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Communication

The Rise of Platinum Open Access Journals with Both Impact Factors and Zero Article Processing Charges

by
Joshua M. Pearce
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Ivey School of Business, Western University, 1151 Richmond St. N., London, ON N6A 5B9, Canada
Knowledge 2022, 2(2), 209-224; https://doi.org/10.3390/knowledge2020013
Submission received: 23 January 2022 / Revised: 1 April 2022 / Accepted: 13 April 2022 / Published: 19 April 2022
Versions Notes

Abstract

It appears that open access (OA) academic publishing is better for science because it provides frictionless access to make significant advancements in knowledge. OA also benefits individual researchers by providing the widest possible audience and concomitant increased citation rates. OA publishing rates are growing fast as increasing numbers of funders demand it and is currently dominated by gold OA (authors pay article processing charges (APCs)). Academics with limited financial resources perceive they must choose between publishing behind pay walls or using research funds for OA publishing. Worse, many new OA journals with low APCs did not have impact factors, which reduces OA selection for tenure track professors. Such unpleasant choices may be dissolving. This article provides analysis with a free and open source python script to collate all journals with impact factors with the now more than 12,000 OA journals that are truly platinum OA (neither the author nor the readers pay for the peer-reviewed work). The results found platinum OA is growing faster than both academic publishing and OA publishing. There are now over 350 platinum OA journals with impact factors over a wide variety of academic disciplines, giving most academics options for OA with no APCs.

1. Introduction

Academic publishing has been historically dominated by a handful of major publishers (Elsevier, Black & Wiley, Taylor & Francis, Springer Nature and SAGE), using subscription-based business models. Academic authors would provide content (e.g., articles, reviews, comments), peer-review, and often editing for free and then would pay to read typeset articles on an individual basis or part of a subscription often purchased by their institutional libraries. This model has two primary drawbacks. First, scientific progress is slowed by restricting access to copyrighted scientific literature behind paywalls [1,2]. This has divided scientists into those that can pay for access to the literature and those that cannot (often these are academics in the developing world) [3]. Second, the de facto monopolies set up by the handful of publishers of scientific peer-reviewed literature [4], driven by what some [5,6] termed excessive needs for profits [7,8] (e.g., Elsevier earned over 37%) [9], raised prices to the point that even the wealthy well-endowed Harvard University was challenged to pay for all of it [10].
One approach to solve this problem is the open access (OA) movement, which hopes to enable all academic literature to be freely accessible to everyone [11]. First, a handful of tiny OA publishers were derided and grouped together as ‘predatory publishers’ by representatives of the subscription-based academic publishing industry. While predatory publishers continue to try to exploit academics by charging authors publication fees with only a precursory (or no) check for quality [12], there is an unmistakable rise of legitimate OA publishing as it now makes up nearly a third of the peer-reviewed literature [13]. The trend is clear that in the not-so-distant future [4] the peer-reviewed literature could be universally accessible to everyone [14,15] as many academics are calling for it [16]. The benefits of open access at any scale are well established in the literature and come in two main categories. First, OA publishing is a benefit to all of science as it provides a means of reviewing and accessing to relevant literature [17,18] for making significant advancements in knowledge [19,20]. Thus, OA increases both efficiency and effectiveness of science as a whole [21]. Second, from an individual academic’s point of view OA provides the pragmatic advantage of enabling the widest possible audience of their work by making it freely and easily on the Internet [4]. Most academics have eschewed greater financial wealth they could obtain in industry instead competing for prestige. The prestige is often governed by citations of their work and although contested before there is now no question that OA drives increased citation rates [22,23,24,25,26]. The data has become overwhelming that OA brings academics greater readership and citations, and the ethical case of OA all publicly funded research has become impossible to ignore. Poynder summarizes the academic publishing as whole: “…it is no longer rational, or even necessary, for subscription paywalls to be built between researchers and research.” [27].
Funders have begun to demand OA [28] for these reasons, particularly public funders of science [2,29]. It is hard to argue that if the public funds research, they should have to pay a second time to read it. Simultaneously, over 850 universities and research organizations, have also mandated that researchers share their work open access [28]. This in itself has caused challenges for academics, which believe they are being forced to pay exorbitant author processing fees (APCs) [30] to either OA publishers or hybrid OA publishers (conventional journals that normally publish on the subscription model but charge an APC to make the same article OA). High APC values can be particularly damaging for some disciplines that are less well funded such as the humanities and social sciences (as compared to physical and medical sciences or engineering). Although academics have the green OA model (where they self-archive by uploading preprints or accepted versions of their papers into institutional repositories [31]) this can be complex to navigate because publishers have different rules and it is time consuming. Substantial APCs, reinforce the wealth-gap in academia—where academics are literally paying to publish. Wealthier universities can for example, pay for discounts or fund APCs for OA for their faculty members [32]. Diamond or platinum OA journals, where no APC is paid for OA are few, new and unknown to most academics [33]. The advantages and disadvantages of the various journal types are summarized in Table 1.
Conventional publishers still have control of this situation, largely because it is perceived that they have monopoly on high impact factor journals [30,33]. Impact factor is a metric of an academic journal that is the yearly mean number of citations of articles published in the last two years in a given journal, as indexed by Clarivate’s Web of Science. There are several reasons that the value of using impact factors has been contested including: (i) using journal impact factors conceals the difference in article citation rates, (ii) they are determined by technicalities unrelated to the scientific quality, (iii) they are research field dependent, and (iv) they can be manipulated [34]. Despite these issues [34], impact factors are used a prestige metric for academics [35]. Academics are widely concerned [36] that because publication in high-impact factor journals is important for demonstrating expertise for grants, tenure, and promotion and many open access journals (because they are in general newer carry lower impact factor scores) that requiring open access would be onerous [30,33].
A few years ago, academics simply had no choice: they could either publish in a journal with an impact factor or publish OA. Now they can publish in an impact factor journal in the hybrid model or in a growing list of gold OA journals with impact factors, but they have to pay APCs, while diverting funds from research activities (e.g., researcher salaries, supplies, etc.). This may, however, be changing. The Directory of Open Access Journals lists over 17,300 journals that offer a means of OA and over 12,250 have no APCs [37]. Do any of these journals have impact factors? The aim of this study is to answer that question. This short note summarizes the results of using an open source python script to collate all journals with impact factors with journals that are truly platinum OA—e.g., neither the author nor the readers pay for the peer-reviewed work. The results are discussed in the context of OA academic publishing and steps needed to minimize the cost to science from the academic publishing process.

