RESEARCH ARTICLE
Assessing the effect of article processing charges
on the geographic diversity of authors using
Elsevier’s “Mirror Journal” system
a n o p e n a c c e s s
j o u r n a l
Audrey C. Smith*
, Leandra Merz*
Akhil R. Kshirsagar
, Jesse B. Borden
, and Emilio M. Bruna
, Chris K. Gulick
,
*Audrey C. Smith and Leandra Merz contributed equally to this work.
University of Florida
Citation: Smith, UN. C., Merz, L., Borden,
J. B., Gulick, C. K., Kshirsagar, UN. R., &
Bruna, E. M. (2021). Assessing the
effect of article processing charges on
the geographic diversity of authors
using Elsevier’s “Mirror Journal”
system. Quantitative Science Studies,
2(4), 1123–1143. https://doi.org/10.1162
/qss_a_00157
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00157
Supporting Information:
https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00157
Received: 2 settembre 2020
Accepted: 10 agosto 2021
Corresponding Author:
Emilio M. Bruna
embruna@ufl.edu
Handling Editor:
Ludo Waltman
Keywords: Global North, Global South, Gold OA, hybrid journals, open access, parent journals,
Simpson’s index, waivers
ABSTRACT
Journals publishing open access (OA) articles often require that authors pay article processing
charges (APC). Researchers in the Global South often cite APCs as a major financial obstacle to
OA publishing, especially in widely recognized or prestigious outlets. Consequently, it has
been hypothesized that authors from the Global South will be underrepresented in journals
charging APCs. We tested this hypothesis using more than 37,000 articles from Elsevier’s
“Mirror journal” system, in which a hybrid “Parent” journal and its Gold OA “Mirror” share
editorial boards and standards for acceptance. Most articles were non-OA; 45% of articles had
lead authors based in either the United States or China. After correcting for the effect of this
dominance and differences in sample size, we found that OA articles published in Parent and
Mirror journals had lead authors with similar Geographic Diversity. Tuttavia, Author
Geographic Diversity of OA articles was significantly lower than that of non-OA articles. Most
OA articles were written by authors in high-income countries, and there were no articles in
Mirror journals by authors in low-income countries. Our results for Elsevier’s Mirror-Parent
system are consistent with the hypothesis that APCs are a barrier to OA publication for
scientists from the Global South.
1.
INTRODUCTION
Open Access articles can be read without payment or subscription to the journal in which they
were published, and the number of OA articles published annually continues to grow dramat-
ically (Piwowar, Priem et al., 2018). In addition to benefiting readers without access to tradi-
tional subscription-based journals, OA publishing can also benefit an article’s authors (reviewed
in McKiernan, Bourne et al., 2016; Tennant, Waldner et al., 2016). For instance, OA articles can
garner more online views, have higher download rates, and accrue more citations over time than
articles in subscription outlets (Davis, 2011; Eysenbach, 2006; Wang, Liu et al., 2015). Metrics
such as these are increasingly taken into consideration when conducting performance
evaluations of scientists, including the tenure and promotion process in academic institutions
(Schimanski & Alperin, 2018). Publishing OA articles can therefore play an important role in a
scientist’s professional advancement and status (MacLeavy, Harris, & Johnston, 2020;
McKiernan et al., 2016). These benefits may accrue regardless of whether publishing in
Copyright: © 2021 Audrey C. Smith,
Leandra Merz, Jesse B. Borden, Chris
K. Gulick, Akhil R. Kshirsagar, E
Emilio M. Bruna. Published under a
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
Internazionale (CC BY 4.0) licenza.
The MIT Press
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APCS and Author Diversity
“Gold OA” journals, where all articles are immediately available, in “hybrid” journals that
publish both OA and subscription-only content, or when authors place a version of their
article in a repository (cioè., self-archiving or “Green OA”) (Piwowar et al., 2018). Tuttavia,
the professional value of OA is likely to be especially high when publishing in Gold OA
journals, especially if they have other characteristics valued by evaluators: name recognition,
high impact factor, perceived prestige, or association with certain academic societies (Gray,
2020; Schimanski & Alperin, 2018).
