjl/. Accessed 24 June 2017.
CNPq. (2017). Painel de investimentos. Brasília, 2017. http://www.cnpq.br/painel-de-investimentos. Accessed 22 August 2017.
Collazo-Reyes, F. (2014). Growth of the number of indexed journals of Latin America and the Caribbean: The effect on the impact of each country. Scientometrics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-013-1036-2.
Crawford, W. (2017). GOAJ2: Golden open access journals 2011–2016. Livermore: Cites & Insights Books. https://waltcrawford.name/goaj2.pdf. Accessed 03 October 2017.
Dallmeier-Tiessen, S., et al. (2011). The SOAP symposium—III Open access publishing today: What scientists do and why. SOAP symposium, January 13th, 2011, Berlin. http://edoc.mpg.de/524968. Accessed 22 June 2017.
Directory of Open Access Journals. (2017). Directory of open access journals. https://doaj.org/search. Accessed 10 May 2017.
Glanzel, W., Leta, J., & Thijs, B. (2006). Science in Brazil. Part 1: A macro-level comparative study. Scientometrics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-006-0055-7.
Jahn, N., & Tullney, M. (2016). A study of institutional spending on open access publication fees in Germany. PeerJ. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.2323.
Laakso, M., et al. (2011). The development of open access journal publishing from 1993 to 2009. PLoS ONE. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0020961.
Leta, J. (2012). Brazilian growth in the mainstream science: The role of human resources and national journals. Journal of Scientometric Research. https://doi.org/10.5530/jscires.2012.1.9.
Leta, J., Costa, E. H. S., & Mena-Chalco, J. P. (2017). Artigos em periódicos de acesso aberto: um estudo com pesquisadores bolsistas de produtividade do CNPq. RECIIS-Revista Eletrônica de Comunicação, Informação e Inovação em Saúde, 11(supl), 6.
Leta, J., Thijs, B., & Glanzel, W. (2013). A macro-level study of science in Brazil: Seven years later. Encontros Bibli. https://doi.org/10.5007/1518-2924.2013v18n36p51.
Madham, M., et al. (2017). Should Indian researchers pay to get their work published? Current Science India, 112(4), 703–713.
Morrison, H., et al. (2015). Open access article processing charges: DOAJ survey 2014. Publications. https://doi.org/10.3390/publications3010001.
Mueller, S. P. M. (2011). Produção e financiamento de periódicos científicos de acesso aberto: um estudo na base SciELO. In: D. A. Plobación et al. (Org.), Revistas Científicas: dos processos tradicionais às perspectivas alternativas de comunicação (pp. 201–230). Cotia: Ateliê Editorial.
Packer, A. L., & Meneghini, R. (2014). O SciELO aos 15 anos: raison d’être, avanços e desafios para o futuro. In A. L. Packer et al. (Org.), SciELO – 15 anos de Acesso Aberto: um estudo analítico sobre acesso aberto e comunicação científica (pp. 15-28). Paris: UNESCO. https://doi.org/10.7476/9789237012376.
Packer, A. L., Santos, S., & Meneghini, R. (2017). SciELO Preprints a caminho. SciELO em Perspectiva. http://blog.scielo.org/blog/2017/02/22/scielo-preprints-a-caminho/. Accessed 30 October 2017.
Pavan, C., & Barbosa, M. C. B. (2017). Financiamento público no Brasil para a publicação de artigos em acesso aberto: alguns apontamentos. Em Questão. https://doi.org/10.19132/1808-5245232.120-145.
Research Councils UK. (2016). RCUK open access block grant analysis 2013/14, 2014/2015 and 2015/2016. http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/documents/oadocs/rcukapcreturnsanalysis2014-16-pdf/. Accessed 10 August 2017.
Solomon, D. J. (2014). A survey of authors publishing in four megajournals. PeerJ. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.365.
Solomon, D. J., & Björk, B.-C. (2012a). Publication fees in open access publishing: sources of funding and factors influencing choice of journal. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.21660.
Solomon, D. J., & Björk, B.-C. (2012b). A study of open access journals using article processing charges. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.22673.
Solomon, D. J., & Björk, B.-C. (2016). Article processing charges for open access publication—The situation for research intensive universities in the USA and Canada. PeerJ. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.2264.
Solomon, D. J., Laakso, M., & Björk, B.-C. (2013). A longitudinal comparison of citation rates and growth among open access journals. Journal of Informetrics. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2013.03.008.
Spezi, V., et al. (2017). Open-access mega-journals: The future of scholarly communication or academic dumping ground? A review. Journal of Documentation. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-06-2016-0082.
Strehl, L., et al. (2016). Brazilian science between national and foreign journals: Methodology for analyzing the production and impact in emerging scientific communities. PLoS ONE. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0155148.
Suber, P. (2012). Open access. Cambridge: MIT.
Walters, H., & Linvill, A. (2011). Characteristics of open access journals in six subject areas. College & Research Libraries. https://doi.org/10.5860/crl-132.
Welcome Trust Blog. (2015). The reckoning: An analysis of Welcome Trust open access spend 2013–14. https://blog.wellcome.ac.uk/2015/03/03/the-reckoning-an-analysis-of-wellcome-trust-open-access-spend-2013-14/. Accessed 6 June 2018.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Pavan, C., Barbosa, M.C. Article processing charge (APC) for publishing open access articles: the Brazilian scenario. Scientometrics 117, 805–823 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-018-2896-2
Received:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-018-2896-2