2. Materials and Methods

First, the impact factor (IF) list of 2020 provided by the Journal Citation Report (JCR), which contains over 12,000 journals was acquired [38]. The IF is calculated as:
I F   2020 = C i t a t i o n s   i n   2019 + C i t a t i o n s   i n   2018 P a p e r s   P u b l i s h e d   i n   2019 + P a p e r s   P u b l i s h e d   i n   2018
Similarly, the IF data for 2021 was acquired from [39]. Next, the Directory of Open Access Journal (DOAJ) data was acquired for OA journals [40]. A free and open source python script was deployed that uses Pandas [41] to take two csv files (one for IF and one for OA) and match them based off of a set of categories. It first takes in a set of data that includes journal IF categories in [38]. It then takes in a set of data from the DOAJ [40] that includes information about each journal including if it has APCs and fits a criterion for open access. The script then takes this file and filters out only the records that have no APC and are OA. Finally, it retrieves all records from the IF list that are also in the new reduced DOAJ list and writes them out to a file. The results of this file are evaluated manually to remove repeats and errors.
The python script under GNU General Public License v3.0 [42], input csv files, and the most recent update of the output.txt with new data are provided open access and at: https://osf.io/mh4bx/ (accessed on 22 January 2022).

3. Results

The results of running the script for 2020 impact factors is shown in Table A1 in the Appendix A. As can be seen in Table A1, in 2020 there was 139 peer-reviewed OA journals with impact factors above 1.69 in a wide range of fields ranging from the 24th highest impact factor of all journals in Living Reviews of Relativity to the highly timely journals such as Emerging Infectious Diseases. The results of running the script for 2021 impact factors is shown in Table A2 in the Appendix A. As can be seen by Table A2, there are now 358 platinum OA journals with impact factors.
Based on the results of Table A1, roughly 1% of impact factor journals are platinum OA in 2020. This value should be treated as conservative as the input data for 2020 only included journals IF > 1.69. As can be seen by Table A2, there are now 358 platinum OA journals with impact factors (2.9% of the total journals tracked for IF). Of these, 188 with impact factors above 1.69. This represents an increase of 90% for platinum OA journals with IF > 1.69 in a single year. The number of double-digit impact factor platinum OA journals increased from 5 to 7 between 2020 and 2021, which is a 40% increase. Similarly, the number of platinum OA journals with IF > 2 increased from 111 to 164, which is a 47% increase. It is clear that academics are increasingly choosing to publish in platinum OA journals. It can be presumed that these journals are being preferentially selected to conserve research funds to do research, but future work is needed to verify this.

