Spanish scientific journals in Web of Science and Scopus Adoption of Open Access, relationship between price and impact, and internationality

Resumen

This doctoral thesis focuses on active Spanish scholarly journals which follow internationally‐recognized quality standards, in order to analyze their main features, study the adoption of Open Access, observe the relationship between their price and bibliometric impact, and examine its internationality characteristics. Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus have been selected as the sources for identifying the journals. After depurating mistakes, a final list of 445 journals has resulted. A set of indicators has been defined and all data has been collected from the journals’ primary source (website or hard copy). Correlations and association tests have been carried out to explore relationships among variables. The population of Spanish journals indexed in WoS and Scopus grew steadily over the last years – there were 300 titles by 2012, 406 by 2013 and 445 by 2015. A 69.7% of these were launched after 1980 and their average age is 30 years. This selection of 445 journals stands for a 25% of journals published in Spain, but the subject areas are not equally distributed – Science, Technology and Medicine fields (STM) are overrepresented, while Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) appear less frequently. Indeed, 84% of all journals concentrate in only three of the seven subject areas considered for this study – 35% on Social S., 32% on Health S. and 18% on Arts & Humanities. Universities and research centers (mostly the Spanish National Research Council, CSIC) publish 43% of the journals. To run their publishing services, most of them use OJS platforms (34% of the total population). They publish mostly on Arts & Humanities (in Spanish language) and Social Sciences. Online‐only format and free access are their favorite output. Commercial publishers are the second in importance, accounting for the 32% of the journals. They focus on Health Sciences and run most of the few free‐access journals with APCs. They also account for most of the few hybrid journals, which are usually published in English. Elsevier is the largest commercial publisher, publishing about 17% of all the journals in this study. Scientific societies, professional associations and other not‐for‐profit private institutions publish 21% of the journals. They own or participate in another 24% of the journals, which are published by companies like Elsevier. Indeed, their scientific participation is crucial, reaching almost half of the population studied (45%). Government agencies publish only a 4% of all the journals. As to languages, almost half of the journals (47%) are published only in Spanish. Nonetheless, 26% are published both in Spanish and English, and 18% only in English. Remaining languages are residual. Free access is the most common type of publication (64.5%), followed by restricted (16.6%), embargo (14.4%) and hybrid (4.5%). Free‐access is associated with academic publishers and Social Sciences, while restricted‐access and hybrid journals are more common among companies and usually refer to STM fields. Open Access, as measured by free access with self‐archiving permissions, results in 56.9% of the total of journals. This indicates a sustained increase according to previous studies. Article Processing Charges (APCs) are beginning to be introduced in Spain, but only in 7% of these journals. Both free‐access and hybrid journals charging APCs are associated with commercial publishers, English language and high bibliometric impact rates. Annual subscription prices are much higher for STM, commercial companies and English language content, but the difference is lower when using price per article, because expensive journals usually provide more scientific content. APC prices are on average ten times higher in hybrid titles than in free‐access ones. Impact Factor (IF, which is only available for 27% of the studied journals), Scimago Journal Rank (SJR) and Source‐Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) have in general higher impact values for STM fields, journals with APCs and journals published in English. While the highest IFs usually appear in journals issued by commercial publishers, highest SNIPs are related to journals published by associations and societies. Subscription prices, both at volume and article level, have no relationship with any impact indicator. On the contrary, APC prices correlate moderately with impact indicators, but only with SJR and SNIP, not with IF. English language, foreign‐authored articles, international collaborations and foreign members at scientific teams have been identified and measured as elements that indicate internationality. Except for international collaborations, with very few appearances (especially in Arts & Humanities), all elements have global averages of around 33%, although they vary depending on subject areas and access types. The English language is most common in STM fields, journals published by companies and journals charging APCs. Foreign authors are more present in Health Sciences and Mathematics & Physics, and journals with APCs. The proportion of foreign experts is similar to that of foreign authors’, but with smoother differences among categories – also, they are lower in Health Sciences and higher in Engineering. Academic publishers usually include more members from foreign institutions than the rest. Internationality elements present a similar pattern, especially as far as the participation of foreign authors and foreign experts is concerned. Limitations of the study, future research lines and final considerations are provided.