2.1 The market of publishing academic research and its digitalisation
The market of publishing academic research is based on interesting mechanisms, by which universities pay scholars to produce high-level research for academic journals (for which they also act as reviewers and editors free of charge) to repurchase this research from publishers, often commercial publishers (Beverungen et al.
2012; McGuigan and Russell
2008; de Zepetnek and Jia
2014). Universities, including their researchers and libraries, on the one hand and academic journals as well as their publishers on the other hand can thus be identified as the main market players, with universities and scholars acting as both producers and consumers of academic research (McGuigan and Russell
2008; Schauder
1994).
On the provider site, most academic journals are published by large commercial publishers (Bourfarss
2020; Fyfe et al.
2017). Commercial publishers charge considerably more for journals than non-commercial publishers and university presses (Bergstrom et al.
2014; Bergstrom and Bergstrom
2004; Dewatripont et al.
2007; Liebowitz
1985; Marks et al.
1991), which is not necessarily reflected in the quality of their journals (Bergstrom and Bergstrom
2004). In addition, the merging of publishers has been identified as a price-driving factor, as an increased number of journal portfolios allows prices to be determined more independently (McCabe
2001,
2002). Larivière et al. (
2015) show that digitalisation has helped large publishers to increase their share of published output. According to Larivière et al. (
2015), over 50% of all academic articles published in 2013 were from the top five publishers (Reed-Elsevier, Sage Publications, Springer, Taylor & Francis, Wiley-Blackwell), with over 70% of the published articles being from the social sciences. In this context, it should be noted that a combined print and electronic environment appears to be the most costly option (Turner
2005).
While it is widely accepted that journals appear online (Montgomery and King
2002; Nicholas et al.
2010; Schonfeld
2011), it is up for discussion whether they should be cheaper than their printed equivalents (Odlyzko
1998). Siar et al. (
2005) stress that there is a wide range of options for pricing journals, which is challenging for both librarians and publishers. Some traditional publishers claim that switching from print to an electronic format can lead to cost savings of around 30%, mainly through reduced printing and mailing costs (Odlyzko
1998). However, the market shows that there is little difference in the price between printed and electronic journals (Odlyzko
1998). Both formats have their cost base, with electronic journals requiring access and technology, while print journals need, amongst other things, extensive storage and shelving (Turner
2005). Montgomery and King (
2002) suggest that electronic journals are more cost-effective on a per-use basis than print journals when all costs are considered.
Even though large publishers still have a lot of control over the market, increasing digitalisation has allowed new players to enter the market. These new competitors include providers such as Serial Solutions, 360 Link, and Ex Libris’ SFX, which offer “online linking to full text via third-party link-resolution services” (Stuart et al.
2015, p. 52). Furthermore, there are an increasing number of digital platforms such as EBSCO, Elsevier, Ebook Library (EBL), Introtrieve, and Ingenta, which provide key benefits like a wide range of (possible) offerings, cost-saving potential, and the opportunity to generate accurate user statistics (Schell et al.
2010). Electronic journal collections are becoming more widely accepted and used (Montgomery and King
2002).
Historically, online publications represent a step on a longer lasting path, as previously demonstrated by a shift from contextualised monographs to scholarly articles (Evans
2008; McCabe
2002). Especially since the 1990s, however, academic publishing has evolved rapidly from a paper-based system to a digital system where money is increasingly earned through licensing online access to journals or selected content (Bergstrom and Bergstrom
2004; Schell et al.
2010). As the number of articles available online increases, consumers have much less need to use reference libraries as a means to access articles (Davidson
2005). Instead, reference libraries are being replaced with online libraries that do not necessarily have to be linked to a reference library (Davidson
2005). When most journals were only available in print, many libraries offered open browsing of their collections, which has become less common in the digital age (Davidson
2005).
It should be mentioned that academic journals are not leading the way in digitalisation, but that corresponding developments are taking place across the entire media landscape. For example, Åkesson et al. (
2018) shed light on the longstanding struggle of a major Swedish newspaper to switch from an old paper-based system to new digital technologies. Newspapers were also used to examine selected digitalisation-related aspects such as hyperlinking (Weber and Monge
2017). Even though the focus of this study is on academic journals, which cannot be directly compared to newspapers, we think that it makes sense for journal managers to observe the development of neighbouring industries to draw strategic conclusions for their own journal.
To identify future-oriented strategic measures for a journal, journal managers must also know the behaviour of authors and consumers of academic research and how their behaviour develops over time (Groesser
2012). Based on the ScienceDirect database, Nicholas et al. (
2010) show that e-journals are not only in high demand but also that about 5% of the journals account for more than a third of all page views. This suggests that the provision of digital services can explain only part, if any, of an academic journal’s attractiveness. As mentioned above, scholars act simultaneously as consumers (readers) and producers of academic research. When selecting a suitable journal for the publication of academic articles, authors pay a particular attention to the thematic consistency, quality, publication speed, and whether the journal has an open access (OA) option, whereby journals with high impact factors tend to have higher application costs (Solomon and Björk
2012). Watson et al. (
2012) find that many authors are increasingly interested in publishing quickly and being listed in large databases. In particular, lesser known authors can use IT as a balancing force to increase their productivity and take advantage of an increased number of opportunities for collaboration (Ding et al.