4. Discussion

The results of this analysis must be treated with care. First, the outputs of the script can have errors due to the input. So, for example, the journal Area, was listed as OA in the 2020 and 2021 data sets, but on inspection of the current author page it is now a gold OA journal. This is likely due to the common practice of gold OA journals operating with zero APC in the beginning to become established. This normally continues until they gain an IF at which time either APC waivers are eliminated or markedly reduced or APCs are instituted. This could be the case for other journals in this analysis being mischaracterized as platinum OA as well. Authors aiming to publish in platinum OA journals should check the validity of the data in the DOAJ carefully themselves when selecting journals. Despite this caveat, there appears to be a clear trend of an increasing IF for platinum OA and their overall numbers and these trends are more rapid than the increase in publications overall (~4%/year [43]) and of the transition to OA (35% searchable by DOAJ [44]) as a whole.
Currently with platinum OA journals with impact factors making up only about 3% of platinum OA journals, they do not currently represent a major threat to conventional subscription or pure gold OA publishers. If growth rates of >40–90% continue in the IF of existing platinum OA and of the number of platinum OA, this may change rapidly. The conflict between subscription + green OA, hybrid OA and gold OA (APCs) is not yet resolved [45]. Platinum OA journals do not necessarily have the same negative incentives that for-profit journals have to drive up sales. It should be noted that many of the platinum OA journals in Table A1 and Table A2 are published by for-profit academic publishers that are subsidized by either non-profit entities or governments. Thus, the profit incentive still exists as do concerns about the consequences of it.
In some ways, the profit seeking of academic publishers, previously visible only to university librarians negotiating subscription contracts, has become more visible to all academics. Furthermore, the often-shocking APC charges (e.g., Nature Communications charges US$5,790 per article) [46]), recent profit-maximizing practices include: (1) conventional publishers rejecting articles at subscription journals while offering convenient ‘transfer services’ to ‘companion’ journals that charge APCs, (2) OA publishers that offer APC discounts, similarly rejecting papers to cancel waivers, while encouraging resubmission and (3) accepting lower quality papers using any OA business model to drive up APC profit. Such practices will likely continue to disappoint academics and accelerate their selection of platinum OA now that the results of this analysis show there are platinum OA with IFs. This again will likely put economic pressure on the current business models of scientific publishers. Such pressure is similar to the illegal ‘black OA’ offered by Sci-Hub [47]. Widespread platinum OA would provide a legal means to provide the same level of access to the peer-reviewed literature, but far more must be carried out to make scholars aware of it [48].
For this to occur there remains some technical hurdles. Although writing, reviewing and content editing are generally provided by academics as part of their service to the scientific community, academic publishers still provide publishing services such as electronic architecture for the journals, archiving, copy editing and type setting. The first two of these services has been developed as free and open source software by the Public Knowledge Project in the Open Journal Systems (OJS) [49] and the ubiquitous low-cost internet archiving available that enable open access repositories [50]. Over 25,000 journals already use OJS worldwide [49]. Some journals, both subscription and OA, use templates to assist in type setting such as MDPI or the IEEE, which provided both Word and LaTeX templates. How these templates are used differs by journal and publisher. For example, MDPI, a gold OA publisher, normally copy edits templated articles and fixes author mistakes, while at least for some IEEE publications (which are normally subscription based although some gold OA) only add a copyright notice to templated articles before publication. For the costs of publishing to be reduced for all OA models an easy-to-use method for authors is needed to make typeset articles. Templates can be effective, but can also be ‘broken’ by authors, and markup of various kinds is harder to use than WYSIWYG editors such as Libre Office or Word. LaTeX, for example, normally demands a steep learning curve, but Overleaf, which is an open-source online real-time collaborative LaTeX editor [51], may offer a solution although more work is still needed to make it seamless for authors. There is an opportunity to do this with artificial intelligence (AI). Although many academics are good writers, copy editing remains an important service provided by academic publishers [52]. Efforts to provide copy editing using AI is already underway (e.g., Wordvice AI [53], Katalyst Tech. [54], or AuthorONE from Enago [55]) and may represent the last technical hurdle in a completely open source and zero cost method (ignoring the current free services provided by the academic community itself for writing, editing and reviewing manuscripts) of providing universal platinum OA to new articles. Finally, to automate the collection of legal preprints open source programs are needed to provide that same level of access to all pat work [56].

