Abstract

Open access journals which charge article processing charges (APCs) sometimes offer fee waivers to authors who cannot afford to pay them. This article measures the extent of this practice among the largest toll access and open access publishers by gathering stated fee waiver policies from publishers’ websites. A majority (68.8%) were found to offer fee waivers and sometimes they are only available to authors from low- and middle-income countries. This has implications for the ability of authors without funding to publish in journals from these publishers.

Highlights

  • Open access journals make their content openly available for anyone to read and re-use without needing to pay a subscription fee to access it

  • Still others are funded by charging fees known as article processing charges (APCs) in order to publish articles

  • The final selection resulted in a list of 16 toll access publishers and 18 open access publishers

Read more

Summary

Introduction

Open access journals make their content openly available for anyone to read and re-use without needing to pay a subscription fee to access it. The practice has grown more widespread over the last few years because large commercial publishers all offer a “hybrid” option for the majority of their journals This hybrid option allows authors to make an article open access within an otherwise closed access journal by paying an APC. This article will address the lack of research on fee waivers by collecting information to find out how many publishers and journals offer them It will examine what the terms of the waivers are, in particular looking at whether they are exclusively offered to authors from low- and middle-income countries or whether other criteria are considered

Methods
Results and Discussion
Conclusions

Talk to us

Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have

Schedule a call

Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.