Ophthalmology journal article processing charges for publications in a post-COVID world

Abstract

Purpose

The period 2002–2021 saw an annual growth rate of 51.46% in listings of open access (OA) journals in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), with a steeper rate of growth corresponding with the onset of COVID-19. The introduction of OA and hybrid models, which give authors traditional subscription and OA options, may have led to increased article processing charges (APCs). This study aimed to analyze the APCs for ophthalmology journal articles after the COVID pandemic and analyze changes in publication modality and cost.

Methods

APC, frequency of publication, and impact factor (IF) were analyzed for 83 MEDLINE-indexed ophthalmology journals. Data were stratified based on publication modality (OA, hybrid, or traditional), and geodistribution, intermodality, and correlation between APC and IF were compared.

Results

Average APC for OA, hybrid, and traditional journals was $1,310.49, $3,550.71, and $7.18, respectively (P < 0.001). Univariate analysis demonstrated a statistically significant impact of hybrid mode (P < 0.001), traditional mode (P = 0.046), and IF >1 (P < 0.001). Multivariate analysis demonstrated a statistically significant effect of the modality of publication on journal APC. Intermodality analysis showed significantly higher APC for hybrid journals than OA or traditional journals, without statistically significant differences in frequency of publication or IF.

Conclusions

Ophthalmology journals are experiencing a subject-wide transition from traditional publication to hybrid modality. Since the COVID pandemic, APCs across all publication modes have increased, and there has been a transition from the traditional publishing model to a more lucrative hybrid model.

Introduction

Open access (OA) publishing allows researchers to access journal content online without fees or subscriptions, because publishing costs and associated fees are covered by other parties, commonly the authors.1,2 This contrasts the traditional process of subscription-based journals, where readers or institutions are responsible for paying to access content and the authors are subject to limited fees.1 OA journals allow free dissemination of information, changing the landscape of information accessibility in many fields, including medicine. Many organizations are supporting the expansion of OA in publications, including the Research Councils UK, the National Institute for Health Research, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and National Institutes of Health.1–3 A principal advantage of OA is increased accessibility to specialized information for researchers, including those in low-income countries.3 There has been controversy surrounding the expansion of such policies, because the costs of publishing can be burdensome for authors.3 Article publishing costs (APCs) can limit the opportunities available to individuals without the means to pay higher fees and drive them to predatory journals that prioritize quantity over quality, with decreased emphasis on the peer-review process.1 These predatory journals are characterized by a broad scope of topics for publication and the promise of quick publication, but with little information regarding manuscript handling and copyright. The final publication can be poor, with spelling errors, low-quality images, and other indications of little attention to the proprieties of traditional academic publishing.4 However, it is been suggested that articles published in OA medical journals and those published with subscription-only access do not differ significantly in their impact, suggesting the increasing quality of OA publications.5

There are different forms of OA publishing. Delayed OA requires months for publications to become freely available. Hybrid, or open-select, models allow for authors to choose whether their article is available for a fee or via subscription. Ophthalmology journals can disseminate information through an OA format, allowing articles to reach a wider audience. Along the timeline of the introduction of OA and hybrid models, which gives authors traditional subscription and OA options, there has been a simultaneous increase in article processing charges (APCs). This study aimed to analyze the APCs for journal articles published as OA. Previous research has aimed to characterize the cost of publishing in indexed ophthalmology journals in the Web of Science. Nyamai et al found that 16.9% of 2019 journals mandated APCs, whereas 71.2% of hybrid journals mandated APCs when selecting for immediate freely available publication (OA).6

