Peer review in megajournals compared with traditional scholarly journals: Does it make a difference?

Björk, Bo‐Christer; Catani, Paul

doi:10.1002/leap.1007

Cited by 49 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…The survey focused on the characteristics of mega-journal authors and of the papers they had submitted for publication, the reasons for their choice of journal, and their approach to the payment of APCs. Finally, Björk and Catani [7] compared the distributions of citations to articles published in PLOS ONE and Scientific Reports with the corresponding distributions for articles from several conventional journals (where the review process requires consideration of novelty and significance when deciding which articles should be accepted for publication). Little difference was observed in the two sets of distributions, leading the authors to wonder whether “simple, soundness-only” refereeing might be more widely adopted.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Open-Access Mega-Journals: A Bibliometric Profile

et al. 2016

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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.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Open-Access Mega-Journals: A Bibliometric Profile

et al. 2016

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“…A very challenging future research topic is what the effects of the “scientific soundness” only review criterion has on the internal citation patterns of articles in mega-journals vs. traditional journals (Björk & Catani, 2016; Wakeling et al, 2016). …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolution of the scholarly mega-journal, 2006–2017

Björk

2018

PeerJ

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Mega-journals are a new kind of scholarly journal made possible by electronic publishing. They are open access (OA) and funded by charges, which authors pay for the publishing services. What distinguishes mega-journals from other OA journals is, in particular, a peer review focusing only on scientific trustworthiness. The journals can easily publish thousands of articles per year and there is no need to filter articles due to restricted slots in the publishing schedule. This study updates some earlier longitudinal studies of the evolution of mega-journals and their publication volumes. After very rapid growth in 2010–2013, the increase in overall article volumes has slowed down. Mega-journals are also increasingly dependent for sustained growth on Chinese authors, who now contribute 25% of all articles in such journals. There has also been an internal shift in market shares. PLOS ONE, which totally dominated mega-journal publishing in the early years, currently publishes around one-third of all articles. Scientific Reports has grown rapidly since 2014 and is now the biggest journal.

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“…the 100 + comments below Kent Anderson's Scholarly Kitchen blog post on the subject, Anderson, 2010) but addressed empirically in very few studies. Björk and Catani (2016) is a recent exception. They attempted to measure the quality standards of traditional journals and mega-journals as evidenced by citation patterns.…”

Section: Peer Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Open-access mega-journals

Spezi

Wakeling

Pinfield

et al. 2017

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Purpose Open-access mega-journals (OAMJs) represent an increasingly important part of the scholarly communication landscape. OAMJs, such as PLOS ONE, are large scale, broad scope journals that operate an open access business model (normally based on article-processing charges), and which employ a novel form of peer review, focussing on scientific “soundness” and eschewing judgement of novelty or importance. The purpose of this paper is to examine the discourses relating to OAMJs, and their place within scholarly publishing, and considers attitudes towards mega-journals within the academic community. Design/methodology/approach This paper presents a review of the literature of OAMJs structured around four defining characteristics: scale, disciplinary scope, peer review policy, and economic model. The existing scholarly literature was augmented by searches of more informal outputs, such as blogs and e-mail discussion lists, to capture the debate in its entirety. Findings While the academic literature relating specifically to OAMJs is relatively sparse, discussion in other fora is detailed and animated, with debates ranging from the sustainability and ethics of the mega-journal model, to the impact of soundness-only peer review on article quality and discoverability, and the potential for OAMJs to represent a paradigm-shifting development in scholarly publishing. Originality/value This paper represents the first comprehensive review of the mega-journal phenomenon, drawing not only on the published academic literature, but also grey, professional and informal sources. The paper advances a number of ways in which the role of OAMJs in the scholarly communication environment can be conceptualised.

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Peer review in megajournals compared with traditional scholarly journals: Does it make a difference?

Cited by 49 publications

References 7 publications

Open-Access Mega-Journals: A Bibliometric Profile

Open-Access Mega-Journals: A Bibliometric Profile

Evolution of the scholarly mega-journal, 2006–2017

Open-access mega-journals

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