Open-Access Mega-Journals: A Bibliometric Profile

Abstract

In this paper we present the first comprehensive bibliometric analysis of eleven open-access mega-journals (OAMJs). OAMJs are a relatively recent phenomenon, and have been characterised as having four key characteristics: large size; broad disciplinary scope; a Gold-OA business model; and a peer-review policy that seeks to determine only the scientific soundness of the research rather than evaluate the novelty or significance of the work. Our investigation focuses on four key modes of analysis: journal outputs (the number of articles published and changes in output over time); OAMJ author characteristics (nationalities and institutional affiliations); subject areas (the disciplinary scope of OAMJs, and variations in sub-disciplinary output); and citation profiles (the citation distributions of each OAMJ, and the impact of citing journals). We found that while the total output of the eleven mega-journals grew by 14.9% between 2014 and 2015, this growth is largely attributable to the increased output of Scientific Reports and Medicine. We also found substantial variation in the geographical distribution of authors. Several journals have a relatively high proportion of Chinese authors, and we suggest this may be linked to these journals’ high Journal Impact Factors (JIFs). The mega-journals were also found to vary in subject scope, with several journals publishing disproportionately high numbers of articles in certain sub-disciplines. Our citation analsysis offers support for Björk & Catani’s suggestion that OAMJs’s citation distributions can be similar to those of traditional journals, while noting considerable variation in citation rates across the eleven titles. We conclude that while the OAMJ term is useful as a means of grouping journals which share a set of key characteristics, there is no such thing as a “typical” mega-journal, and we suggest several areas for additional research that might help us better understand the current and future role of OAMJs in scholarly communication.

International publication trends in dry eye disease research: A bibliometric analysis

“…The Ocular Surface is the journal that by far publishes the highest percentage of articles related to DED (31.87%) and should be considered as the most specialized journal in DED. Among the 20 most productive journals, it is interesting to note that the mega-journal Plos One is the only journal belonging to the "Multidisciplinary Sciences" JCR category, all the other journals logically belonging to the "ophthalmology" JCR category, confirming the important role Plos One plays in the dissemination of information in life sciences, despite accepting submissions from all areas of science [27].…”

Support Science by Publishing in Scientific Society Journals

“…This proliferation has significantly increased competition between journals, resulting in a thinning of the number of papers being submitted to any one journal. Second, the past 10 years has seen an explosion in the number of papers published in mega journals (4, 5). For microbiology papers, these have most notably included PLoS One (launched in 2006), Scientific Reports (2011), Frontiers in Microbiology (2010), BMC Research Notes (2008), and Cell Reports (2012) (Fig.…”

Transitioning from a Conventional to a ‘Mega’ Journal: A Bibliometric Case Study of the Journal Medicine

“…This rise in Chinese-authored papers to some extent matches the broader trend of increased research output from this country, although the extent of 2015 Chinese output in Medicine (42.7%) is much larger than both the equivalent figure across all journals in WoS (14.6%). It is higher too than the contribution of Chinese authors to PLOS ONE, which Yan and Rousseau calculate to be 19% [16], and the rate across all other mega-journals (23.1%) [13] . It must also be noted that analysis of the most common author affiliations reveals that the most prolific contributors from the pre-OAMJ version of Medicine are still publishing in the journal, in most cases at a much higher rate.…”

“…They found little difference between the two groups. Finally a broad study by the authors of this paper presents bibliometric profiles for 11 mega-journals, with analyses focused on journal output, subject scope, author demographics and citation rates [13]. While this study includes some data relating to Medicine, the scope of the paper precludes any detailed analysis of the journal's transition to OAMJ status.…”