5. Conclusions

The results of this analysis show currently platinum OA journals with impact factors represent roughly 3% of all platinum OA journals. For many academics, this fact alone may be surprising as historically there were no OA journals with impact factors and more recently all of the OA that did have impact factors came only with large APCs. This resolves one of the major equity issues in academia (i.e., wealthy academics could afford APCs to enable their work to be read by others and still publish in journals with impact factors for tenure, while less well-endowed researchers were not able to share their work as readily or had to give up the prestige of publishing in IF journals). Now, faculty no longer need to choose between two sub-optimal situations, they can share their work with everyone and still publish in journals with IFs.
The results also show that platinum OA journals with impact factors are growing both in number and impact factor values faster than both academic publishing as a whole and the extremely fast growth in OA publishing. Specifically, in a single year the platinum OA journals with IF > 1.69 increased 90%, the number of platinum OA journals with IF>2 increased 47%, and the number of double-digit impact factor platinum OA journals increased by 40%. This means that over time most of the literature can be expected to be OA as has been hypothesized by several researchers previously, but also that much of the OA literature will continue to shift to platinum OA. Based on the limited data set here it appears that in the foreseeable future these trends will continue. The growth in OA is being fueled by what is in the best interest of both authors and readers and the growth in platinum OA is being fueled by the limited resources of the authors. Both of these trends benefit knowledge sharing because platinum OA journals provide literature to the entire public for free without directly reducing researcher funds (and thus hampering research in other areas). This would be expected to increase the rate of discovery and thus help accelerate scientific progress in general. In addition, this growth in IF platinum OA journals can be viewed as positive for knowledge quality because although the value of impact factors are contested, they still provide some litmus test that the quality of the literature is being preserved if other academics find it useful enough to cite.
With there being a relatively broad selection of platinum OA journals to select from and the last remaining major barrier to their use (having an impact factor and thus being useful for the tenure and promotion process) being removed many more academics will be able to move to OA, particularly those from non-wealthy labs. It can thus be concluded, that conventional subscription, hybrid and new OA-pure academic publishers will need to adapt their business models to compete with this disruptive innovation of platinum OA with IF, while still maintaining sustainability. Substantial future work is available in this area for academic publishers to adapt and flourish just as other sectors have needed to adapt when open source methodologies became common (e.g., with free and open source software now making up a major portion of the software industry).

Funding

This research was supported by the Thompson Endowment.

Data Availability Statement

All data is available on the Open Science Framework https://osf.io/mh4bx/ (accessed on 22 January 2022).

Acknowledgments

The author want to thank S. Breuer for helpful discussions and technical support.

Conflicts of Interest

The author declares no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.