Inoltre, publication in Gold OA journals is increasingly required by government agen-
cies and private foundations that fund research (Björk & Solomon, 2014; Pinfield, 2013). Most
Gold OA journals allow authors to publish at no expense (Crow, 2009). Tuttavia, the vast
majority of OA articles are published in a subset of OA journals that require authors pay an
“article processing charge” (APC) to help defray the cost of journal operations or lost subscrip-
tion revenue (Crow, 2009; Kozak & Hartley, 2013; OpenAPC, 2020; Pavan & Barbosa, 2018;
Piwowar et al., 2018). A recent survey found that for OA journals charging APCs—a list that
includes the most prestigious and widely recognized Gold OA outlets—the average APC was
$908 (± $608 SD, N = 4,418 journals), con 500 journals charging at least $2,000 E 12 journals charging APCs over $4,000 (Morrison, 2019; Singh & Morrison, 2019). For many
researchers, especially those working in the Global South1, these APCs are an insurmountable
financial obstacle that prevents them from publishing in the most desirable OA journals (Bahlai,
Bartlett et al., 2019; Matheka, Nderitu et al., 2014; Peterson, Emmett, & Greenberg, 2013). Questo
is especially true for scholars writing without any coauthors that could potentially contribute a
portion of the APC. It is even the case for those with access to funding, as even modest APCs can
consume a large fraction of their research budget (Pavan & Barbosa, 2018). Although publishers
have attempted to address this with policies aimed at reducing or even waiving APCs for authors
in some countries, many researchers in the Global South are ineligible for even partial waivers
(Ellers, Crowther, & Harvey, 2017; Lawson, 2015; Table S1). This has led many to argue that the
APCs allowing authors in low-income countries to read previously inaccessible journals simul-
taneously prevents them from publishing in the same journals (Ellers et al., 2017; Fontúrbel &
Vizentin-Bugoni, 2021; Matheka et al., 2014; Poynder, 2019).
Despite the prevalence of this assertion, tests of whether APCs shape author representation
in the OA literature remain rare (Ellers et al., 2017). This is largely because it has been chal-
lenging, if not impossible, to identify journals for comparison whose primary difference is
whether or not they charge APCs. In 2018, Tuttavia, the publishing company Elsevier intro-
duced the concept of “Mirror journals”—Gold OA versions of established Hybrid titles with
identical editorial boards, peer review procedures, and standards for acceptance (Cochrane,
2018; Harrison, 2019). The goal was for this identical editorial structure, coupled with a nearly
identical name (per esempio., Journal of Dentistry/Journal of Dentistry: X, Ecological Engineering/Eco-
logical Engineering: X ), to elevate the visibility and status of the OA Mirrors to a level compa-
rable to their Hybrid “Parent” journal (Harrison, 2019), thereby attracting authors preferring to
publish in a Gold OA journal or required to do so by the organization funding their research.
All Mirror journals charge an APC (median = $2,600, range = $1,318–$3,750; Tavolo 1); as with most Hybrid journals, there is no cost to authors publishing in Parent journals unless they wish their article to be OA. For many of the Parent-Mirror pairs the APC was identical, but in cases where it was not, the APCs of Parent journals were on average $630.70 (± 506.82)
1 The world’s “developing” or “emerging” economies, primarily located in Latin America, Asia, Africa, E
the Middle East (Brandt, 1980).
Quantitative Science Studies
1124
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APCS and Author Diversity
Parent journals published by Elsevier included in this study, the number of open access (OA) and non-OA articles they published
Tavolo 1.
during our focal time frame, the number of articles published in each Mirror journal during the same time period, and the article processing
charge (APC) required by each journal for OA publication. With two exceptions the titles of Parent and Mirror journals are identical except for
the “X” at the end of Mirror versions (per esempio., Research Policy X, Optical Materials X).
