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Comparison between Paid Online Journals and Open Access Journals

Conference Paper · June 2010

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 Comparison between Paid Online Journals and Open
Access Journals
Archana Garate Neeta Gundawar Sachin Garate
Librarian Librarian Asst. Librarian
H.J.College of Education R.K.Talreja College of N.M.College of Commerce & Finance
R.K.Mission Road, Khar(W), Mumbai Ulhasnagar 3, Thane Vile Parle, Mumbai
Maharashtra, India Maharashtra, India Maharashtra, India
099697 35651 098677 91748 099691 22301
appujari16@gmail.com neeta.gundawar@gmail.com saschingarate@gmail.com

ABSTRACT
Availability of free information on Internet has perplexed
librarians to judge it on the base of authenticity. Therefore a study
for content analysis about Open Access Journals was under the
need. Present research examines differences between Paid Online
and Open Access Journals on the basis of frequency of
publication, number of articles per issue, number of issues per
year and number of pages per issue and per article, number of
authors for each article.
1.2 Methodology
For the purpose of the research, the researcher had used
descriptive and comparative methods of research. The data is
collected from the content pages of selected Paid and Open
Access Journals. The data regarding number of authors per paper,
number of articles per issue and number of pages per articles were
noted and tabulated for the analysis.

Keywords 1.3 Scope and Limitations

Open access journals, online journals, free online Journals, open The researcher had considered only the field of computer
access Vs non-open access journal, paid online journals, engineering for the research.
authorship pattern of open access journals.
For the comparison purpose in the subject, the researcher had
studied IEEE transactions as Paid Online Journals. Open Access
Journals were selected from the Directory of Open Access
1. INTRODUCTION Journal’s website. The data was collected during the year 2007 for
‘Open access’ means that the reader of scientific publication can the research.
read it over internet, print and further distribute it for non-
commercial purposes without any payments or restrictions. The
open access movement was based on a realization that the 2. DATA ANALYSIS
traditional subscription based publishing model unnecessarily The data gathered from the contents of the journals was analyzed
restricts access to research results, in a field which essentially is a and prearranged here to understand the information scenario with
public good. But excessive flow of information on any subject respect to the online journals.
may misguide rather than opting for the right path. With this
broad outline, the research concentrates on the content analysis to Table 1. Average number of articles published per the
verify the exact difference between Open Access and Paid Online periodicity of journals
journals. Paid Online Open Access
Periodicity
Journals Journals
1.1 Objectives
To conduct the content analysis of the journals, the objectives Monthly 230.09 102.5
were set as -
8 times a year 132 0
1.1.1. To state the difference between Paid Online Journals
Bimonthly 122.22 68
and Open Access Journals on engineering in terms of
Quarterly 47.14 36.6
1.1.1.1 The average number of articles and length of
each article. Thrice a year 13 19.33
1.1.1.2 The nature of authorship patterns of journal
articles. Half Yearly 16 31.33
1.1.1.3 The frequency of publication.
1.1.1.4 The Presence and absence of advertisements. Yearly 0 26.66
 2500
300 Paid Online Journals
Open Access Journals 2101
250 2000 Free Online Full-text Journals
A v g . n o . o f a rt i c l e s