Appendix A

Table A1 shows the platinum open access journals with impact factors >1.69 in 2020 and can be found at https://osf.io/mh4bx/ (accessed on 22 January 2022) and Table A2 provides platinum open access journals with impact factors in 2021.
Table A1. Platinum open access journals with impact factors > 1.69 in 2020.
Table A1. Platinum open access journals with impact factors > 1.69 in 2020.
Journal NameImpact Factor
Living Reviews In Relativity35.429
Living Reviews In Solar Physics20.000
Journal Of Statistical Software13.642
Nano-Micro Letters12.264
Protein & Cell10.164
Chemical Science9.346
Earth System Science Data9.197
Studies In Mycology9.027
Environmental Health Perspectives8.382
Journal Of Stroke7.470
Acta Pharmaceutica Sinica B7.097
Eurosurveillance6.454
Green Energy & Environment6.395
Emerging Infectious Diseases6.259
European Respiratory Review6.220
Journal Of Innovation & Knowledge6.027
Journal Of High Energy Physics5.875
Journal Of Materiomics5.797
Journal Of Biomedical Science5.762
Rheumatology5.606
Virus Evolution5.549
Journal Of Ginseng Research5.487
Journal Of Physiotherapy5.440
Digital Communications And Networks5.382
Journal Of Computer-Mediated Communication5.366
Friction5.290
Journal Of Sport And Health Science5.200
Scipost Physics5.051
European Journal Of Psychology Applied To Legal Context4.905
Regenerative Biomaterials4.882
Allergology International4.806
Journal Of Food And Drug Analysis4.727
Geochemical Perspectives Letters4.452
Physics Letters B4.384
Geoscience Frontiers4.202
Hellenic Journal Of Cardiology4.047
Psychosocial Intervention4.026
Journal Of Orthopaedic Translation3.986
Asian Journal Of Pharmaceutical Sciences3.968
International Journal Of Mining Science And Technology3.903
International Journal Of Health Policy And Management3.821
International Soil And Water Conservation Research3.770
Biomedical Journal3.697
Journal Of Competitiveness3.649
Perspectives In Ecology And Conservation3.563
Cultural Anthropology3.554
Bioimpacts3.475
Crop Journal3.395
Comunicar3.375
Health Technology Assessment3.370
Journal Of Gynecologic Oncology3.304
Endocrinology And Metabolism3.257
Rice Science3.162
Csee Journal Of Power And Energy Systems3.115
Journal Of Modern Power Systems And Clean Energy3.090
Burns & Trauma3.088
Express Polymer Letters3.083
International Journal Of Educational Technology In Higher Education3.080
Ultrasonography3.075
Acta Orthopaedica2.965
Financial Innovation2.964
Matter And Radiation At Extremes2.931
Nano Convergence2.919
Journal Of Advanced Ceramics2.889
Petroleum Exploration And Development2.845
Oeno One2.831
Journal Of Rock Mechanics And Geotechnical Engineering2.829
Nuclear Physics B2.817
Nucleus2.792
Pulmonology2.778
Journal Of Orthopaedics And Traumatology2.767
Efsa Journal2.740
Perioperative Medicine2.740
Forest Ecosystems2.696
Journal Of Pharmaceutical Analysis2.673
Zoological Research2.638
Defence Technology2.637
Beilstein Journal Of Organic Chemistry2.622
Area2.617
Beilstein Journal Of Nanotechnology2.612
International Journal Of Interactive Multimedia And Artificial Intelligence2.561
Computational Linguistics2.510
Croatian Journal Of Forest Engineering2.500
Southern African Journal Of Hiv Medicine2.500
Moravian Geographical Reports2.479
Food Science And Human Wellness2.455
Electronics2.412
Johnson Matthey Technology Review2.349
International Review Of Social Psychology2.326
Kona Powder And Particle Journal2.326
Military Medical Research2.325
International Review Of Research In Open And Distributed Learning2.297
Bulletin Of Mathematical Sciences2.241
Eye And Vision2.241
Molecular Vision2.202
Oceanologia2.198
Journal Of The European Mathematical Society2.190
Integrative Medicine Research2.172
Judgment And Decision Making2.163
Borsa Istanbul Review2.130
Rivista Italiana Di Paleontologia E Stratigrafia2.125
Food Technology And Biotechnology2.115
Biochemia Medica2.114
International Journal Of Implant Dentistry2.111
Petroleum Science2.096
Mycosphere2.092
Educational Technology & Society2.086
Photonic Sensors2.073
International Journal Of Disaster Risk Science2.048
Journal Of The Medical Library Association2.042
Journal Of Hydrology And Hydromechanics2.011
Revista Portuguesa De Pneumologia1.973
Australasian Journal Of Educational Technology1.956
Upsala Journal Of Medical Sciences1.955
Safety And Health At Work1.945
Asian Pacific Journal Of Tropical Medicine1.940
Asian Pacific Journal Of Tropical Biomedicine1.903
Jornal Brasileiro De Pneumologia1.870
South African Journal Of Science1.866
Plant Diversity1.864
Journal Of Taibah University For Science1.863
Nuclear Engineering And Technology1.846
Electronic Journal Of Qualitative Theory Of Differential Equations1.827
Chinese Journal Of Mechanical Engineering1.824
Progress In Orthodontics1.822
Swiss Medical Weekly1.822
Public Policy And Administration1.811
Revista Brasileira De Reumatologia1.810
Journal Of Applied Oral Science1.797
International Neurourology Journal1.794
Pediatrics And Neonatology1.773
Investigative And Clinical Urology1.750
Neotropical Ichthyology1.741
International Journal Of Speleology1.730
Journal Of Hydroinformatics1.728
Journal Of Legal Analysis1.727
Journal Of Causal Inference1.720
Mediterranean Marine Science1.709
Archives Of Control Sciences1.697
Table A2. Platinum open access journals with impact factors in 2021.
Table A2. Platinum open access journals with impact factors in 2021.
Journal Title2021 Impact Factor
Living Reviews In Relativity40.429
Living Reviews In Solar Physics17.417
Nano-Micro Letters16.419
Studies In Mycology16.097
Protein & Cell14.870
Acta Pharmaceutica Sinica B11.413
Earth System Science Data11.333
