A framework for systematic analysis of Open Access journals and its application in software engineering and information systems

TL;DR

This paper introduces a comprehensive framework for analyzing Open Access journals, applies it to software engineering and information systems, and compares journals based on fees, transparency, and value added.

Contribution

It presents a novel analysis framework for OA journals and provides the first systematic study of OA publishing in SE and IS fields.

Findings

High publication fees lack justification and transparency.

OA journals in SE and IS show varied characteristics.

Fee-based journals differ in value and transparency.

Abstract

This article is a contribution towards an understanding of Open Access (OA) publishing. It proposes an analysis framework of 18 core attributes, divided into the areas of Bibliographic information, Activity metrics, Economics, Accessibility, and Predatory issues of OA journals. The framework has been employed in a systematic analysis of 30 OA journals in software engineering (SE) and information systems (IS), which were selected among 386 OA journals in Computer Science from the Directory of OA Journals. An analysis is performed on the sample of the journals, to provide an overview of the current situation of OA journals in the fields of SE and IS. The journals are then compared between-group, according to the presence of a publication fee. A within-group analysis is performed on the journals requesting publication charges to authors, in order to understand what is the value added according to different price ranges. This article offers several contributions. It presents an overview of OA definitions and models. It provides an analysis framework born from the observation of data and the literature. It raises the need to study OA in the fields of SE and IS while offering a first analysis. Finally, it provides recommendations to readers of OA journals. This paper highlights several concerns still threatening OA publishing in the fields of SE and IS. Among them, it is shown that high publication fees are not sufficiently justified by the publishers, which often lack transparency and may prevent authors from adopting OA.