Publishing costs in other surgical subspecialties follow similar trends. In otolaryngology–head and neck surgery journals, the mean APC was $2,452; the median [nonzero], $2,900.7 In cardiology and cardiac surgery, journals with nonzero APCs had a mean and median of $2,911 ± 891 and $3,000, respectively.8 These journals also noted a trend in how APCs disadvantage researchers from low- to middle-income countries from publishing research. In oncology journals, the median APC was $2,957.9 APCs for general medical researchers in 2019 was about $191, whereas researchers who published one or more articles in a top-ten impact factor (IF) general clinical medicine journals paid $2,900.10 Of the 3,627 OA medical journals indexed in DOAJ in 2022, 1,875 (51.7%) did not charge any APCs for authors.11 From 2002 to 2021, there has been an annual growth rate of 51.46% for listings of open access journals in the Directory of Open Access Journals, with a steeper rate of growth corresponding with the onset of COVID-19.12 From 2009 to 2021, there has been a fivefold increase in the number of hybrid journals.13 COVID-19 greatly contributed to the expansion of digitized scientific research and higher education, both exposing inequities in access to knowledge and also popularizing OA. During early stages of the crisis, governmental intervention and widespread collaborations initiated the use of OA for greater efficiency and scope for research dissemination.14 OA research can reach a wider audience, and incentivizes authors with increased citations.15 In terms of ophthalmology research, the trend is expected to continue, with an increase in accessibility to ophthalmology research via OA. There is little research analyzing the state of OA and APCs in this post-COVID-19 era. This study aimed to analyze the APCs for journal articles published as OA following the COVID pandemic, during which online publication experienced rapid expansion.

Materials and Methods

Journal Collection

Journals indexed in MEDLINE with the Broad Subject Term identified as “ophthalmology” were analyzed. MEDLINE is a database that contains bibliographic citations and author abstracts from over 5,600 medical and life science journals published in the United States and 70 additional countries. The database contains over 21 million citations. PubMed’s National Library of Medicine (NLM) catalog was queried using the search “Ophthalmology [Broad Subject Term]” to collect title, international standard serial number (ISSN), publisher, country, and frequency of publication information for each journal. Publications from the NLM catalog which were not listed as “[Serial]” or were later determined to be textbooks were excluded from the study (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Selection and stratification of data from NLM database. An initial query of the database resulted in 187 journals with the Broad Subject Term ophthalmology. Selecting for journals indexed in MEDLINE resulted in 28 open-access (OA), 52 hybrid, and 3 traditional journals.

A total of 187 results were obtained from the NLM catalog query. Of these, 98 journals were indexed through MEDLINE. Of the indexed journals, 83 were scientific publications, and the remaining indexed items were excluded. If a journal’s publication metrics were not readily available online, up to two inquiries were sent to the editorial office for this data. If a journal did not reply to the inquiry, they would be omitted from analysis. Figure 1 outlines the collection of data with inclusion and exclusion criteria.

Journal Characteristic Acquisition

Journal title, ISSN, publisher, publication mode, APC, country of publication, continent of publication, frequency, and impact factor were collected for each journal. Title, ISSN, publisher, frequency, and country of publication were obtained from the initial query to the NLM database. Continent of publication was determined using the pycountry package in Python.16 For this study, the Russian Federation was considered Europe. Publication mode was categorized as OA, hybrid, and traditional. OA classification was placed on journals which do not have a subscription-based service for access or publication for users. Traditional classification was given to journals which require a user subscription to the journal to submit a manuscript. Hybrid classification was given to journals which have both subscription and OA publishing options based on author’s choice.

Journal APC information was obtained from the journal homepage. Where journals advertised more than one APC, the lowest OA APC was used for analysis. All APCs were denoted in USD, and if not, were converted to USD using the updated conversion rate. Two publishers offered APC finder services on their websites, which were used to determine the APC for journals from these publishers. When given the option, “original research article” and “USA” as country of origin were selected to calculate APC. Frequency data was collected as a count of the number of issues per year. For journals that publish on a continuous basis, the frequency was counted as 365, even in cases where journals publish on a continuous basis and publish special issues on a set frequency per year. IF data was collected based on the journal’s 2-year IF, which was collected from each journal’s homepage. Journals that were not assigned an IF were given an impact factor of 0. This included four journals (1 OA, 2 hybrid, 1 traditional) that were not assigned an IF by Clarivate because they were not listed in the Science Citation Index Expanded.