Title
Analytica Chimica Acta
Atherosclerosis
Atmospheric Environment
Biochimie1
Biosensors & Bioelectronics
Chaos, Solitons & Fractals
Chemical Engineering Science
Chemical Physics Letters
Contraception
Cytokine
Ecological Engineering
Energy Conversion & Management
European J of Obstetrics, Gyn, & Repro Bio
Expert Systems With Applications
Food Chemistry
Gene
International J of Pharmaceutics
J of Asian Earth Sciences
J of Biomedical Informatics
J of Biotechnology
J of Computational Physics
J of Dentistry
J of Hydrology
J of Non-Crystalline Solids
J of Structural Biology
Materials Letters
Microelectronic Engineering2
Nutrition
Quantitative Science Studies
Parent Journal
Subscription
1,289
Open Access
8
Mirror Journal
Open Access
19
APC (U.S.$) Mirror 1,850 Parent 3,500 265 1,015 835 1,170 673 1,022 1,137 183 425 437 1,713 527 1,084 3,028 1,079 1,293 602 108 301 970 208 1,417 750 152 2,494 547 416 127 41 71 0 0 22 15 16 47 18 29 36 22 49 14 36 6 132 16 25 16 42 11 37 12 26 26 5 67 49 9 15 45 23 21 7 13 17 84 10 44 21 38 10 15 10 35 5 37 33 17 30 39 2 2,308 1,400 1,318 3,500 2,200 3,500 3,050 3,200 3,400 2,600 3,100 2,500 2,200 2,800 3,400 3,700 2,600 2,350 2,820 2,800 3,000 3,200 2,200 2,750 2,000 2,020 2,050 3,200 1,400 2,880 4,080 2,200 3,500 3,050 3,200 3,400 3,400 3,100 2,500 2,640 2,800 3,400 3,700 2,600 2,800 3,200 2,800 3,000 3,200 2,200 3,310 3,100 2,200 2,850 1125 l D o w n o a d e d f r o m h t t p : / / d i r e c t . m i t . / e d u q s s / a r t i c e – p d l f / / / / 2 4 1 1 2 3 2 0 0 7 9 3 2 q s s _ a _ 0 0 1 5 7 p d . / f b y g u e s t t o n 0 7 S e p e m b e r 2 0 2 3 APCS and Author Diversity Title Optical Materials Research Policy Respiratory Medicine Sleep Medicine Toxicon Vaccine Veterinary Parasitology Water Research World Neurosurgery Resources, Conservation, & Recycling Table 1. (continued ) Parent Journal Subscription 1,020 197 267 401 271 1,016 221 2,083 3,441 552 Open Access 32 58 31 20 7 482 17 187 29 69 Mirror Journal Open Access 34 2 14 8 26 42 21 41 43 24 APC (U.S.$)
Mirror
1,500
2,400
3,500
3,360
3,300
2,450
3,200
3,750
2,600
3,500
Parent
2,200
2,760
3,500
3,900
3,300
2,950
3,000
3,750
2,240
3,500
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Total no. of articles
34,609
1,832
975
1 OA Mirror title: Biochimie Open.
2 OA Mirror title: Micro and Nano Engineering.
higher. Mirror and Parent journals are cross-promoted on each others’ websites, as are the
publisher’s APC waiver policies.
The Parent-Mirror system is an ideal “natural experiment” with which to test for associa-
tions between APCs and author diversity. Primo, it eliminates three of the major factors that have
hampered prior comparisons of OA and subscription journals: between-journal differences in
aims and scope, potential author base, and the editorial process and criteria with which man-
uscripts are evaluated. Inoltre, several of the journal websites emphasize that articles are
processed with neither editors nor referees aware of whether an article was submitted to the
Parent or Mirror journal, which helps ameliorate any potential effects of any editor or referee
biases. Third, IL 38 journal pairs span a breadth of disciplines ranging from environmental
policy to particle physics to veterinary medicine. Questo, coupled with our sampling design,
allows us to draw broader generalizations than if we had limited our analyses to journals from
a single field. Finalmente, one can compare the authors of articles in the Mirror journal with those
of OA articles in the Parent journal. This comparison can be used to infer whether any Parent-
Mirror differences could in fact be due to factors other than APCs that also shape author sub-
mission decisions, such as journal impact factor, national incentives, funder mandates, prior
experience with the Parent journal, or limited familiarity with Mirror journals.
