In this presentation prepared for the 2016 STM conference in Frankfurt, Stephen Pinfield presents the latest developments of the Open-Access Mega-Journals project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK)

1. Open-Access Mega-Journals:
Research in Progress
Stephen Pinfield
University of Sheffield, UK
Claire Creaser, Jenny Fry, Valérie Spezi (Loughborough University)
Simon Wakeling, Peter Willett (University of Sheffield)

2. The Mega-Journals Controversy
Positive views:
• Joseph Esposito (2010) argued, “I
think PLoS One points to the
future of academic publishing”
• Richard Wellen (2013) identifies
OA mega-journals as having
(some of) the characteristics of
“disruptive innovation” with the
potential to contribute to major
change
• Jean Claude Guédon (2015) in
commenting on the future of
scholarly communication, stated,
“Subsidized mega-journals would
be the best system…”
Negative views:
• John Hawley (quoted in Butler,
2008) voiced the fear that PLOS
ONE would be a “dumping
ground” for “sub-standard”
content – a criticism levelled at
all mega-journals
• Declan Butler (2008) labelled
PLOS ONE a “cash cow” sustained
through “bulk publishing”
• Kent Anderson (2010) criticised
them for dispensing with the
valuable filtering of conventional
journals
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3. Open-Access Mega-Journals Project
http://oamj.org/
• 2-year collaboration between
Sheffield and Loughborough
universities (Nov 2015-Oct 2017)
• Funded by UK AHRC (Arts and
Humanities Research Council)
• Investigating: “The principal
characteristics of the
emergent open-access
‘mega-journal’ phenomenon and
its significance for the academic
research community and
beyond”
• Using quantitative and
qualitative methods
3

4. Defining ‘Mega-Journals’
• Fully-open access
– Often with an APC-based business model
• Large scale
– e.g. PLOS ONE (launched in 2006) – the largest journal in the world for a
number of years, 31,404 articles in 2013 (in Scopus)
– but many mega-journals are newer and are not large scale (yet)
• Wide scope
– e.g. PLOS ONE and Scientific Reports cover all science, technology and
medicine (STM) disciplines, SAGE Open covers all humanities and social
sciences (HSS)
– AIP Advances covers all of Physics
• Particular approach to quality control
– Pre-publication peer review based on scientific ‘soundness’ rather than
‘subjective’ assessments of ‘novelty’, ‘importance’, or ‘interest’
– Post-publication metrics – the scientific community ‘decides’ novelty and
importance by use, citation, etc 4

5. Mega-Journal Growth
Total number of articles published in 11 mega-journals
(PLOS ONE, Scientific Reports, BMC Research Notes, BMJ
Open, AIP Advances, Medicine, SpringerPlus, PeerJ, SAGE
Open, F1000 Research and FEBS Open Bio) – those
indexed in Scopus since at least 2013 – includes
projected figures for 2016 (doubling outputs to June)
• PLOS ONE launched in
2006
• Other titles launched
mostly from 2011
• Output dominated by
PLOS ONE but PLOS ONE
showing a decline 2013-15
• Nature’s Scientific Reports
increasing over the
period; overtook PLOS
ONE monthly outputs for
the first time in Sept 2016
(SR: 1,940; PO: 1,756)
• Other titles growing (if at
all) more slowly
5

6. Among mega-journals publishing
2013, Scientific Reports has the
lowest proportion of infrequently
cited articles
Question: Why do all these
journals which operate
soundness-only peer review
policies have such different
citation distributions (and JIFs)?
• Subject variations?
• De facto differences in peer
review practices?
• The result of cascade from other
journals within a single publisher
portfolio?
• Publisher and journal reputation?
What Does This Tell Us About Mega-Journals?
6
Cumulative citation distributions for 7 OAMJs
(articles published in 2013)

7. Subject Variations
7
• Well known differences in citation rates between disciplines
• Variations in intended scope
– Everything: Heliyon, SpringerPlus
– Across disciplines
– STM: PLOS ONE, Scientific Reports
– HSS: SAGE Open, Open Library of the Humanities
– Single discipline: BMJ Open, AIP Advances
• Variations in actual published content
– Bibliometric analysis suggests Scientific Reports has much
higher proportion of Physics and Astronomy articles than PLOS
ONE; PLOS ONE disproportionately high numbers of papers on
Biomedicine
– PeerJ appears to have large number of Ecology and
Bioinformatics articles

8. Differences in Peer Review Practices
8
• Stated peer review policies are very similar
• Interviews with publishers and editors reveal potential
differences in interpretation
– There may inconsistency amongst reviewers in their
understanding of “scientific soundness”
– Publishers have different approaches to monitoring
editorial decisions and ensuring consistency
– Novelty still a criteria for some OAMJs (e.g. AIP
Advances)
– Different perspectives on “trivial” research: introduces
subjectivity to objective peer review?

9. Cascade Policies
9
• Most OAMJs utilise some form of cascade from other
journals in the publisher portfolio
• Retaining articles (and their APCs) from articles rejected by
other journals clearly a motivating factor in the founding of
some OAMJs
• Interviews reveal variations in proportion of OAMJ articles
that originate as submissions to other journals in the
portfolio (from 10% to 40%)
• Need to better understand how authors view cascade
offers, and what motivates their decisions

10. Publisher and Journal Reputation
10
• Some OAMJs clearly benefit from publisher reputation
(Scientific Reports) or name recognition (PLOS ONE)
• Reputation also linked to Journal Impact Factor, which
varies greatly among OAMJs (2014 figures)
– Scientific Reports 5.578
– PLOS ONE 2.885
– BMJ Open 2.271
– PeerJ 1.978
• Interesting potentially cyclical relationship between
submission rates and impact factor (high JIF = more
submissions = lower JIF)

11. Highly-selective
title(s)
Tiered Model and Economic Sustainability
11
‘Soundness-only’
selective
mega-journal
Financial
subsidy
Reputational
subsidy
Requires strong
brand association
between the high-
prestige title(s) and
mega-journal e.g.
sharing name
Requires willingness
to allow a cross-
subsidy, rather than
operating high-
prestige title as
subscription journal

12. Publications
• Pinfield, S. (2016). Mega-journals: The future, a stepping stone to it or a
leap into the abyss? Times Higher Education Online, 13 October.
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/mega-journals-future-stepping-
stone-it-or-leap-abyss
• Spezi, V., Wakeling, S., Pinfield, S., Creaser, C., Fry, J. & Willett, P.
(forthcoming) ‘Open-access mega-journals: The future of scholarly
communication or academic dumping ground? A review’, Journal of
Documentation (In press). doi: 10.1108/JD-06-2016-0082.
• Wakeling, S., Willett, P., Creaser, C., Fry, J., Pinfield, S., & Spezi, V.
(forthcoming). Open-access mega-journals: A bibliometric profile.
12

13. Acknowledgements: Open-Access
Mega-Journals Project
University of Sheffield
• Stephen Pinfield (PI)
• Simon Wakeling (RA)
• Peter Willett (Co-I)
Loughborough University
• Claire Creaser (Co-I)
• Jenny Fry (Co-I)
• Valérie Spezi (RA)
http://oamj.org/
@OAMJ_Project