Chemical Science9.825
Journal Of Innovation & Knowledge9.269
Environmental Health Perspectives9.031
European Respiratory Review8.839
Nano Convergence8.526
Journal Of Biomedical Science8.410
Green Energy & Environment8.207
Virus Evolution7.989
Rheumatology7.580
Journal Of Sport And Health Science7.179
Journal Of Physiotherapy7.000
Journal Of Stroke6.967
Emerging Infectious Diseases6.883
Geoscience Frontiers6.853
Digital Communications And Networks6.797
Journal Of Advanced Ceramics6.707
Asian Journal Of Pharmaceutical Sciences6.598
Journal Of Statistical Software6.440
Journal Of Materiomics6.425
Regenerative Biomaterials6.353
Eurosurveillance6.307
Friction6.167
Scipost Physics6.093
Journal Of Food And Drug Analysis6.079
Journal Of Ginseng Research6.060
International Soil And Water Conservation Research6.027
Comunicar6.013
Allergology International5.836
Journal Of High Energy Physics5.810
Geochemical Perspectives Letters5.567
Journal Of Computer-Mediated Communication5.410
Journal Of Orthopaedic Translation5.191
Egyptian Journal Of Remote Sensing And Space Sciences5.188
Food Science And Human Wellness5.154
Burns & Trauma5.099
Japanese Dental Science Review5.093
Psychosocial Intervention5.083
International Journal Of Health Policy And Management5.007
Sustainable Environment Research4.980
Biomedical Journal4.910
Physics Letters B4.771
Journal Of Pharmaceutical Analysis4.769
Journal Of Competitiveness4.725
Perspectives In Ecology And Conservation4.677
Bioresources And Bioprocessing4.578
Zoological Research4.560
Crop Journal4.407
Journal Of Gynecologic Oncology4.401
Ict Express4.317
Geo-Spatial Information Science4.288
Mycosphere4.211
Nucleus4.197
Express Polymer Letters4.161
Petroleum Science4.090
International Journal Of Mining Science And Technology4.084
Health Technology Assessment4.014
Endocrinology And Metabolism4.010
Financial Innovation3.985
Csee Journal Of Power And Energy Systems3.938
Food Technology And Biotechnology3.918
Applied Water Science3.874
Bioimpacts3.831
Petroleum Exploration And Development3.803
Propulsion And Power Research3.738
International Journal Of Disaster Risk Science3.727
Acta Orthopaedica3.717
Ultrasonography3.675
Kidney Research And Clinical Practice3.667
Beilstein Journal Of Nanotechnology3.649
Forest Ecosystems3.645
Pulmonology3.575
Perioperative Medicine3.535
Educational Technology & Society3.522
Neurospine3.492
Cultural Anthropology3.439
Journal Of Ocean Engineering And Science3.408
Public Policy And Administration3.386
Borsa Istanbul Review3.348
Efsa Journal3.336
Rice Science3.333
Military Medical Research3.329
Epidemiology And Health3.282
Journal Of Modern Power Systems And Clean Energy3.265
Eye And Vision3.257
Defence Technology3.172
Research & Politics3.141
Australasian Journal Of Educational Technology3.067
Studies In Second Language Learning And Teaching3.036
Horticultural Plant Journal3.032
Brazilian Journal Of Psychiatry3.000
Journal Of Causal Inference3.000
Perspectives On Medical Education2.947
Johnson Matthey Technology Review2.920
Journal Of Orthopaedics And Traumatology2.907
Kona Powder And Particle Journal2.897
Beilstein Journal Of Organic Chemistry2.883
Ecological Processes2.849
Matter And Radiation At Extremes2.845
International Neurourology Journal2.835
Asia-Pacific Journal Of Ophthalmology2.827
Underground Space2.824
Survey Research Methods2.806
Journal Of Analytical Science And Technology2.769
Nuclear Physics B2.759
Journal Of Legal Analysis2.750
Progress In Orthodontics2.750
Safety And Health At Work2.707
Journal Of Applied Oral Science2.698
Journal Of Electromagnetic Engineering And Science2.696
Journal Of Taibah University For Science2.688
Journal Of Movement Disorders2.683
Jornal Brasileiro De Pneumologia2.624
Judgment And Decision Making2.543
Plant Diversity2.528
Journal Of Hydrology And Hydromechanics2.512
International Review Of Social Psychology2.500
Voluntas2.468
Photonic Sensors2.433
Oceanologia2.427
Economica2.397
Electronics2.397
Mathematics In Engineering2.385
International Journal Of Implant Dentistry2.384
Upsala Journal Of Medical Sciences2.384
Journal Of Hydroinformatics2.376
Indian Journal Of Medical Research2.375
Integrative Medicine Research2.368
Molecular Vision2.367
Arthropod Systematics & Phylogeny2.354
Nuclear Engineering And Technology2.341
Andean Geology2.327
Mediterranean Marine Science2.319
Biochemia Medica2.313
Oeno One2.305
Prostate International2.286
Area2.280
Computational Linguistics2.271
Moravian Geographical Reports2.250
Advances In Rheumatology2.235
Hong Kong Medical Journal2.227
Annals Of Thoracic Medicine2.219
Bulletin Of Mathematical Sciences2.219
South African Journal Of Science2.197
Swiss Medical Weekly2.193
Investigative And Clinical Urology2.186
Journal Of Curriculum Studies2.183
Latin American Economic Review2.161
Baltic Journal Of Economics2.150
Neotropical Ichthyology2.091
Croatian Journal Of Forest Engineering2.088
Pediatrics And Neonatology2.083
Angle Orthodontist2.079
Demographic Research2.046
Folia Neuropathologica2.038
Balkan Medical Journal2.021
Asia & The Pacific Policy Studies2.014
Arquivos Brasileiros De Cardiologia2.000
Egyptian Journal Of Biological Pest Control1.995
Amfiteatru Economic1.983
Chinese Journal Of Mechanical Engineering1.936
Medical Principles And Practice1.927
Dermatology Practical & Conceptual1.926
Water Science And Technology1.915
Journal Of Water And Climate Change1.900
Anais Brasileiros De Dermatologia1.896
Geologica Carpathica1.875
Indian Journal Of Ophthalmology1.848
Brazilian Journal Of Otorhinolaryngology1.811
Processing And Application Of Ceramics1.804
International Journal Of Communication1.802
