Relationships among cost, citation, and access in journal publishing by an ecology and evolutionary biology department at a U.S. university
Background Optimizing access to high-quality scientific journals has become an important priority for academic departments, including the ability to read the scientific literature and the ability to afford to publish papers in those journals. In this contribution, we assess the question of whether i...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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PeerJ Inc.
2024-01-01
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| Series: | PeerJ |
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| Online Access: | https://peerj.com/articles/16514.pdf |
| _version_ | 1797363952937598976 |
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| author | A. Townsend Peterson Marlon E. Cobos Ben Sikes Jorge Soberon Luis Osorio-Olvera Josh Bolick Ada Emmett |
| author_facet | A. Townsend Peterson Marlon E. Cobos Ben Sikes Jorge Soberon Luis Osorio-Olvera Josh Bolick Ada Emmett |
| author_sort | A. Townsend Peterson |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Background Optimizing access to high-quality scientific journals has become an important priority for academic departments, including the ability to read the scientific literature and the ability to afford to publish papers in those journals. In this contribution, we assess the question of whether institutional investment in scientific journals aligns with the journals where researchers send their papers for publication, and where they serve as unpaid reviewers and editors. Methods We assembled a unique suite of information about the publishing habits of our Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, including summaries of 3,540 journal publications by 35 faculty members. These data include economic costs of journals to institutions and to authors, benefits to authors in terms of journal prestige and citation rates, and considerations of ease of reading access for individuals both inside and outside the university. This dataset included data on institutional costs, including subscription pricing (rarely visible to scholars), and “investment” by scholars in supporting journals, such as time spent as editors and reviewers. Results Our results highlighted the complex set of relationships between these factors, and showed that institutional costs often do not match well with payoffs in terms of benefits to researchers (e.g., citation rate, prestige of journal, ease of access). Overall, we advocate for greater cost-benefit transparency to help compare different journals and different journal business models; such transparency would help both researchers and their institutions in investing wisely the limited resources available to academics. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-08T16:28:23Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-7ef676bcc2264d1e9dfc146749be347b |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2167-8359 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-08T16:28:23Z |
| publishDate | 2024-01-01 |
| publisher | PeerJ Inc. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | PeerJ |
| spelling | doaj.art-7ef676bcc2264d1e9dfc146749be347b2024-01-06T15:05:05ZengPeerJ Inc.PeerJ2167-83592024-01-0112e1651410.7717/peerj.16514Relationships among cost, citation, and access in journal publishing by an ecology and evolutionary biology department at a U.S. universityA. Townsend Peterson0Marlon E. Cobos1Ben Sikes2Jorge Soberon3Luis Osorio-Olvera4Josh Bolick5Ada Emmett6Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USADepartment of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USADepartment of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USADepartment of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USADepartamento de Ecología de la Biodiversidad, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City, CDMX, MexicoKU Libraries, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USAKU Libraries, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USABackground Optimizing access to high-quality scientific journals has become an important priority for academic departments, including the ability to read the scientific literature and the ability to afford to publish papers in those journals. In this contribution, we assess the question of whether institutional investment in scientific journals aligns with the journals where researchers send their papers for publication, and where they serve as unpaid reviewers and editors. Methods We assembled a unique suite of information about the publishing habits of our Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, including summaries of 3,540 journal publications by 35 faculty members. These data include economic costs of journals to institutions and to authors, benefits to authors in terms of journal prestige and citation rates, and considerations of ease of reading access for individuals both inside and outside the university. This dataset included data on institutional costs, including subscription pricing (rarely visible to scholars), and “investment” by scholars in supporting journals, such as time spent as editors and reviewers. Results Our results highlighted the complex set of relationships between these factors, and showed that institutional costs often do not match well with payoffs in terms of benefits to researchers (e.g., citation rate, prestige of journal, ease of access). Overall, we advocate for greater cost-benefit transparency to help compare different journals and different journal business models; such transparency would help both researchers and their institutions in investing wisely the limited resources available to academics.https://peerj.com/articles/16514.pdfJournalsPublicationSubscriptionArticle processing chargesOpen access |
| spellingShingle | A. Townsend Peterson Marlon E. Cobos Ben Sikes Jorge Soberon Luis Osorio-Olvera Josh Bolick Ada Emmett Relationships among cost, citation, and access in journal publishing by an ecology and evolutionary biology department at a U.S. university PeerJ Journals Publication Subscription Article processing charges Open access |
| title | Relationships among cost, citation, and access in journal publishing by an ecology and evolutionary biology department at a U.S. university |
| title_full | Relationships among cost, citation, and access in journal publishing by an ecology and evolutionary biology department at a U.S. university |
| title_fullStr | Relationships among cost, citation, and access in journal publishing by an ecology and evolutionary biology department at a U.S. university |
| title_full_unstemmed | Relationships among cost, citation, and access in journal publishing by an ecology and evolutionary biology department at a U.S. university |
| title_short | Relationships among cost, citation, and access in journal publishing by an ecology and evolutionary biology department at a U.S. university |
| title_sort | relationships among cost citation and access in journal publishing by an ecology and evolutionary biology department at a u s university |
| topic | Journals Publication Subscription Article processing charges Open access |
| url | https://peerj.com/articles/16514.pdf |
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