We used data from over 37,000 articles published in 38 Parent journals and their respective
Mirrors to investigate the relationship between APCs and the geographic structure of author
communities. We test three predictions. Primo, that the geographic diversity of authors publishing
in Mirror journals would be similar to that of authors publishing OA articles in Parent journals.
Secondo, that the geographic diversity of authors publishing OA articles—whether in Mirror jour-
nals or Parent journals—would be lower than that of non-OA articles in Parent journals. Third,
that any such reductions would be due to OA articles having fewer lead authors (cioè., first or
single-authors) from the low-income countries predominantly located in the Global South.
Quantitative Science Studies
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APCS and Author Diversity
We tested these hypotheses using diversity indices derived from information theory that are com-
monly used across disciplines for quantifying and comparing the structure of groups (Calver,
Bryant, & Wardell-Johnson, 2018; Espin, Palmas et al., 2017; Magurran, 2004). In doing so
we not only provide a robust analysis of the association between APCs and author representa-
zione, but also the first comparison of author communities in the Mirror-Parent publishing
framework.
2. METHODS
In July 2020, we downloaded the complete reference records for all “Articles” and “Reviews”
published in 38 Mirror journals (Tavolo 1) from the Web of Science Core Collection and Scopus
databases. We then identified the date of the first publication in each Mirror journal and down-
loaded the records of all articles published in the corresponding Parent journal from that date
through July 2020 (Tavolo 1). Each article from the Parent journals was identified as being either
OA or non-OA (cioè., requiring a subscription or payment to read). Finalmente, for all papers, we
identified the country in which the first author’s primary institution of affiliation was located
and assigned that country to its respective World Bank Region2, World Bank Lending Group3
(World Bank, 2020), and Elsevier “Research4Life” APC Waiver Group (100% Waiver, 50%
Waiver, No Waiver; Table S1).
To quantify the geographic structure of our focal author communities we used a diversity
index derived from information theory. The most commonly used diversity metrics are calcu-
lated using two pieces of information. The first is Richness (R), which is the number of distinct
categories contained in a sample (per esempio., the number of countries in which authors from a group
of journals are based). The second is Evenness, which is the relative frequency of each cate-
gory in the sample (cioè., the relative proportion of authors based in each country). A robust and
widely used diversity index is the reciprocal transformation of Simpson’s Index:
D2 ¼
P
1
i−1 p2
R
io
where R is the maximum value of Richness, and pi is the proportional abundance of type i
during time interval t. Values of D2 calculated for different groups are directly comparable;
larger values of D2 indicate greater diversity, with the maximum potential diversity equal to
the highest value of Richness in the group (Magurran, 2004).
We began by comparing the geographic diversity of authors publishing in OA Mirror jour-
nals with that of authors publishing OA articles in Parent journals (Prediction 1) using permu-
tations tests. We found no evidence of a difference in the Geographic Diversity of authors of
these two groups of OA articles (for additional details see Table S2, Figure S3).
2.1. Correcting for Differences in Sample Size
The number of OA articles in both Parent and Mirror journals precluded robust comparisons of
Geographic Diversity for journal pairs. We therefore calculated and compared the Geographic
Diversity (D2) of lead authors at the level of “article type”: OA articles in Mirror journals (cioè.,
2 Europe/Central Asia, East Asia/ Pacific, Latin America/Caribbean, Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, Middle
East/North Africa, North America (cioè., Canada, stati Uniti).
3 High income (per capita GNI > $12,476, including both Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) members and non-OECD members, upper middle income (per capita GNI $4,036–$12,475), Lower middle income (per capita GNI $1,026–$4,035), and Low income (per capita GNI < $1,025).
