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Despite the positive effects of the open access (OA) movement on academic publishing, commercial publishers' profit-driven policies continue to prevail, making the publishing process increasingly difficult for many researchers, particularly those from developing countries. This study critically examines open-access Q1 and Q2 journals listed in the Scimago Journal & Country Rank (SJR) within the field of Media and Communication Studies. Despite the OA movement’s goal of increasing access to information, the capitalist academic publishing model transforms knowledge production into a commercial activity through article processing charges (APCs). The research reveals that high APCs demanded by high-impact journals represent a significant barrier, especially for researchers with limited financial and institutional support. This situation underscores the urgent need for institutional reform in the structure of academic publishing, particularly within the field of Media and Communication Studies. The proposed reforms should focus on critical areas such as increased support for OA models, freeing journals and editorial boards from Western monopolies, fairly compensating the labour of reviewers and editors, and offering greater language support. Steps taken in this direction will contribute to the creation of a more transparent, fair, and inclusive structure for academic production and sharing processes.

A paradox was observed with regard to an increase in gold open access publications despite the increase in financial constraints. While this was viewed positively by some as an indication of strategic adaptation and financial sacrifice to publish in open access journals with an impact factor instead of conference proceedings, there could be alternative explanations for the paradox. I propose views that reflect more negative issues with citations, peer review, and an arguably suboptimal mutually propagating publishing loop for gold open access publications.

Introduction: This article investigates funding sources reported by authors of open access (OA) articles at four R1 (doctoral-granting institutions in the United States with very high research activity) universities, along with these authors’ perceptions of Article Processing Charges (APCs). The study suggests a cognitive dissonance among many respondents, in which there appears to be a desire and willingness to participate in OA publishing, which is at odds with a sense of unreasonableness and an uneven distribution of the ability of researchers to participate. Literature review: Much of the literature on APCs centers on rising prices, how commercial publishers profit from this model, and the resulting inequities in OA publishing. Some information exists about resources for funding APCs, including grant funding, library programs, and fee waivers. Methods: We surveyed authors who published an OA article in the calendar year 2022. The survey asked whether there was an APC, the funding source for the fee, and the author’s perception of the reasonableness of APC prices and their relative ability to pay compared with their peers. Results: From 321 total respondents, grant funding was the largest source of APC funding, and authors reported fees of over $1,500 in U.S. dollars as unreasonable. Discussion: This study confirms the hypothesis that external grants are the primary support for authors paying APCs, and beyond that, authors use a variety of sources to support their publishing fees. Respondents characterized APCs in general as unreasonable for less well-resourced colleagues. Conclusion: Though authors were generally able to find funding or have fees waived, they perceive a threshold of reasonableness for APCs.

We aim to estimate the total amount of article processing charges (APCs) paid to publish open access (OA) in journals controlled by the five large commercial publishers (Elsevier, Sage, Springer Nature, Taylor & Francis, and Wiley) between 2015 and 2018. Using publication data from WoS, OA status from Unpaywall, and annual APC prices from open data sets and historical fees retrieved via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, we estimate that globally authors paid$1.06 billion in publication fees to these publishers from 2015–2018. Revenue from gold OA amounted to $ 612.5 million, and$448.3 million was obtained for publishing OA in hybrid journals. Among the five publishers, Springer Nature made the most revenue from OA ($ 589.7 million), followed by Elsevier ( $221.4 million), Wiley ($ 114.3 million), Taylor & Francis ( $76.8 million), and Sage ($ 31.6 million). With Elsevier and Wiley making most of their APC revenue from hybrid fees and others focusing on gold, different OA strategies could be observed between publishers.

Scientists are increasingly overwhelmed by the volume of articles being published. The total number of articles indexed in Scopus and Web of Science has grown exponentially in recent years; in 2022 the article total was ∼47% higher than in 2016, which has outpaced the limited growth—if any—in the number of practicing scientists. Thus, publication workload per scientist has increased dramatically. We define this problem as “the strain on scientific publishing.” To analyze this strain, we present five data-driven metrics showing publisher growth, processing times, and citation behaviors. We draw these data from web scrapes, and from publishers through their websites or upon request. Specific groups have disproportionately grown in their articles published per year, contributing to this strain. Some publishers enabled this growth by hosting “special issues” with reduced turnaround times. Given pressures on researchers to “publish or perish” to compete for funding, this strain was likely amplified by these offers to publish more articles. We also observed widespread year-over-year inflation of journal impact factors coinciding with this strain, which risks confusing quality signals. Such exponential growth cannot be sustained. The metrics we define here should enable this evolving conversation to reach actionable solutions to address the strain on scientific publishing.