200 Paid Online Full-text Journals

No. of Artical
1500 1393
150

100 1000

50
500 433
336
0 228 245
192
165 134
66 98
Monthly 8 times a Biomonthly Quarterly Thries a Half Yearly Yearly 49 15 2
year Periodisity Year 0
1-5 6-10 11-15 16-20 2125 26-30 31 and
(Graph 1. Number of Articles published per the periodicity m ore
No. of Pages
of Journals.)
(Graph No. 2 - Frequency of Pages of Articles)
The table 1 and graph 1 shows that the articles output in monthly
issues were relatively more in both the types of journals. Majority Consolidating, one finds that nearly 83 % articles of Paid Online
of the number of articles published in paid online journals were in Journals were laid in between 6-15 pages articles whereas in Open
the monthly or bimonthly issues, and in the case of open access Access Journals they were only 47 %.
journal the same trend was followed.
Table 3. Number of Author/s per article in journals and their
Table 2. Frequency of number of pages per article (length of percentage.
articles)
Open Access Journals Paid Online Journals
Sr. Percentage Percentage
No. of Open Access Online Paid Online No. of
No No. of of No. of of
Pages Full-text Journals Journals Authors
. Journals Appearance Journals Appearance
No. of No. of of Authors of Authors
Percentage Percentage
Articles Articles
1 30 100% 28 93.330%
1 1-5 165 13.35% 228 5.40% 2 28 93.33% 30 100%
2 6 - 10 336 27.18% 1393 33.00% 3 28 93.33% 30 100%
4 27 90.00% 30 100%
3 11 - 15 245 19.82% 2101 49.77% 5 17 56.67% 29 96.670%
4 16 - 20 192 15.53% 433 10.26% 6 12 40.00% 23 76.670%
7 9 30.00% 16 53.330%
5 21 - 25 134 10.84% 49 1.16%
8 4 13.33% 9 30.000%
6 26 - 30 66 5.34% 15 0.36% 9 3 10.00% 7 23.330%
31 and 10 3 10.00% 2 6.670%
7 more 98 7.93% 2 0.05%
11 1 3.33% 0 0.000%
Total 1236 100% 4221 100% 12 1 3.33% 3 10.000%
13 3 10.00% 2 6.670%
14 2 6.67% 1 3.330%
From the table 2 it follows that from among the Paid Online 15 1 3.33% 0 0.000%
Journals, the maximum number of articles (49.73 %) was written 16 1 3.33% 0 0.000%
in 11-15 pages, where as in Open Access Journals the maximum
17 0 0.00% 0 0.000%
number of articles (27.18 %) were written in 6-10 pages.
18 0 0.00% 0 0.000%
It was also observed that on the higher side, the articles of 26-30 19 0 0.00% 0 0.000%
pages in Paid Online Journals comprise 0.36 % and in Open 20 0 0.00% 0 0.000%
Access Journals they comprise 5.34 % of the total articles. 21 0 0.00% 0 0.000%
22 1 3.33% 0 0.00%

The table 3 and graph 3 showed that the articles written by only
one author present in all 30 Open Access Journals whereas in only
28 Paid Online Journals.
 35

30
30

28 28
30

28
30 30
29 Free Online Full-text Journals 17
27 14
Paid Online Full-text Journals 36
25 1 Author
N o.of Journals

23

232 79 302
2 Authors
20 604
17
3 Authors
16

15
4 Authors
12 5 Authors
10 9 9
1608 6 Authors
7
7 Authors
5 4
3 3
2
3 3
2 2
1329 8 Authors
1 1 1 1 1 1
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 9 & More authors
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

No. of Authors

(Graph 3. Number of Author/s per article in the Journals.)

(Graph 4-b. Contribution of Authors in Paid Online Journals)
In Open Access Journals 28 journals had the articles written by
two and three authors and 27 journals had the articles written by Productivity pattern of authors in Paid Online Journals and Open
four authors, where as in Paid Online Journals all the 30 journals Access Journals were shown in table 4 to work out the percentage
had the articles written by two, three and four authors. of productivity of authors either singly or in collaborative work.
The data table is also supported by the graph 4-a and 4-b.
The maximum number of authors writing an article was 22 and 14 Majority of the articles were found to be multi-authored. Articles
for Open Access Journals and Paid Online Journals respectively. having single author constitute only 7.15 % in Paid Online
Journals and 29.45 % in Open Access Journals. Articles with two
Table 4. Contribution of Authors authors constitute a bulk of the publication i.e. 38.10 % in Paid
Online Journals and 30.50% in Open Access Journals. Articles
Open Access Journals Paid Online Journals authored by three authors constituted 31.49 % in Paid Online
No.
Journals and 19.58 % in Open Access Journals. Articles by 9
of R
authors and more were negligible with the percentage of
Aut No. of Percen Ra No. of Perce an
contribution 0.40 % and 1.70 % respectively for Paid Online
hor Articles tage nk Articles ntage k
Journals and Open Access Journals.
1 364 29.45 2 302 7.15 4
2 377 30.50 1 1608 38.10 1 Table 5. Single Author Vs Multiple Authors
3 242 19.58 3 1329 31.49 2
4 127 10.28 4 604 14.31 3
5 63 5.10 5 232 5.50 5
Open Access Journals Paid Online Journals
6 24 1.94 6 79 1.87 6
No. of
7 12 0.97 8 36 0.85 7
Authors
8 6 0.49 9 14 0.33 9 No. of No. of
9& Percentage Percentage
Articles Articles
mor
e 21 1.70 7 17 0.40 8 Single 364 29.45 302 7.15
Tot
al 1236 100.00 4221 100.00 Multiple 872 70.55 3919 92.85
Total 1236 100.00 4221 100.00