Quantitative Science Studies
1127
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APCS and Author Diversity
MOA), OA articles in Parent journals (i.e., POA), and subscription-only (i.e., non-OA) articles
in Parent journals (Psub). It is important to note, however, that we cannot simply pool the OA
and non-OA articles from the different journals and compare the resulting Diversity scores of
the three groups. This is because there were 12-fold more subscription-only articles than OA
articles, and Richness—which is used to calculate (D2)—increases with sample size. Further-
more, any analyses conducted on a collection of articles drawn from multiple journals would
be skewed by patterns in the journals with the most articles. We therefore used
abundance-matched bootstrapping (Efron & Tibshirani, 1994) to compare the geographic
diversity of the pooled OA articles with that of 1,000 different collections of non-OA articles.
These collections were generated by counting the number of articles published in each Mirror,
then randomly sampling with replacement an identical number of subscription-only articles
from the respective Parent journal (Fox, 2015). To determine if the Geographic Diversity of
authors for MOA and POA articles was significantly different from that of PSub articles, we
calculated ^P—the proportion of Psub collections whose value of D2 was below that of each
OA collection. A ^P > 0.975 indicates that the Diversity of an OA collection is significantly
greater than that of the Psub samples; OA Diversity is significantly lower than that of Psub
samples when ^P < 0.025. The same procedure was used to compare the proportion of Psub
and OA articles written by authors based in different global regions, national income categories,
and APC waiver categories. Results for the MOA vs. Psub and POA vs. Psub comparisons were
qualitatively similar, so we report only the results for of the MOA vs. Psub comparison.
The analyses above were conducted for two types of lead authors: the authors of
single-authored papers and the first authors of coauthored papers. We analyzed single- and
coauthored papers separately because of the potential insights into financial constraints that
could emerge from divergent results for these author types: Although the APC for a
single-authored paper is the responsibility of one person, the APC of a coauthored paper
can potentially be divided among—or even paid entirely by—coauthors with access to
funding.
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2.2. Assessing and Correcting for Categorical Dominance
Simpson’s Index is robust to moderate differences in sampling effort. However, it is sensitive to
how equitably samples are distributed between categories (i.e., it is a “dominance” or “even-
ness” index; Magurran, 2004), meaning that more dominant categories will have dispropor-
tionately greater effects on D2. Failure to consider this effect can lead to incorrect inference
regarding differences in diversity, especially in cases where dominance is most pronounced.
This is because a small number of dominant categories can dramatically lower D2 even if the
number of remaining categories and their proportional representation are identical. Put
another way, dominant categories “suppress” the contributions to diversity of the other cate-
gories in a group.
Because more than 40% of first authors were based in either China or the United States
(Figure S1), we sought to assess if this dominance could be biasing estimates of author diver-
sity. To do so we conducted a series of simulations in which we sequentially removed authors
from each country and measured the resulting change in D2. China was the only country
whose exclusion led to increased diversity, with a relative effect on D2 that was 142 times that
of any other country (Figure S2). We then excluded all papers with first authors based in China
and repeated our simulations. Diversity only increased (eight-fold) when excluding articles
with first authors based in the United States, with a relative effect on diversity that was 31 times
greater than that of any other country (Figure S2). These results indicate that there is a large and
Quantitative Science Studies
1128
APCS and Author Diversity
Table 2. Geographic Diversity of lead authors publishing Open Access (i.e., OA) articles in Mirror and Parent journals vs. subscription-only,
non-OA, articles in Parent journals (Psub). The value for Psub is the mean of 1,000 bootstrap-generated article col lections identical in size and
structure to each OA group with which they are being compared (i.e., OA in Mirror, OA in Parent). Single: authors of single-authored articles;
First: first authors of coauthored articles. Note that because Diversity values are sample-size dependent, it is not appropriate to compare values
generated for one comparison with those generated for another (e.g., single-author OA articles in Parent journals with first-author OA articles
in Mirror journals).
