Market share of the largest publishers in Journal Citation Reports based on journal price and article processing charge

Abstract

Purpose: There are growing questions about the market share of the largest publishers. Although evaluations based on Journal Citation Reports (JCR) are important, librarians are more interested in journal costs. Therefore, this study was conducted with the aim of estimating the market share of the largest publishers listed in JCR using the journal subscription price (journal price) and article processing charge (APC). Methods: The top 10 publishers were selected based on six indicators in JCR 2014 to 2018, and then their journal prices and APCs were investigated according to list prices. Other prior studies were also compared to estimate their market share more realistically because list and actual prices are not identical. Results: The estimated average price of subscription journals in JCR was 2,300 US dollars and the average APC for an article was 2,652 US dollars. The APC per article was more expensive than the average journal price. Based on journal price and APC, the market influence of the top three publishers was 48.0%, but their market share was estimated to be 55.2% when annual reports and other studies were combined with this study. The difference was due to Elsevier’s journal costs, as Elsevier’s market share was higher than its market influence. Conclusion: APCs require additional budgetary resources from institutions, but are another revenue source for publishers. Librarians need to reflect APC spending in journal subscription negotiations with the largest publishers. To clarify the market share more accurately, it is necessary to share information on subscription and APC costs paid by institutions.

Changes in article share and growth by publisher and access type in Journal Citation Reports 2016, 2018, and 2020

“…We used JCR instead of the journals in DOAJ and Scopus to identify the recent publication trends of only major journals. Research data were collected from JCR 2016, 2018, and 2020-2 years before and after JCR 2018, which began to have information on the percentage of OA gold-and an analysis was conducted by integrating the JCR journal lists into a single Excel file, similar to previous studies [1][2][3][4]. As of July 2021, SCIE and SSCI data of JCR 2016, 2018, and 2020 were downloaded as a text file and converted into an Excel file.…”

“…Although some studies have dealt with changes in journal publishing in a fragmentary manner, such as OA publishing based on Web of Science (WoS), Journal Citation Reports (JCR), Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), and Scopus, it is difficult to find accurate and up-to-date research on major publishers focusing on core journals. We published four consecutive studies on publishers, number of articles, indicators, APC, list price, and OA status using JCR journals in the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) and Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) [1][2][3][4]. JCR 2020, which was released in June 2021, expanded to include the Arts and Humanities Citation Index and the Emerging Sources Citation Index, but the impact factors (IFs) and percentage of OA gold were not yet presented for those resources.…”

Publishing trends of journals and articles in Journal Citation Reports during the COVID-19 pandemic: a descriptive study

“…Thus, Journal Citation Reports (JCR) is an appropriate tool for analyzing global journal publishing trends, since its journals are evaluated rigorously based on the Web of Science (WoS). Accordingly, the authors have presented articles [1][2][3][4][5] based on the JCR for Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) and Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI).…”

Should open access lead to closed research? The trends towards paying to perform research

“…And, from the perspective of institutions, if one were to subscribe to all 10,535 journals-excluding gold OA journals from the 12,201 journals in the JCR-the sum of the subscription prices is estimated to be about 24 million USD. Nonetheless, the total APC amount required to submit an article to each of the gold and hybrid OA journals is about 30 million USD (Kim & Park, 2020). Hong Kong University spent 1.5 million USD for 942 articles with APC in 2017.…”

“…Although previous studies have researched the APC of journals (Björk & Solomon, 2014;Cleusa & Barbosa, 2018;Kim & Park, 2020), few studies have analyzed the APC income of gold and hybrid journals in combination and in relation to different OA policies among countries. We also focus on trends in this rapidly changing market for scientific publishing because these trends may raise new demands for independent research and knowledge.…”