1 Author
63 24 12 6 21 2 Authors
127 364 3 Authors
4 Authors
364
5 Authors
6 Authors Single Author
242 872
7 Authors Multiple Authors
377
8 Authors
9 & More authors

(Graph 4-a. Contribution of Authors in Open Access

(Graph 5 -A. Open Access Journals)
Journals)
 12
11
Free Online Full-text Journals
10 Paid Online Full-text Journals
10
9 9

302 8

No. of Journals
Single Author 7

3919 Multiple 6
Authors
4
4
3 3
2
2
1 1
0
0
M onthly Bimonthly Quarterly Half-yearly Yearly Any other
Graph 5 -B. Paid Online Journals
Periodicity
(Graph 5. Single Author Vs Multiple Authors)
(Graph 6. Frequency of publication of periodicals)
The data obtained from the source regarding the number of single
Through the analysis of data of as shown in the graph 6, Open
or multiple authored articles have been tabulated in table 5 and
Access Journals the highest periodicity was quarterly which were
presented in the graph 5. The table and graph shows the
ten journals (33.33%) that followed by nine journals (30 %) as
percentage of multi authored articles to be more than single
were annually published. There were only four journals (13.33 %)
authored articles. The multi authored articles constituted 92.85%
published monthly.
and single authored only 7.15% in Paid Online Journals and
70.55% for multiple authored articles and 29.45% for single
It was also observed that Open Access Journals have published
authored articles in Open Access Journals. This shows that team
extra issues and also sometimes published less issues. The
research is more predominant than individual research.
‘Journal of Object Technology’ published five extra issues. The
total extra issues published were ten whereas Paid Online Journals
Table 6. Frequency of periodicals
had published only one extra issue.
Sr.
Paid Online Open Access
No Periodici It was noticed that both the types of journals do not have any
Journals Journals advertisement. However, IEEE (Paid Online Journals) being a
. ty
No. of No. of earned body, they can sustain without advertisements. Therefore
Journa Percenta Journa Percenta this finding cannot be generalized.
ls ge ls ge
1 Monthly 11 36.67% 4 13.33%
It was noticed that both the Paid and Open Access Journals have
Bimonthl archiving facility. Thus archiving facility may be considered as an
2 y 9 30.00% 1 3.33% essential feature of E-Journals.

