Abstract
With their broad scope, high publishing volume, a peer review process based on the scientific soundness of the content, and an open access model, mega journals have become an important part of scholarly publishing.The main aim of this paper is to determine the most important factor that influenced researchers’ decisions to submit their academic work to these type of journal. To this end, an online survey has been disseminated from November 2016 to August 2017, targeting the corresponding authors of the European Scientific Journal, ESJ. Data from 413 corresponding authors was collected.The focus was mainly on how they discover the journal and what led them to submit a paper to the journal. However, questions concerning their satisfaction with the peer review procedure were also part of the survey.The results have shown that a recommendation of a colleague is not only the main channel through which authors found out about the journal, but is also the major reason they decided to submit their paper to a mega-journal. Furthermore, the quality of the editorial board of the journal, the strong portfolio of papers and the open access concept are also significant factors in encouraging submission to a mega-journal. A majority of the respondents are satisfied with the communication and peer review procedure of the mega-journal, which might encourage new submissions in the future.
Highlights
Open-access mega-journals are one of the innovations that evolved with the promotion of the open-access concept and its goal to make scholarly publications freely available.It is difficult to establish a precise definition of the term “mega-journal”
The results have shown that a recommendation of a colleague is the main channel through which authors found out about the journal, but is the major reason they decided to submit their paper to a mega-journal
There are four major characteristics a journal should meet in order to be recognized as a mega-journal: 1) High publishing volume, 2) Broad scope, 3) Open-access publishing model, and 4) Objective peer review based on scientific soundness of the content (Wakeling et al, 2017)
Summary
Open-access mega-journals are one of the innovations that evolved with the promotion of the open-access concept and its goal to make scholarly publications freely available.It is difficult to establish a precise definition of the term “mega-journal”. There are four major characteristics a journal should meet in order to be recognized as a mega-journal: 1) High publishing volume, 2) Broad scope, 3) Open-access publishing model, and 4) Objective peer review based on scientific soundness of the content (rather than novelty or potential impact) (Wakeling et al, 2017). Bienfield (2013) categorizes these four characteristics as primary, while listing some other as secondary. A mega-journal has to meet all of the primary elements and most of the secondary such as moderate article processing charges, using Almetrics, rapid peer review, using academic editors, etc.
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