2010), the latter being particularly helpful if senior researchers or even professors get involved (Di Vaio et al.
2012).
Furthermore, authors’ reading (consuming) behaviour becomes visible through their citation behaviour, since the citations show which journals and articles are the focus of the authors’ attention. Citation behaviour is used, for example, by De Groote (
2008), who examines whether online journals receive more or fewer citations than print journals. As her data basis, she uses a university in Chicago with an urban and a rural campus. Her results show that authors on the urban campus cited both online and print journals to similar extents, while authors on the rural campus cited significantly fewer print journals. Since an online offer is meanwhile common, the strategic question for journals today is probably at which geographical locations it still makes sense to offer print editions.
Not all readers of academic literature write their own contributions, which makes their reading behaviour difficult to grasp. In this context, an indicator of reading behaviour might be the frequency of use of different sources, which is often recorded by libraries. Vaughan (
2003), for example, applies usage statistics from a university library to investigate the short-term effects of online availability on the use of print journals. The results show that the use of print journals roughly halved during the observation period from 1999 to 2001 (Vaughan
2003). Williams et al. (
2006) investigate the advantages and disadvantages of buying online vs. print journals and find that readers increasingly prefer access to online journals. The majority of online journal articles are now published in the two formats HTML and PDF, with the HTML format often containing hyperlinks from one article to another (Davidson
2005). These links increase the wealth of information for readers and allow them to immediately verify the accuracy of the content cited (Davidson
2005).
However, a significant disadvantage of increasing the efficiency of online searches with hyperlinking is that the results may be channelled through a filter of prevailing opinions (Evans
2008). This is supported by a study by Evans (
2008), based on 34 million articles and their citations, which shows that as the prevalence of online issues increases, more recent sources are cited from a smaller number of journals and articles. Similar to internet platforms such as Facebook, an information bubble could emerge, in which opposing views are systematically excluded. A related problem is that authors preferably use frequently cited articles that come from a relatively small number of (highly ranked) journals (Evans
2008), which also can contribute to an information bubble. This becomes even more problematic for lower ranked journals, because for authors to overcome the barriers to publishing in high-ranking journals, they must base their literature review on the most frequently cited articles and play according to the rules of the market (Collin et al.
1996).
As a remedy, Beverungen et al. (
2012) consider taking publishers out of the game and placing journals (which should be accessible online and provide OA options) under the direct control of the editorial board. However, they also critically note that in a world of online publications, it becomes more difficult to distinguish between journals of good and bad quality, such that the price of access to academic articles could remain a relevant indicator (Beverungen et al.
2012) and well-known publishers serve as a costly signal of good-quality journals.
2.2 Online availability and open access
Before discussing online availability and OA of written content in more detail, the terms should be differentiated. There are two main reasons why online availability is not necessarily synonymous with a large group of users having access to online content. The first reason is that access to the internet is a prerequisite. While this has become a rather historical aspect in many places, access to the internet was not a matter of course in the early years of digitalisation and is still not a matter of course in some parts of the world. Second, financial restrictions in the form of subscription fees play a role (Craig et al.
2007; Jeon and Rochet
2010). In most cases, they are covered by institutions such as universities, with which one must be connected to benefit from the licenses.
For many years now, searching for content has not required the use of electronic search terminals in libraries. Instead, meta search engines such as Google Scholar have been established, which can be used free of charge and independently of location. In this context, Brophy and Bawden (
2005) stress that Google offers immediate access to a large proportion of full-text material, which puts it in serious competition with libraries. Another advantage of meta search engines is that they provide a consistent user face which makes it easier to find literature and combine the results of different search engines (Lawrence and Giles
1999). In addition, meta search engines can be used to find so-called “grey literature”, which is less visible than journal articles (Goodrum et al.
2001), but can have the advantage of providing very up-to-date insights.
Regardless of the access modalities, most academic journals from various disciplines are available online (Borgman
2008), with the online version of the articles being published on average 3 months before the print version (Das and Das
2006). The amount of online content that an academic journal offers varies widely, where younger journals are more often only available in the online format while older journals sometimes only put a selection of older issues online (Borgman
2008). The fact that there are still print-only journals may be because of economic reasons. For example, third-party providers such as the subscription journal archiving service Muse can offer their members OA to online issues (Davidson
2005). If a user group belongs to the customer base of a journal, this can lead customers to cancel their subscriptions (Davidson
2005). Thus, when readers have no incentive to pay for an individual subscription, because they can use full online access through institutional providers (Davidson
2005), some journals may find it economically beneficial to offer no online content and retain their print-only status.