3 Quarterly 7 23.33% 10 33.33% 3. FINDINGS, DISCUSSION AND

Half-
CONCLUSION
4 yearly 1 3.33% 3 10.00% The research indicates that Paid Online journals were better with
reference to literature output than Open Access journals.
According to Turid Hedlund (1) the impact of Open Access type of
5 Yearly 0 0.00% 9 30.00%
publishing is still small compared to all scientific publishing. The
first five years of the Open Access journals become rather
Any difficult in terms of attracting enough good submissions (Bo-
6 Other 2 6.67% 3 10.00% Christer Bjork)(2), (Kayvan Kousha)(3). The behavior academics as
they choose to which journals and conference they submit their
papers is conditioned, to a very high degree, by the academic
Total 30 100 30 100 reward system. In most universities, publishing in the leading
established journals in one's field is highly rewarded which puts
By analyzing the data in table 6 it was found that majority of academics in a situation where primary publishing of their best
periodicity was monthly in the case of Paid Online Journals. Out work in relatively unknown Open Access journals is a very low
of 30 journals eleven (36.67 %) journals were monthly; nine priority (Bjork Bo-Christer)(4). Open access journals as a whole
(30 %) journals were bimonthly. have often been criticized for low standards of reviewing, low
numbers of published papers, low acceptance rates etc...(Bjork,
Bo-Christer)(5). According to John Willinsky (6) among the peer-
reviewed articles the acceptance rate of Open Access is between
only 40% and 50%. The effect of Open Access publishing may be
even higher in fields where journals were not widely available and
where articles from the control group remains "toll -access".
Gunther Eysenbach (7).
3.1 Publication of articles
The number of published articles is the important quantitative
measure of a journal for the research community.
Bjork, Bo-Christer (8) indicates in his research that ITCon (OAJ)
have established on publishing around 25 papers a year, which is
equivalent to a typical quarterly scholar journal.
In present research average numbers of articles published per year
were found low than Paid Online Journals. The ratio of average
articles published was 11:19 respectively in Open Access and
Paid Online Journals. This can be justified by comparing with a
study of open access journals (Turid Hedlund et al. 2004) (9)
which indicates that the number of articles published per year is
low in Open Access compared to major scientific journals. He
also emphasizes on the number of articles is not a major quality,
but percentage of submitted articles that were actually published
gives a more complete picture. However, the ratio of acceptance
for submitted paper in his survey of journals for Open Access is
50% which indicates very low acceptance. The impact factor
produced by ISI (Institute of Scientific Information) for a journal
is another important prestigious major of quality and in the same
survey Hedlund's statistics proves that only 10% of Open Access
journals were indexed by ISI. Also it is very difficult for Open
Access journals in Science field to get accepted in Science
Citation Index before they have established a reputation and being
outside the core literature of SCI makes it very difficult to get
good submissions and establish a reputation (Guedon 2001) (10).
3.2 Authorship pattern
The present research emphasizes and supports the multi
authorship trend for journals. The percentage of single authored
articles in Open Access journal is 30% and multi authored is 70%,
also the percentage of single authored articles in Paid Online
Journals is 7% and multi authored is 93%. Koehler Wallace (11) in
his research on Electronic journals reflects the trend towards multi
authorship and Eysenbach Gunther (12) in his research of Open
Access articles also indicates the trend for multi authorship.
3.3 Frequency of publication
Even if e-publishing had a boon because manuscripts were also
submitted in electronic medium and apparently and theoretically
layman as well as researchers and scholars had convection that
publishing their research information and findings through e-
journals saves the time in publishing process. According to
Bishop (13) the review process of electronic journals may take 6 to
8 weeks and according to Sparks (14) it can be published nearly
instantaneously once the article is accepted and revised the
electronic journal editors were free to publish articles as they were
ready rather than delaying publication until a specific number of
articles were accepted for a specific issue.
But in present research comparison comes with the outcome that
frequency of Open Access is either quarterly or annual against
Paid Online Journals which is monthly or bimonthly. According
to Turid Hedlund and et al (15) the anticipated time from the
submission of an article to the publication date on an average is
5.1 months, with a minimum of 1 month and a maximum of 18
months. This is more than publication periodicity for Open Access
journals studied for present research i.e. quarterly and yearly.
Further according to Bjork (16) the average delay between
submission and acceptance was 10.2 months and between
acceptance and publication 7.8 months resulting in an overall time
lag of 18 months.
4. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As all of us know writing technical research paper involves lots of
hard work. Without group members support it is not possible to
complete the work within stipulated time. So we would like to
thank all the team members for contribution and proper co-
ordination time to time.
I am heartily thankful to Dr. S. K. Savanur as their valuable
guidance gave us proper guideline to represent our data in
understandable manner. His support and guidance always
encouraged us to take different challenges for technical writing.
Lastly, we offer our regards to all of those who supported us in
any in any respect during the completion of the paper.
5. REFERENCES
[1] Hedlund, Turid; Gustafsson, Tomas and Bjork, Bo-Christer
(2004) Learned Publishing Vol.17 (No.3), 199-209(208)
[Available at
http://oad.simmons.edu/oadwiki/Open_Access_Journals].
[2] Bjork, B-C.; Turk, z. (2006)." The Electronic Journal of
Information Technology in Construction (ITCon): an open
access journal using an un-paid, volunteer-based
organization." Information Research, 11(3) paper255.(Case
studies in open access publishing. Number one.) [Available
at http://InformationR.net/ir/11-3/paper255.html].
[3] Kousha, Kayvan The citation impact of OA agricultural
research: a comparison between OA and non-OA
publications. [Available at
www.ifla.org/files/hq/papers/ifla75/101-kousha-en.pdf].
[4] Bjork, B-C. (2004) Open access to scientific publications-an
analysis of the barriers to change Information
Research,9(2)paper170 [Available at
http://InformationR.net/ir/9-2/paper170.html].
[5] Bjork, B-C.; Turk, z. (2006)." The Electronic Journal of
Information Technology in Construction (ITCon): an open
access journal using an un-paid, volunteer-based
organization." Information Research, 11(3) paper255. (Case
studies in open access publishing. Number one.) [Available
at http://InformationR.net/ir/11-3/paper255.html].
[6] Willinsky, J. & Mendis, R(2007). "Open access on a zero
budget: a case study of post colonial text" Information
Research, 12(3) paper308 [Available at
http://InformationR.net/ir/12-3/paper308.html].
[7] Eysenbach, Gunther Citation Advantage of Open Access
Article PLos Biol. 2006;4(5) p. e176 [Available at
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.0040176].
[8] Bjork, B-C.; Turk, z. (2006)." The Electronic Journal of
Information Technology in Construction (ITCon): an open
access journal using an un-paid, volunteer-based
 organization." Information Research, 11(3) paper255. (Case
studies in open access publishing. Number one.) [Available
at http://InformationR.net/ir/11-3/paper255.html]
[9] Hedlund, Turid; Gustafsson, Tomas and Bjork, Bo-Christer
(2004) Learned Publishing Vol.17 (No.3), 199-209(208).
[10] Guedon, J. C. (2001) In Oldenburg's long shadow: librarians
research scientists, publishers and the control of scientific
publishing. In creating the digital future. Association of
Research Libraries. [Available at
http://www.arl.org/arl/proceedings/138/guedon.html].
[11] Koehler, Wallace and others. (2000) "A bibliometric analysis
of select information science print and electronic journals in
the 1990s" .Information Research,6(1) [Available at:
http://InformationR.net/ir/6-1/paper88.html].
[12] Eysenbach, Gunther Citation Advantage of Open Access
Article PLos Biol. 2006;4(5) p. e176 [Available at
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.0040176].
[13] Bishop, A. P (1995) Sscholarly journals on the net: a reader’s
assessment. Library Trends, 43(4), 544-570.
[14] Sparks, S.M. (1999) electronic publishing & nursing
research. Nursing Research, 48(1),50-54.
2. Neeta Gundawar
Librarian
R.K.Talreja College of
Ulhasnagar 3, Thane
Maharashtra, India
098677 91748
neeta.gundawar@gmail.com
Is working as a librarian with R. K. Talreja College of Arts,
Science & Commerce at Ulhasnagar, Thane, India. She has
organized software training course for librarian fraternity to help
them in computerization of libraries. She has also attended
seminars on ICT applications in the libraries. She has completed
her M. Phil in the year 2008 and post graduation diploma in
Library Automation Networking in the year 2009.

