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Status and quality of open access journals in Scopus

Mohammadamin Erfanmanesh (Department of Knowledge and Information Science, University of Isfahan, Iran)

Collection Building

ISSN: 0160-4953

Article publication date: 2 October 2017

927

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to provide an extensive overview of OA journals’ status and quality in 27 research areas based on all Scopus-indexed journals. It shows the volume of OA journals, proportion of publications in OA journals and the quality of these journals in comparison with subscription-based counterparts.

Design/methodology/approach

This research investigated 22,256 active peer-reviewed journals indexed by Scopus in 2015. Data were gathered using the Journal Metrics website. The current research adopted four indicators to compare the quality of OA and non-OA journals indexed in Scopus under each subject area, namely citedness rate, CiteScore, SNIP and SJR.

Findings

OA journals comprised approximately 17 per cent out of the total journals indexed by Scopus in 2015. The results revealed an uneven spread of OA journals across disciplines, ranged from 5.5 to 28.7 per cent. Studying the quality of journals as measured by CiteScore, SJR SNIP leads us to the finding that, in all research areas, except for health profession and nursing, non-OA journals attain statistically significant higher average quality than do OA journals.

Originality/value

Although OA publishing improves the visibility of scholarly journals, this increase is not always coupled with increase in journals’ impact and quality.

Keywords

Citation

Erfanmanesh, M. (2017), "Status and quality of open access journals in Scopus", Collection Building, Vol. 36 No. 4, pp. 155-162. https://doi.org/10.1108/CB-02-2017-0007

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2017, Emerald Publishing Limited

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