Author
Single
OA source
Mirror
First
Parent
Mirror
Parent
OA
11.2
7.5
15.6
13.3
All countries
Psub (mean ± SD)
14.07 ± 2.58
9.87 ± 3.21
9.25 ± 0.69
11.63 ± 0.55
^P
0.15
0.23
1.00
1.00
China & USA excluded
Psub (mean ± SD)
22.55 ± 2.8
9.85 ± 3.48
24.69 ± 1.37
24.35 ± 0.86
OA
17.0
10.0
19.9
16.4
^P
0.0
0.2
0.0
0.0
negative bias in D2 when including authors from the United States and China in analyses. We
therefore conducted all analyses both with and without authors from these two countries.
We also repeated all analyses with Shannon’s Index, which is somewhat less sensitive to
extreme differences in relative frequency than Simpson’s Index. The results for Simpson’s
and Shannon’s indices were qualitatively similar (Figure S4), so we present here only the
results for Simpson’s Index.
All data analyses were carried out with code written in the R statistical programming lan-
guage (R Core Team, 2020). We used the refplitr (Fournier, Boone et al., 2020) and
bibliometrix (Aria & Cuccurullo, 2017) libraries to process the Web of Science and Sco-
pus records (respectively) and georeference lead authors. These packages were unable to
georeference the addresses of 52 first authors; we identified the country in which these
authors were based from the original articles. Richness and Diversity were calculated with
the vegan library (Oksanen, Blanchet et al., 2019), and ggplot2 (Wickham, Averick et al.,
2019) was used for all data visualizations.
3. RESULTS
The 38 Mirror journals published 975 articles from their inception through the date we down-
loaded the article records. During the same interval, their respective Parent journals published
36,232 articles, of which 1,832 were OA (Table 1). Lead authors were collectively based in
144 countries (i.e., all journals and article categories pooled). However, the number of coun-
tries in which authors were based varied substantially among categories (Table S3), as did the
relative frequency of countries in which authors were based (i.e., Evenness, Table S3). For
example, authors of single-author publications, which accounted for 21% of the articles in
Mirror journals (N = 202) but only 2% of articles in Parent journals (N = 750), were collec-
tively based in N = 75 countries. However, the authors of single-authored OA articles in Mirror
and Parent journals were based in N = 38 and N = 15 countries, respectively (Table 2).
Although 45% of articles had a lead author whose primary institutional address was in either
the United States or China (Figure S1), there was an important difference among journal types
in the representation of authors from these two countries. Although U.S. authors published
approximately two times more OA articles than authors based in China, authors from China
published three times more subscription-only articles in Parent journals than authors from the
United States (Figures 1 and 2).
Quantitative Science Studies
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APCS and Author Diversity
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For single-author papers: (A) the percentage of authors of articles in open access (OA) Mirror journals that are based in different
Figure 1.
countries, (B) the percentage of authors of OA articles in Parent journals that are based in different countries, and (C) the percentage of authors
of non-OA articles in Parent journals that are based in different countries. Numbers adjacent to bars are the number of articles with lead authors
based in that country. The remaining countries are grouped by Income Category. The number of additional countries in each Income Category is
to the left of the category, while the total number of articles published by authors based in these countries is the number to the right of the bar.
Quantitative Science Studies
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APCS and Author Diversity
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Figure 2. For coauthored papers: (A) the percentage of authors of articles in open access (OA) Mirror journals that are based in different
countries, (B) the percentage of authors of OA articles in Parent journals that are based in different countries, and (C) the percentage of authors
of non-OA articles in Parent journals that are based in different countries. Numbers adjacent to bars are the number of articles with lead authors
based in that country. The remaining countries are grouped by Income Category. The number of additional countries in each Income Category
is to the left of the category, while the total number of articles published by authors based in these countries is the number to the right of the bar.
Quantitative Science Studies
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Figure 3. Geographic Diversity (D2) of authors publishing N = 975 articles in Mirror journals (dashed line) and 1,000 collections of N = 975
non-OA articles in Parent journals (sampled from N = 34,400 articles by bootstrapping).