[15] Hedlund, Turid; Gustafsson, Tomas and Bjork, Bo-Christer

3. Sachin Garate
(2004) Learned Publishing Vol.17 (No.3), 199-209(208)
[Available at
http://oad.simmons.edu/oadwiki/Open_Access_Journals]
[16] Bjork, B.-C.(2006)The Scholarly Journal Re-Engineered: A
Case Study Of An Open Access Journal In Construction IT
(ITcon) Vol.10.359.

Author/s Brief Biography

1. Archana Garate ( Corresponding Author )
Asst. Librarian
N.M.College of Commerce & Finance
Vile Parle, Mumbai
Maharashtra, India
099691 22301
saschingarate@gmail.com
Librarian
H.J.College of Education Is working with N. M. College of Commerce & Finance at
R.K.Mission Road, Khar(W), Mumbai, India as Assistant Librarian. In his service of fifteen
years in the field of library science he had helped many
Mumbai Maharashtra, India undergraduate & graduate students for their academic projects to
099697 35651 find out various references required. He has also in depth
appujari16@gmail.com knowledge for the computerization of libraries with vast database.
He has completed his M. Phil in the year 2008.
Is working with H. J. College of education at Mumbai, India as a
Librarian. She is helping students for their project work at college
level for more than seven years. She had presented a research
paper at national level on the topic ‘Library as a Learning
Resource Center’. She has completed her M. Phil in the year
2008.
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