Which Factors are associated with Open Access Publishing? A Springer Nature Case Study

TL;DR

This study analyzes factors influencing Open Access publishing using a large Springer Nature dataset, revealing how income, author experience, and journal type affect OA publication choices and highlighting existing inequalities.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of demographic and journal-related factors associated with OA publishing, using correlation, regression, and machine learning methods.

Findings

Authors with APC waivers publish more in gold-OA journals.

APC discounts have limited impact on OA publishing rates.

Country income level and author experience strongly predict OA publishing behavior.

Abstract

Open Access (OA) facilitates access to articles. But, authors or funders often must pay the publishing costs preventing authors who do not receive financial support from participating in OA publishing and citation advantage for OA articles. OA may exacerbate existing inequalities in the publication system rather than overcome them. To investigate this, we studied 522,411 articles published by Springer Nature. Employing correlation and regression analyses, we describe the relationship between authors affiliated with countries from different income levels, their choice of publishing model, and the citation impact of their papers. A machine learning classification method helped us to explore the importance of different features in predicting the publishing model. The results show that authors eligible for APC waivers publish more in gold-OA journals than others. In contrast, authors eligible for an APC discount have the lowest ratio of OA publications, leading to the assumption that this discount insufficiently motivates authors to publish in gold-OA journals. We found a strong correlation between the journal rank and the publishing model in gold-OA journals, whereas the OA option is mostly avoided in hybrid journals. Also, results show that the countries' income level, seniority, and experience with OA publications are the most predictive factors for OA publishing in hybrid journals.