Table 3. Monthly stipends for graduate students in select countries. The value of the stipend in U.S. currency is based on the exchange rate in
December 2020.
Country
Brazil
Mexico
India
Indonesia
South Africa
Agency
CNPq1
CONACYT2
SERB3
RISTEKDIKTI4
NRF5
1 https://cnpq.br/apresentacao13/
2 https://www.conacyt.gob.mx/index.php/becas-y-posgrados/becas-nacionales
3 https://www.serb.gov.in/pmfdr.php
4 https://scholarshiproar.com/knb-scholarship/
5 https://www.nrf.ac.za
6 Min. value, Prime Minister’s Doctoral Fellowship.
7 Max. value, Prime Minister’s Doctoral Fellowship.
Degree
MS/MA
PhD
MS/MA
PhD
PhD6
PhD7
MS/MA
MS/MA
PhD
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Stipend (U.S.$) 294 f b y g u e s t t o n 0 7 S e p e m b e r 2 0 2 3 431 588 783 747 978 195 670 687 Quantitative Science Studies 1132 APCS and Author Diversity 3.1. Geographic Diversity 3.1.1. First authors of coauthored articles When including all countries, there was no significant difference in the Geographic Diversity of authors that published OA and Subscription articles, regardless of whether the OA articles were published in Mirror or Parent journals. After correcting for the dominance of authors based in the United States and China, however, the Geographic Diversity of authors publishing OA articles was significantly lower than that of authors publishing Subscription articles. This was true for both OA articles published in Mirror journals (DMOA 2 = 17.5 vs. (cid:2)DPsub 2 = 24.24 ± l D o w n o a d e d f r o m h t t p : / / d i r e c t . m i t . / e d u q s s / a r t i c e - p d l f / / / / 2 4 1 1 2 3 2 0 0 7 9 3 2 q s s _ a _ 0 0 1 5 7 p d / . f b y g u e s t t o n 0 7 S e p e m b e r 2 0 2 3 Figure 4. Percentage of first authors that are based in different global regions. The dashed line is the value for N = 975 articles in open access (OA) Mirror journals; histograms are values for 1,000 identically sized collections of non-OA articles from Parent journals (sampled by boot- strapping from N = 34,400 articles). All countries, including the United States and China, are included. Quantitative Science Studies 1133 APCS and Author Diversity 1.46 SD) and those published in Parent journals (DPOA Figure 3, Table 2). 2 = 16.4 vs. (cid:2)DPsub 2 = 24.31 ± 0.86 SD; 3.1.2. Single-author articles The results were similar when comparing Single Author OA articles published in Mirror jour- nals with subscription articles in Parent journals: There was no significant difference in the values of D2 when all countries were included, but author diversity for OA articles was significantly lower once China and the United States had been removed (Figure 3, Table 2). In contrast to the other comparisons, however, there was no significant difference in author diversity between OA and subscription articles in Parent journals, regardless of whether China and the United States were included in the analyses (Table 2). This comparison encompasses <3% of the total number of articles published during our focal time frame. 3.2. Global Regions, National Income, and Waiver Categories After correcting for differences in sample size by bootstrapping, we found that articles in Mirror journals had significantly more authors from North America and the East Asia/Pacific region than subscription-only articles in Parent journals. They also had significantly fewer authors from Latin American and the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa (Figure 4, Table 4). Consequently, the authors of articles in Mirror journals were signif- icantly more likely to be based in high-income countries (Figure 5, Table 5), with authors from Percentage of articles in open access (OA) Mirror journals whose authors are based in different World Bank regions. The value for Table 4. non-OA articles in Parent journals is the mean percentage of 1,000 bootstrap-generated samples identical in size and structure to the articles published in Mirror journals. Single: authors of single-authored papers; First: first authors of coauthored papers. Countries All countries Author Single Region South Asia North America Sub-Saharan Africa Latin America & Caribbean Middle East & North Africa East Asia & Pacific Europe & Central Asia First South Asia North America Sub-Saharan Africa Latin America & Caribbean Middle East & North Africa East Asia & Pacific Europe & Central Asia Quantitative Science Studies non-OA Parent 2.98 4.55 4.86 8.73 14.16 15.68 49.06 4.73 3.30 4.63 10.45 14.62 17.53 44.76 Mirror 3.48 26.96 0.87 2.61 5.65 18.26 42.17 3.27 22.43 1.32 3.70 2.38 20.02 46.88 ^P 0.72 1.00 0.00 0.01 0.01 0.86 0.02 0.12 1.