Statistical Analysis

All statistical analysis was performed using the Python programming language. Data was stratified based on publication mode (OA, hybrid, or traditional). APC was expressed as mean and standard deviation, median and interquartile range, and overall range. The number of journals without an APC was counted. Frequency data was expressed as mean and standard deviation for journals that do not publish on a continuous basis. The number of journals that publish on a continuous basis was expressed separately. Journal IF was expressed as mean with standard deviation, median with interquartile range, and overall range. Statistical comparison between OA, hybrid, and traditional modalities was performed using the Kruskal-Wallis test. Comparison between OA and Hybrid publication modes was performed with Mann-Whitney U test. Univariate analysis was performed to identify variables with significant impact on APC, and multivariate analysis was performed using significant variables from univariate analysis to analyze the association between variables. A P value of <0.05 was considered significant.

Results

Journal Collection and Selection

Journal geodistribution was determined based on the country of publication listed in the NLM catalog. The majority of journals were published from Europe (43.4%) and North America (42.2%). Asia accounted for 10.8% of total publications; South America, for 2.4%; and Oceania, for 1.2%. No indexed journals were published from the African continent. A world map displaying geodistribution was generated using the geopandas package in Python (Figure 2).

Figure 2.

World map coverage of ophthalmology journals based on continent of publication. The two continents with the highest number of MEDLINE-indexed ophthalmology journals are North America and Europe. The African continent has the fewest number of MEDLINE-indexed ophthalmology journals.

Association of Covariate Factors to Journal APC

Predictive factors influencing journal APC are summarized in Table 1. IF was stratified based on journals with an IF of <1 and journals with an IF >1. In univariate analysis, hybrid publication, traditional publication, and IF >1 were significantly correlated with APC. In multivariate analysis, hybrid publication, traditional publication, and IF >1 were significantly correlated with APC.

Table 1.

Predictive factors influencing journal article processing charge

APC Comparison between Publication Modes

Of the 83 journals identified, 28 (34%) were OA, 52 (63%) were hybrid, and 3 (4%) were traditional. APC, frequency, and IF data are provided in Table 2. A significant difference in APC between the three publication modes was observed (P < 0.001), but no significant difference was noted for frequency of publication (P = 0.757), number of journals with continuous publication (P = 0.368), or IF (P = 0.307). Eleven OA journals (37%), 2 traditional journals (68%), and no hybrid journals had no submission fee. Only one journal, Rinsho ganka [Japanese Journal of Clinical Ophthalmology], had an APC of 21.53 USD.

Table 2.

article processing charge and frequency of publication for journals indexed in MEDLINE, stratified by publication mode

Comparing OA and hybrid modalities, there was a significant difference in APC (P < 0.001). However, there was no significant difference in frequency (P = 0.495), number of journals with continuous publication (P = 1.000), or IF (P = 0.120). A kernel density plot for the APC distribution of the OA and hybrid publishing groups is given in Figure 3.

Figure 3.

Kernel density plot showing the article publishing cost (APC) distribution for open-access and hybrid publishing modalities. Hybrid journals are more likely than OA journals to have a higher APC. OA journals have a bimodal distribution with either no fee or a low fee relative to most hybrid journals.

Correlation between IF and APC

For each journal analyzed, journal IF was plotted with its APC (Figure 4). Progress in Retinal and Eye Research was excluded from analysis because of its outlier impact factor of 17.8. Of the 83 journals, 13 (16%) had an APC of 0 USD and 4 (5%) had an IF of 0. Journal APCs ranged from 0 to 5,290.00 USD. Journal IFs ranged from 0 to 8.3. Pearson’s r statistic was 0.475 (P < 0.001). The coefficient of determination (r²) was 0.226.

Figure 4.

Impact factor (IF) based on article processing charge for all journals (n = 83). The graph depicts a moderate correlation (r = 0.475) between APC and IF, with a modest amount of variance in APC explained by IF.

