Data on scholarly, peer-reviewed journals from three sources is presented and analyzed. Ulrich's reports 1,253 scholarly, peer-reviewed open access journals, about 5% of the journals in this category. The number of new journal start-ups recorded in Ulrich's since 2001 appears to be fairly steady since 2001, both for all scholarly, peer-reviewed journals, and for open access scholarly peer-reviewed journals. The largest number of open access peer-reviewed journal start-ups recorded was in 2004, the last year for which data is likely complete, with a total of 99. DOAJ includes a total of 2,009 open access journals as of today. One possible source of the discrepancy in numbers could be an english-language bias in Ulrich's; of the academic journals listed in Ulrich's, almost 90% are in the english language, while DOAJ appears to represent a much broader linguistic spectrum. Both DOAJ and Ulrich's list considerably fewer open access journals than are found in Jan Sczcepanski's list, over 4,700 journals as of December 2005. There are several possible reasons for this. One is that many academic journals are not necessarily peer-reviewed; for example, only about 40% of the journals listed as academic / scholarly in Ulrich's are peer-reviewed. If we assume that 40% of the journals in Jan Szczepanski's list are peer-reviewed, the total would be 1,880 - very close to the DOAJ figure of 2,009. There are reasons to think that all available figures for open access journals are underestimates. Jan Sczcepanski's, the longest list available, for example, focuses on social sciences, humanities, and math; it is also primarily the work of one individual working on a volunteer basis.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 1/30/2006 09:26:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