Quantitative Economics1.782
Avian Research1.774
Indian Journal Of Psychiatry1.759
Rural And Remote Health1.759
Rural And Remote Health1.759
Vertebrate Zoology1.757
Journal Of Water And Health1.744
Acta Chimica Slovenica1.735
Brodogradnja1.708
Taiwanese Journal Of Obstetrics & Gynecology1.705
Subterranean Biology1.690
Journal Of Vector Borne Diseases1.688
Knowledge And Management Of Aquatic Ecosystems1.677
Journal Of Contemporary Brachytherapy1.656
Grasas Y Aceites1.650
Politics And Religion1.650
California Agriculture1.641
Physical Review Accelerators And Beams1.639
Geofizika1.636
Materiales De Construccion1.619
Nordic Studies On Alcohol And Drugs1.600
Anatolian Journal Of Cardiology1.596
Endokrynologia Polska1.582
Revista Da Sociedade Brasileira De Medicina Tropical1.581
Scientia Marina1.576
International Journal Of Speleology1.566
Journal Of Pacific Rim Psychology1.557
Nano1.556
Asian Pacific Journal Of Tropical Biomedicine1.545
Web Ecology1.545
Annals Of Saudi Medicine1.526
Annals Of Forest Research1.516
Urology Journal1.510
Chimia1.509
Norwegian Journal Of Geology1.508
Palaeontologia Electronica1.500
Indian Journal Of Dermatology1.494
Journal Of Postgraduate Medicine1.476
Mathematical Modelling And Analysis1.474
Kinesiology1.452
Revista Latino-Americana De Enfermagem1.442
Interfaces1.434
Water Policy1.434
Geologica Acta1.432
Mires And Peat1.425
Arquivos De Neuro-Psiquiatria1.420
Wildfowl1.417
Acta Montanistica Slovaca1.413
Science Of Sintering1.412
Journal Of Applied Fluid Mechanics1.405
Journal Of Nematology1.402
Annals Of Indian Academy Of Neurology1.383
Agricultural And Food Science1.375
Revista Portuguesa De Cardiologia1.374
European Journal Of Taxonomy1.372
Trabajos De Prehistoria1.366
Annals Of Geophysics1.362
Croatian Medical Journal1.351
Etri Journal1.347
Journal Of Spectral Theory1.323
Brazilian Journal Of Pharmaceutical Sciences1.321
Theoretical Economics1.313
Brazilian Journal Of Cardiovascular Surgery1.312
Polish Polar Research1.308
Crop Breeding And Applied Biotechnology1.282
Electronic Journal Of Differential Equations1.282
Water Supply1.275
Brazilian Journal Of Geology1.259
Forest Systems1.255
Journal Of The Serbian Chemical Society1.240
Petrology1.235
World Rabbit Science1.233
Asian Pacific Journal Of Tropical Medicine1.226
Fluoride1.224
Videosurgery And Other Miniinvasive Techniques1.195
Computer Science And Information Systems1.167
Information Technology And Libraries1.160
Metrology And Measurement Systems1.155
Arkivoc1.140
Psihologija1.140
Journal Of Universal Computer Science1.139
Algebraic Geometry1.132
Condensed Matter Physics1.128
Acta Amazonica1.126
Dyna1.113
Mljekarstvo1.111
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Veterinaria Italiana1.101
Archives Of Control Sciences1.088
Mathematical Communications1.075
Polish Journal Of Pathology1.072
Journal Of Research Of The National Institute Of Standards And Technology1.034
Materials Science-Poland1.022
Journal Of International Advanced Otology1.017
Animal Biodiversity And Conservation1.000
Fishery Bulletin1.000
Journal Of Cytology1.000
Sociobiology0.983
New Medit0.969
Revista Brasileira De Anestesiologia0.964
Politikon0.962
Revista De Metalurgia0.959
Archives Of Biological Sciences0.956
Revista De Estudios Sociales0.953
Acta Botanica Croatica0.943
Drvna Industrija0.940
Social Analysis0.933
Bangladesh Journal Of Pharmacology0.930
Journal Of Theoretical And Applied Mechanics0.927
Taiwania0.925
Journal Of Official Statistics0.920
Hong Kong Journal Of Occupational Therapy0.917
Archives Of Clinical Psychiatry0.909
Africa Spectrum0.900
Croatica Chemica Acta0.887
Malawi Medical Journal0.875
Panoeconomicus0.852
Studia Psychologica0.850
Acta Herpetologica0.848
Mediterranean Botany0.842
Indian Journal Of Experimental Biology0.818
Documenta Mathematica0.815
International Journal Of Psychological Research0.800
Journal Of Rehabilitation0.796
Journal Of Apicultural Science0.788
Acta Clinica Croatica0.780
Earth Sciences Research Journal0.779
Latin American Research Review0.779
Geologica Belgica0.773
Archives Of Metallurgy And Materials0.767
Indian Journal Of Traditional Knowledge0.757
Transylvanian Review Of Administrative Sciences0.742
Revista Mvz Cordoba0.738
Annali Di Botanica0.722
Lingua0.719
Geologia Croatica0.717
Revista Mexicana De Biodiversidad0.716
Discussiones Mathematicae Graph Theory0.714
International Journal Of Odonatology0.707
Electronic Journal Of Combinatorics0.695
Bangladesh Journal Of Plant Taxonomy0.679
Education As Change0.667
International Journal Of Conflict And Violence0.643
Journal Of Southern Hemisphere Earth Systems Science0.629
Ethics & Global Politics0.613
Tropical Grasslands-Forrajes Tropicales0.611
Nauplius0.610
Salud Colectiva0.597
Caldasia0.562
Geodetski Vestnik0.551
Tempo Social0.547
Sociologia0.537
Movimento0.523
History Of Geo- And Space Sciences0.500
Historia Agraria0.488
Hong Kong Journal Of Emergency Medicine0.486
Magallania0.469
Botanica Serbica0.468
Culture & History Digital Journal0.463
Logical Methods In Computer Science0.438
Applied Economic Analysis0.417
Engenharia Sanitaria E Ambiental0.417
Acta Bioethica0.408
Journal Of Nepal Medical Association0.406
Sintagma0.400
Tidsskrift For Samfunnsforskning0.394
Agrociencia0.391
Perfiles Latinoamericanos0.383
Informes De La Construccion0.375
Neurological Sciences And Neurophysiology0.358
Austrian Journal Of Political Science0.346
Adansonia0.345
Serbian Astronomical Journal0.333
Revija Za Socijalnu Politiku0.265
Internasjonal Politikk0.264
Ljetopis Socijalnog Rada0.243
Australasian Orthodontic Journal0.226
Srpski Arhiv Za Celokupno Lekarstvo0.207
Acta Histriae0.161
B-Ent0.082