Stratification of OA and hybrid journals showed that OA journals had a Pearson’s r statistic of 0.760 (P < 0.001) and a coefficient of determination (r²) of 0.577, whereas hybrid journals had a Pearson’s r statistic of 0.569 (P < 0.001) and a coefficient of determination (r²) of 0.323 (Figure 5).

Figure 5.

A, Impact factor (IF) based on article processing charge for open-access journals (n = 28). B, IF based on article processing charge for hybrid journals (n = 52). In hybrid journals, the correlation between article processing charge (APC) and IF was weaker than in OA journals. For OA journals, a significant level of variance in APC can be explained by IF.

Discussion

This study identified 83 MEDLINE-indexed ophthalmology journals and collected data on publication mode (OA, hybrid, or traditional), APC, country of publication, continent, frequency of publication, and IF. Previous research on the cost of publication in ophthalmology journals included additional information, including additional charge for figures, the option of waivers, affiliation, and publisher type.6 Additionally, established research on the cost of publication in general academia included information on the number of articles published in a year.17 These studies collect journal data using well-established databases such as Clarivate Web of Science or the DOAJ. Use of these databases limits the number of journals that can be analyzed, especially because lesser-known journals are not included. This study analyzed all MEDLINE-indexed ophthalmology journals with information that could be obtained through the journal’s homepage or by contacting the journal office by email. This approach for data collection allows this study to include a larger and more diverse collection of journals from around the world. This broader scope is evinced by the inclusion of several journals that have not been assigned an IF, namely, the Romanian Journal of Ophthalmology, Retinal Cases & Brief Reports, Archivos de la Sociedad Española de Oftalmología, and the Japanese Journal of Clinical Ophthalmology. The more inclusive data collection methodology of this study allowed for analysis of journals from a broader range of countries. Nyamai et al6 obtained data from the Clarivate Web of Science database, which primarily included journals from the United States and the United Kingdom, and only about 3.4% of journals analyzed were from Asia. This study is comprised of 10.8% Asian journals. When analyzing scientific journals, it is important to consider a global perspective because many countries outside the United States and United Kingdom make meaningful contributions to the ophthalmic literature.

This study identified publication mode and IF to be significant factors influencing the cost of publishing in ophthalmology journals. The variance inflation factor indicated low levels of multicollinearity for hybrid publication (1.159), traditional publication (1.082), and IF >1. This allowed for individual interpretation of regression coefficients and isolation of variables to analyze their relationship to journal APC. Nyamai et al6 similarly found that IF and publication mode, along with publisher type (commercial versus academic) were significant factors influencing journal APC. A cross-sectional study of oncology journals found that in addition to IF and publishing model, the number of citable documents and North American origin were significant factors that influenced the journal APC.18

This study stratified the collected journals based on publication mode. Of the 83 total journals, 28 (34%) were OA, 53 (63%) were hybrid, and 3 (4%) were traditional. A meta-analysis of journals from 2009–2016 found that it has been increasingly common for journals to transition from traditional publication to hybrid.13 This shift has been attributed to the rise of online publishing changing the landscape of article and journal access.19 The global movement toward OA and hybrid publication has brought with it the concept of open peer review. Yet there has been no significant improvement in the quality of comments or time from review to publication within the peer review process.20 Open peer review does increase the likelihood that a reviewer declines to review,20 which ultimately increases the time to initiate the review process. However, proper implementation of an open-review process has been expected to improve the international recognition and status of journals that may currently be considered predatory.

