The Gold OA plot v0.2 - Ross Mounce
abernard102@gmail.com 2012-10-13
Summary:
Use the link to access the updated version of the graph, "The cost and openness of various GOLD OA article options." "I said I would make an update on Tuesday (today), so if I get this posted before midnight I will (just) have met that goal…
In this (minor) update I have:
added: [1] Ubiquity Press (great low cost option!), SPIE (scored for 1-column per page), SAGE Open, Frontiers, WileyOpenAccess, OxfordOpen (OUP hybrid option), GigaScience, Open Biology (Royal Society) [2] added the label for: Pensoft (sincerest apologies, it is tied with Copernicus and was on the 0.1 plot, just unlabelled!)
changed the categorization of: Scientific Reports (NPG) [I have put it in a no-mans-land between CC BY and CC BY NC since they give authors a choice of licenses. I think this is a bad idea as it allows authors to make the mistake of choosing a less open licence (are there really any common circumstances in which they might want a less open, free to read licence?)] As noted elsewhere there are actually a lot of completely fee-free Gold Open Access journals out there (I shall try and make a listing of them in a future post), they’re just not perhaps all that well-known. GigaScience and Open Biology (Royal Society) are temporarily completely fee-free options that certainly look like good recommendations! I shall endeavour to add-in more of a variety of the various differently priced BMC journals in the next update of the plot. Basically I believe most of them lie in the range between BMC Research Notes, and BMC Biology. My site stats show that in just a few days v0.1 of the plot had nearly 1000 pageviews, which is HUGE for my otherwise low-key blog! And it has had real impact already. Thanks to Mike Taylor, Acta Pal. Polonica is thinking of adopting the CC BY licence. Brilliant news! It is fee-free but not explicitly licensed to allow re-use at the moment. Hopefully this will change soon.