Blog Series: Global South Authors & Open Access - Pt. 1

I have been posting round-ups of open access articles published by Global South-based authors on a (mostly) monthly basis since November 2020. My interest in compiling and circulating these round-ups is threefold: First, to more systematically track how authors based in the Global South choose to make their journal articles open access; second, as a means to highlight research undertaken by authors who traditionally have had less visibility within the forced migration scholarly literature base; and finally and more generally, to continue to promote open access to the forced migration research community.

The impetus for initiating these monthly round-ups in part came out of a previous analysis I undertook of trends in OA publishing by GS authors. (You can find the four posts that resulted from that analysis here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.) In order to assess the extent to which open access publication trends have changed or remained the same in the intervening period, I gathered data from 13 months' of round-up postings on: type of open access, region in which authors were based, and author collaborations. 

The total number of articles* referenced between 13 Nov. 2020 and 15 Dec. 2021 was 267. This is definitely an improvement over the 86 articles that I referenced from May to October 2020! Here is the breakdown by type of open access:

% of articles by OA type                     

bronze/diamond = 57%  

gold = 26%    

hybrid = 13%  

green = 4%  

The order of this listing is consistent with previous findings, i.e., Global South authors publish more frequently in OA journals that do not charge a publication fee (so-called bronze and diamond journals). 

The geographic representation of authors shifted somewhat between the first and second studies. Here is the breakdown of the current analysis:

% of articles by author region

Africa = 34% 

Asia = 25% 

Americas = 24% 

MENA = 16% 

Multi-regional = 2%

In my previous analysis, the regional ranking for author location was Americas (35%), Africa (28%), Asia (20%) and MENA (17%). The main conclusion to be drawn from this is that I need to focus more particularly on enhancing my MENA coverage. 

Turning to the breakdown of articles by type of author collaboration, if any:

- Articles by solo authors or co-authors based in the same country = 67%

- Articles by co-authors based in countries in the Global North & in the Global South = 29%

- Articles by co-authors based in 2 or more countries in the Global South = 3%

Looking specifically at the % of GN/GS collaborations by OA type:

- hybrid = 65%

- green = 60% 

- gold = 40%

- bronze/diamond = 14%

This pattern is certainly logical when factoring in the high APC costs associated with hybrid OA. But why are most green OA articles GN/GS collaborations? This and other trends will be discussed further in upcoming posts!

*With a few exceptions, articles are generally included in round-ups if either the lead author or at least half of the co-authors are based in the Global South, the thinking being that this narrower parameter more likely reflects a greater interest on the part of GS authors to provide open access to their work.