This study demonstrates that there is a significant difference in APC between OA, hybrid, and traditional journals. On average, hybrid journals charge a significantly higher base charge (3,550.72 USD ± 874.04 USD) for publication than both OA (1,310.49 USD ± 1370.74 USD) and traditional (7.18 USD ± 12.43 USD) journals. Additionally, there is a significant increase in the APC to publish OA in a hybrid journal than in a completely OA journal. A systematic review of urology journals published in the Master Journal List directory, Scopus, and PubMed found that authors must pay 1,175 USD more to publish an OA article in a hybrid journal than in a gold OA journal.21 This increased cost of publication in hybrid journals is often in addition to a subscription that institutions will pay for article access leading to two revenue streams for journals, a process referred to as “double-dipping.”22 Journals claim that despite the high prices of publication, the cost is remaining relatively stagnant relative to the number of articles submitted and the volume of subscription articles published.23 However, despite this, the cost of publication has been rising every year since the COVID pandemic, even with a surge in the number of journal articles.24,25

Despite the higher cost for publication in a hybrid journal, there was not a significant difference in IF (P = 0.120) or frequency (P = 0.495) of publication between OA and hybrid ophthalmology journals. This was also true when comparing all three publication modes for both impact factor (P = 0.307) and frequency (P = 0.757). Proponents of OA publication have accredited a major benefit of the publishing modality to higher impact and citation count for articles. However, especially for OA publication, the IF of the journal is not indicative of the impact of the article or its number of citations.26 This is true for a variety of reasons, including the relative novelty of OA publication or the journal’s indexing status.27

This study found a moderate correlation (r = 0.475) between APC and IF with a modest amount of variance in APC explained by IF. In OA journals specifically, there was a strong correlation (r = 0.760) between APC and IF, with a significant portion of variability in APC explained by IF. In hybrid journals, the correlation was weaker than in OA journals (r = 0.569), with a moderate level of variance in APC explained by IF. An OpenAPC analysis of journal metrics and APCs similarly found that APCs paid to OA journals were strongly increasing in conjunction to journal citation impact, and this relationship was weaker for hybrid journals.28

Limitations

Our study had several limitations, including the lack of information about waiver policy or additional charges for submission and publication. This information was available for many journals in this dataset, but because of the larger scope of international journals, these variables could not be collected and analyzed for all journals. This study did not sample individual articles published in each journal to determine an average number of citations. Research has shown that publishing in OA journals leads to a greater number of citations despite a potentially lower journal IF.17,26,29,30 Our study excluded any journals which did not respond to two email inquiries about journal details or did not have that information available on their homepage. This study did not consider the 5-year IF of journals, because that information is unavailable for many journals. This study did not evaluate the time from submission to publication. Turnaround times in ophthalmology journals have been decreasing due to increasing pressure on authors, editors, and reviewers to publish articles and journals with high IF.31

Future Directions

Analysis of predictive factors influencing number of citations and general article impact will be useful in situational determination of the best journal in which to publish. This would require several smaller analyses of regional journals, for example, journals published from the United States and United Kingdom. A smaller dataset would allow for more in-depth data collection of journal metrics. Future research could analyze the financial implications of different modalities of OA publication and copyright licenses, for example gold OA versus green OA. To understand the full scope of well-established and predatory journals in the field of ophthalmology, research that includes unindexed journals could be useful in creating an objective metric that can effectively characterize a journal as legitimate or predatory.

Conclusions

This study reviewed all MEDLINE-indexed ophthalmology journals to determine discrepancies in the cost of publishing between OA, hybrid, and traditional publishing models. A review of 83 journals demonstrated that publication mode and journal IF have a significant impact on APC. The cost of publication in hybrid journals is significantly higher than the other publishing models, without a significant benefit in journal IF or journal publication frequency. Analysis of the correlation between APC and IF for OA and hybrid journals demonstrated a stronger correlation between higher IF and higher APC for OA journals than for hybrid journals. Since the COVID pandemic, APCs across all publication modes have increased, and there has been a transition from the traditional publishing model to a more lucrative hybrid model. This study indicates the effects of this trend: the cost for publication in ophthalmology journals is rising for both researchers and institutions without corresponding improvement in publication parameters, including IF, demonstrating a decoupling of publication costs from scholarly value. While this trend may be difficult to mitigate because of the reduced barrier of entry to create a journal, researchers can ensure that they contribute to quality research by publishing in journals that have high citations per document. Additionally, further monitoring of this trend may be warranted to determine whether the post-COVID effects of mass-digitalization stabilize over time.