Sumiko Asai

Enhancing journal quality is one of the main concerns of academic journal stakeholders. This study identifies the factors affecting citation scores from various perspectives, including the review process, editorial board composition, geographic distribution of authors, and journal type. To achieve this, we analyzed 111 fully open access journals and 439 subscription journals published by Elsevier. The estimation results of citation scores using ordinary least squares show that journals with lower acceptance rates and longer review periods have higher citation scores, suggesting that rigorous peer review is essential for improving journal quality. Editorial boards with more members and greater international diversity also contribute to higher citation scores. However, these measures have already been adopted by many publishers and are not novel, implying that publishers must continue their steady efforts to enhance journal quality. Additionally, fully open access journals have higher citation scores than subscription journals after controlling for other factors. Therefore, converting subscription journals to open access journals could be an effective strategy for increasing citation scores.

Open access articles in hybrid journals have recently increased despite high article processing charges. This study investigated the impacts of grants and transformative agreements on authors’ choice of open and non-open access articles by comparing two article types. The samples were hybrid journals launched independently by Elsevier. The results revealed that the authors who received more grants in countries with transformative agreements were more likely to choose open access articles. By contrast, authors in developing countries were likely to publish non-open access articles. These findings imply that authors’ choices depend on the funding systems and open access policies in individual countries. Consequently, open access may become a barrier to the dissemination of work for researchers who have financial difficulty choosing open access, although it enables everyone to access articles free of charge.

Although Big Deal contracts that provide access rights to all electronic journals published by the publisher initially gained favor with university libraries, some libraries have terminated these contracts owing to increased charges since the 2010s. Consequently, they are faced with the problem of selecting journals for purchase within their limited budgets. This study investigates the factors affecting the number of downloads, representing journal demand, to provide libraries with guidance on journal selection. The download equation for 1485 hybrid journals published by Springer Nature is formulated using ordinary least squares. The results found that 5% and 50% of the 1485 journals generated approximately 30% and 85% of the downloads in 2022, respectively. Downloads are concentrated in fewer journals, although the Pareto principle does not apply to hybrid journals. Demand concentration implies that libraries do not need to maintain access rights to all journals. Recently, a few leading publishers have provided access rights to almost all electronic journals based on transformative agreements aiming to promote open access. Therefore, this study’s findings raise the issue of the rationale for bundling electronic journals in transformative agreements, which is similar to Big Deal. Moreover, the results of the download estimation reveal that hybrid journals with more open access articles, larger citation scores, and longer histories acquire more downloads. These findings indicate that open access accelerates the dissemination of research.

Article processing charges that authors and research institutions pay to make articles open access are increasing. If manuscript submission is price elastic, then rising charges will cause a significant reduction in submissions, leading to decreased revenues under constant acceptance rates. Therefore, the elasticity of manuscript submission to article processing charge is one of the determinants of publishers’ charges. However, several studies that investigated the determinants of article processing charges did not consider this elasticity. This study investigated the determinants of submissions, including the elasticity to article processing charge, by formulating the number of manuscript submissions to fully open access journals published by Hindawi and Elsevier in 2022. Moreover, this study formulated manuscript submissions using both list prices and charges paid to Elsevier that OpenAPC collected to compare the results. The estimation results reveal that the two publishers increase their revenues by raising the article processing charges due to the inelasticity. Moreover, these conclusions do not depend on the data set used, although the number of observations sourced from OpenAPC is small.

Key points: 2021, open access articles in parent journals with higher charges accounted for 72% of the total open access articles in parent and mirror journals. Although the charges for mirror journals were significantly reduced in 2021, the increase in the number of articles was relatively small. These findings suggest that many authors do not significantly respond to changes in article processing charges.

In recent years, major commercial publishers have strengthened their presence in both the subscription journal market and the open access journal market. Examining 447 journals from Elsevier and 550 from Springer Nature, this study investigates three strategies for enlarging the number of gold open access journals: the launch of new journals, mergers with other publishers, and partnerships with research institutes. The results reveal that these publishers adopted different strategies for expanding their journal portfolios. While Springer Nature relied significantly on merging with established publishers, Elsevier recently launched many new journals independently. Approximately 60 per cent of Springer Nature journals and 45 per cent of Elsevier journals are published on behalf of research institutes. Therefore, collaboration with research institutes has contributed to the increasing number of journal titles. As major publishers expand their open access businesses, it is necessary to monitor their activities from a policy perspective of pro-competition.