In addition to economic considerations, academic journals have an interest in obtaining a high number of citations to increase their visibility and citation-based success indicators like the impact factor or immediacy index. While Lawrence (
2001) finds a positive correlation between online availability and citation rates, Anderson et al. (
2001) show that online-only peer-reviewed content is cited at an average rate, so that online availability alone does not seem sufficient for explaining increased citation rates. In this context, a closer look at the topic of OA seems reasonable, since free access to written content might be a relevant component in explaining citation frequencies.
OA is a noteworthy development (Boufarss
2020) that influences the workflow in academic journals, their credibility, indexability, and quality (Gasparyan et al.
2013). OA can be offered by academic journals, either generally or for selected articles often depending on a fee by the authors, or by authors themselves who give free access on the internet to a version of their article (Björk et al.
2010). Demanding fees from authors enables journals to offer articles free of charge (Jeon and Rochet
2010), which increases their likelihood of getting read and cited. Laakso et al. (
2011) show a rapid increase in OA publications from 1993 to 2009, which can be divided into OA’s pioneering years (1993–1999), innovation years (2000–2004), and consolidation years (2005–2009). According to Davidson (
2005), the OA movement is now generally committed to making all articles freely available online 6 months after their publication. Björk et al. (
2010) show that OA already has a significantly positive effect on the accessibility of academic literature.
In addition to accessibility, the influence of OA on the citation rates of academic publications is of interest (Borgman
2008). Bernius and Hanauske (
2009) suggest that if two authors publish articles of similar quality, OA leads to increased citations as OA articles are on average read and downloaded more frequently than charged articles. Eysenbach (
2006) confirms that OA articles are more quickly noticed and cited than non-OA articles in the same journals. However, Gaulé and Maystre (
2011) doubt the result of Eysenbach (
2006) and other cross-sectional studies and address probable sources of endogeneity. They conclude that high-level articles are more likely to be submitted as OA articles to hybrid journals that offer an OA option. Pinfield et al. (
2017) point in a similar direction as they find a positive correlation between a journal’s price and its impact factor.
2.3 Success indicators of academic journals
When considering the success of academic journals, economic success (e.g., number of subscribers) should be differentiated from scientific success (e.g., number of citations), whereby both types of success are probably correlated. We focus our study on the scientific success of academic journals, for which we use the well-established practice of citation analysis (Azar and Brock
2008; Magri and Solari
1996; Todorov and Glänzel
1988). In this context, citations are used to measure the recognition of both individual publications and journals (Borgman
2008).
Even though citation analysis is fundamentally based on an error-prone technical matching process in which citing sources and cited sources are identified (van Raan
2005), citation-based measures such as the impact factor and immediacy index (see Table
1 below) are widely used to evaluate scientific output (Abramo et al.
2019; Borokhovich et al.
1999; Groesser
2012; Krell
2012; Thelwall
2012). According to Krell (
2012), the impact factor is particularly common in journal-focused analyses, which is reasonable, since the number of citable items is taken into account in the calculation (see Table
1). However, Atchison and Bull (
2015) point out that the impact factor has limitations, e.g., that it can be strongly influenced by a small number of frequently cited articles. To alleviate this problem, it is advisable to use the average value of the impact factor over, for example, a 5-year period. Furthermore, Todorov and Glänzel (
1988) stress that citation-based measures strongly depend on the citation practices established in a field, so that only journals within a specific field should be compared.
Table 1
List of variables
Dependent variables | |
Immediacy index | The immediacy index is the average number of times articles in a journal are cited in the year they are published |
Impact factor | The impact factor is defined as all citations in the current year to scholarly items by a journal published in the previous two years, divided by the total number of scholarly items (these comprise articles, reviews, and proceedings papers) published in the journal in the previous two years |
Explanatory variables | |
Access category | Categorical variable equal to 0 if no open access is being offered at all, equal to 1 if all issues and articles are freely available, and equal to 2 if open access is provided only for selected issues or articles |
Digital services | Categorical variable equal to 1 if the journal is amongst the first to introduce digital services (before 1996), equal to 2 if it is a follower (1996–2000), and equal to 3 if it is a late mover (2001–2016) |
First edition | The year in which a journal published its first edition |
Journal category | Categorical variable equal to 1 if it is an online journal, equal to 2 if the journal is available in both print and online, and equal to 3 if it is a print-only journal |
Publisher category | Categorical variable equal to 1 if a journal has a commercial publisher, equal to 2 if it has a non-commercial publisher, and equal to 3 if the publisher is a university press |
Submission fees | Categorical variable equal to 0 if the journal has no submission fees at all, equal to 1 if a submission fee is always required, and equal to 2 if a fee has to be paid only if the authors want their article to be freely available on the internet |
The Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) is an established source for the collection of citation-based success indicators, as it makes data available on an annual level and differentiated by thematic fields (Borokhovich et al.
1999; Todorov and Glänzel
1988). Respective data can be retrieved, for example, from Thomson Reuter’s Web of Science (Azar and Brock
2008; Borgman
2008).