Diamond open access and open infrastructures have shaped the Canadian scholarly journal landscape since the start of the digital era

TL;DR

This study analyzes the evolution of Canadian scholarly journals, highlighting the dominance of Diamond open access, the role of open infrastructures, and recent trends in journal creation and cessation during the digital era.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive dataset and analysis of Canadian journals, emphasizing the impact of open access and digital infrastructures on the landscape since the 20th century.

Findings

62% of journals adopt Diamond open access

Predominance of Social Sciences and Humanities disciplines

Increased journal cessation among recent publications

Abstract

Scholarly publishing involves multiple stakeholders having various types of interest. In Canada, the implication of universities, the presence of societies and the availability of governmental support for periodicals seem to have contributed to a rather diverse ecosystem of journals. This study presents in detail the current state of these journals, in addition to past trends and transformations during the 20th century and, in particular, the digital era. To this effect, we created a new dataset, including a total of 1256 journals, 944 of which appeared to be active today, specifically focusing on the supporting organizations behind the journals, the types of (open) access, disciplines, geographic origins, languages of publication and hosting platforms and tools. The main overarching traits across Canadian scholarly journals are an important presence of Diamond open access, which has been adopted by 62% of the journals, a predominance of the Social Sciences and Humanities disciplines and a scarce presence of the major commercial publishers. The digital era allowed for the development of open infrastructures, which contributed to the creation of a new generation of journals that massively adopted Diamond open access, often supported by university libraries. However, journal cessation also increased, especially among the recently founded journals. These results provide valuable insights for the design of tailored practices and policies that cater to the needs of different types of periodicals and that take into account the evolving practices across the Canadian scholarly journal landscape.