Introduction: In the 2020s, open access (OA) continues to act as a challenging force in the ever-shifting landscape of scholarly communication. The objective of this study was to survey faculty at an R1 research institution about their perspectives on OA publishing, article processing charges (APCs), and knowledge of the institutional repository (IR). Methods: This study employed an anonymous online survey of 415 faculty members, with a response rate of 12.77% (53 responses). The survey collected both quantitative and qualitative data from respondents. Results and Discussion: Results showed engagement with OA publishing but skepticism of APCs as a reasonable alternative to subscription-based funding models. Survey respondents were also mostly unaware of the library’s IR self-archiving service. Conclusion: For-profit OA business models do not serve academics, and they and scholarly communications librarians should better collaborate to advocate for transitioning away from APCs. The article concludes by sharing how the author changed practice based on the results of the study.

Access to published research has always been difficult for researchers and clinicians in low- and middle-income countries, because of the cost of and lack of access to the relevant publications. The dramatic recent increase in electronic research publications has resulted in a marked improvement in reader access to these publications through their mainly Open Access policies, however the costs of processing of submissions and publication have now become the burden of the researchers wishing to publish, rather than the readers. For many researchers working in LMIC, the Article Processing Charges (APC) are prohibitive, hampering the publication of research being conducted in and relevant to these countries. A number of grant funding agencies and international not-for-profit organizations are trying to address these issues by including funding for article publications in their grants, or by supporting publishing entities by subsiding the cost of publication, but more needs to be done by major journal publishers through markedly reducing the APC being charged to researchers in LMIC for open access facilities.

Open Access (OA) publication often entails payment of Article processing charges (APCs), particularly in the so-called Hybrid and Gold journals. The growth of Gold OA publications linked to the development of OA mandates has forced funders, research institutions, and researchers to develop strategies to pay APCs. Thus, this research tries to estimate the percentage of the budget of the projects funded by the Spanish State Plan for the Generation of Knowledge and Scientific and Technological Strengthening of the R&D&I, Spain's two main public project funding calls in Spain. The period studied is 2013–2019. Additionally, we study the relationships between publication intensity, funding attraction, and the availability of OA journals with APC expenditure at the area level. The results show that €45.87 million were spent on APCs, with most projects spending 3–8% of their budgets. However, numerous outliers with rates over 10% suggest further study on the role of APCs in the financial performance of the research activity. Estimations shown in the paper have to be taken cautiously as the APCs of the publications related to the projects studied in this analysis might not have been fully paid with the projects’ budget but using other funding strategies. Further research is needed to address the researchers’ decisions better when paying APCs. Finally, publication intensity, funding attraction, and the availability of OA journals are highly correlated with the investment in APCs in different fields. These results show that the current APC framework affects disciplines differently and raises questions about alternative publishing and funding models.

Open access (OA) publishing is often viewed as a promising solution for the future of scholarly publishing, as it has the potential to reduce global inequalities in access to scientific literature by removing paywalls. However, the adoption of OA publishing may not necessarily lead to a decrease in the overall cost of knowledge dissemination, as Article Processing Charges (APCs) can create an additional financial burden for scholars, particularly those from developing countries. Despite being intended as a way to disrupt the scholarly publishing oligopoly, OA publishing has faced challenges in achieving this goal. These challenges were revealed through a comprehensive analysis of OA publishing from 2008 to 2020, as detailed in this study.

Article Processing Charges (APCs) are significant charges for publishing Open Access (OA), and have no accepted standards for authors to source the funds or negotiate the charges. While there is a growing body of literature exploring academic authors’ perceptions of OA publishing, there is little data on how authors pay for APCs. The aim of this study was to examine how authors prepare for and fund APCs, as well as their perceptions of these charges. In early 2021 the authors deployed a survey to Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai faculty members via email. The survey was completed by 310 faculty, representing 10.6% of the active researcher population. Our findings show that about 50% of respondents include anticipated APC costs in grant applications, and that 16% of faculty will pay APCs using personal funds. Questions evaluating perception of APCs show that while the majority of respondents support the concept of Open Access, most believe that charges are too high and should not fall on authors.