As reported in the first post of this blog series, just over a quarter of the articles in my study appeared in gold open access journals, i.e., fully OA journals that require payment of an article processing charge (APC) in order to get published. The APCs for these titles ranged broadly from US$55 to US$3500. Currently, the two main methods for dealing with higher APC costs are either through waivers/discounts or through collaborations with authors based in the Global North.
1. APC waiver/discount policies
Publishers with standard policies:
I did not investigate the eligibility of individual GS authors for waivers or discounts in this study. But here are a few examples of how such policies might be applied for two gold OA publishers whose journals are represented in my analysis:
BMC's policy stipulates the following:
1) BMC offers APC waivers to papers whose corresponding authors are based in countries classified by the World Bank as low-income economies;
2) Papers whose corresponding authors are based in countries with lower-middle-income economies and with a 2020 gross domestic product (GDP) of less than 200 billion US dollars are eligible for a 50% discount.
- The country lists are located here.
Examples:
Conflict and Health charges a publication fee of US$2590. The corresponding author of an article in this journal is based in Yemen, classified as a low-income economy, and therefore was eligible for a full APC waiver. However, the Ghana-based corresponding author of an article in Reproductive Health, which also charges a publication fee of US$2590, was only eligible for a 50% discount because Ghana is considered a lower-middle-income country. This BMJ editorial lists the average monthly income of medical specialists in Ghana as US$2485 (see Table 1), so even at the reduced rate, the APC still amounts to over half of a month's income.
Elsevier's policy is as follows:
1) 100% APC waiver: The corresponding author and co-authors must be all from a Group A country.
2) 50% APC discount: The corresponding author and co-authors must be all from a Group B country.
3) 50% APC discount: A mix of authors from Group A and B countries.
4) No Research4Life waiver or discount: A mix of authors from non-Research4Life countries and Group A or/and B countries.
Examples:
The corresponding author and co-authors of an article in my study that appears in Journal of Migration and Health are based in Brazil, which means that they were not eligible for a waiver or discount for the US$1910 publication fee because Brazil is classified as a no waiver/discount country. However, the Bangladesh-based authors of a different article in the same journal were eligible for a 100% waiver.
Publishers without standard policies:
A number of gold OA publishers do not routinely offer waivers or discounts to authors with more limited financial means; examples include the following:
- Cogitatio Press will consider waiver applications but stipulates that "Requests will be assessed on a case-by-case basis and may be granted in cases of genuine need."
- Frontiers says that "Authors who can’t afford the fees can request a full or partial APC waiver."
- JMIR Publications indicates that they will waive article processing fees but only in exceptional situations.
- MDPI notes that "For authors from low- and middle-income countries, waivers or discounts may be granted on a case-by-case basis."
Despite these policies, studies have found that 1) GS authors may not always know they are eligible for APC waivers or discounts because of a lack of publisher transparency; 2) the process required to request a waiver or discount is often not very straightforward, as this article describes; 3) as a result, GS authors often end up paying for APCs themselves; 4) while authors based in middle income countries are usually not eligible for any waivers or discounts (see Table S1, p. 7), they may still struggle to cover the costs to publish as they often do not have ready access to funding sources to assist with APC payments; this article describes the situation for India-based authors, while this article presents the viewpoint of a South Africa-based researcher.
2. APCs & collaborations with authors in the Global North
Another way to finance high APC costs is to partner with authors affiliated with GN institutions. This study of gold open access journals published by MDPI found that "researchers from low-income nations are more likely to form international collaborations than researchers from wealthier nations."
In my study, only 40% of gold OA articles resulted from GN-GS collaborations, meaning that GS-based authors were responsible for 60% of gold OA articles. Comparing the range of APCs between these two overall groups provides additional information:
- For GS-only authors (either solo authors, co-authors in the same country or collaborations between different GS countries), the APC range is US$55 to US$2950, with an average APC of US$1337 and a median of US$1082.
- By contrast, the range of APCs for articles written by a mix of GN & GS authors was US$950 to US$3500, with an average of US$2276 and a median of US$2547.
- Lower APCs (i.e., under US$1000) were more likely to be associated with journals published in the Global South, while higher APCs were associated with health-related titles published in the Global North.
- A couple of the GS-only authors who published in journals with APCs on the high end would have been eligible for standard waivers; however, if needed, those based in middle income countries would have had to resort to submitting requests for waivers or discounts.
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