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Table 1. Advantages and disadvantages of journal types.
Table 1. Advantages and disadvantages of journal types.
Journal TypeAdvantagesDisadvantages
Conventional SubscriptionNo cost to researchers directlyPaywall access slows knowledge dissemination, creates second-class academics with low access to literature
Green OANo cost to researchers and Free reading of pre-printsExtra effort needed by researchers, no central repository, more difficult to track, improvements lost from review
Gold OAFree reading of typeset articlesCosts money that diverts funds from research/knowledge creation
Platinum OAFree reading of typeset articlesPerceived lack of options for impact factor
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Pearce, J.M. The Rise of Platinum Open Access Journals with Both Impact Factors and Zero Article Processing Charges. Knowledge 2022, 2, 209-224. https://doi.org/10.3390/knowledge2020013

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Pearce JM. The Rise of Platinum Open Access Journals with Both Impact Factors and Zero Article Processing Charges. Knowledge. 2022; 2(2):209-224. https://doi.org/10.3390/knowledge2020013

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Pearce, Joshua M. 2022. "The Rise of Platinum Open Access Journals with Both Impact Factors and Zero Article Processing Charges" Knowledge 2, no. 2: 209-224. https://doi.org/10.3390/knowledge2020013

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Pearce, J. M. (2022). The Rise of Platinum Open Access Journals with Both Impact Factors and Zero Article Processing Charges. Knowledge, 2(2), 209-224. https://doi.org/10.3390/knowledge2020013

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