Publication Fees in Open Access Publishing: Sources of Funding and Factors Influencing Choice of Journal

Use the link above to access the full text of the article. The current article has been self-archived by the authors at www.openaccesspublishing.org. Three additional articles, including, “[1]A Study of Open Access Journals Using Article Processing Charges [2] Pricing principles used by Scholarly Open Access Publishers [3] The Hybrid Model for Open Access Publication of Scholarly Articles – a Failed Experiment?” are also self-archived at the same site. Additionally, articles on various OA topics have been archived by Bo-Christer Bjork on his professional webpage at the Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration, Helsinki, Finland at The abstract for the current article is as follows: Open access (OA) journals make their full text content available for free on the Web and use other means than subscriptions or access charges for funding the publication process. Publication fees or article processing charges (APC)s have become the predominant means for funding professional OA publishing. We surveyed 1,038 authors from seven discipline categories who recently published articles in 74 OA journals that charge APCs. Authors were asked about the source of funding for the APC, factors influencing their choice of a journal and past history publishing in OA and subscription journals. Additional information about the journal and the authors’ country were obtained from the journal websites. A total of 429 (41%) authors completed the survey. There were large differences in the source of funding among disciplines. Journals with impact factors charged higher APCs as did journals from disciplines where grant funding is plentiful. Topical fit, quality, and speed of publication where the most important factors in the authors’ choice of a journal. Open accessibility was less important but a significant factor for many authors in their choice of a journal to publish. These findings are consistent with other research on OA publishing and suggest, that if OA journals meet normal quality standards, authors and their employers and funders are willing to pay reasonable APCs, the acceptable levels of which are dependent on the field of science and the quality of the journal in question.”