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.95 0.79 1134 l D o w n o a d e d f r o m h t t p : / / d i r e c t . m i t . / e d u q s s / a r t i c e - p d l f / / / / 2 4 1 1 2 3 2 0 0 7 9 3 2 q s s _ a _ 0 0 1 5 7 p d . / f b y g u e s t t o n 0 7 S e p e m b e r 2 0 2 3 APCS and Author Diversity middle-income countries significantly underrepresented. Overall, a nearly identical proportion of subscription-only articles in Parent journals had first authors based in upper middle and high-income countries (47.3% and 47.5%, respectively). In contrast, an overwhelming major- ity of articles in Mirror journals were written by first authors based in the high-income coun- tries of the Global North (81%; Figure S3). The lack of lead authors from low-income countries was especially notable. None of the 975 articles in Mirror journals, and only 0.15% of the articles in Parent journals, were written by lead authors based in low-income countries. Of these, the overwhelming majority were l D o w n o a d e d f r o m h t t p : / / d i r e c t . m i t . / e d u q s s / a r t i c e - p d l f / / / / 2 4 1 1 2 3 2 0 0 7 9 3 2 q s s _ a _ 0 0 1 5 7 p d . / f b y g u e s t t o n 0 7 S e p e m b e r 2 0 2 3 Figure 5. Percentage of first authors that are based in different World Bank Lending Groups. The dashed line is the value for N = 975 articles in open access (OA) Mirror journals; histograms are values for 1,000 identically sized collections of non-OA articles from Parent journals (sampled by bootstrapping from N = 34,400 articles). All countries, including the United States and China, are included. Quantitative Science Studies 1135 APCS and Author Diversity Percentage of articles in open access (OA) mirror journal whose authors are based in countries from different World Bank lending Table 5. groups. The value for non-OA articles in Parent journals is the mean percentage of 1,000 bootstrap-generated samples identical in size and structure to the articles published in Mirror journals. Single: authors of single-authored papers; First: first authors of coauthored papers. Countries All countries Author Single First Lending group Lower middle Upper middle High Low Lower middle Upper middle High non-OA Parent 9.14 31.36 59.24 2.38 13.88 27.75 56.92 Mirror 5.22 9.57 85.22 0.51 4.91 17.06 77.53 ^P 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 l D o w n o a d e d f r o m h t t p : / / d i r e c t . m i t . / e d u q s s / a r t i c e - p d l f / / / / 2 4 1 1 2 3 2 0 0 7 9 3 2 q s s _ a _ 0 0 1 5 7 p d / . f b y g u e s t t o n 0 7 S e p e m b e r 2 0 2 3 non-OA articles in Parent journals (N = 41 of 54; Figure 1B). When pooling across all journal and article types, there were authors from N = 19 low-income countries (vs. N = 60 high-income countries, Figure 2B). Ethiopia was the most productive low-income country (N = 9 articles), followed by the People’s Republic of Korea (N = 8). Finally, authors in coun- tries eligible for APC waivers published almost no OA articles in either Mirror or Parent journals—they published almost entirely subscription-only articles in Parent journals (Figure 6). 4. DISCUSSION One of the central tenets of OA publishing is that it helps make the scientific community more globally inclusive. This is considered particularly beneficial to scientific communities with limited financial resources, such as those in many countries of the Global South (Iyandemye & Thomas, 2019; Matheka et al., 2014; Ncayiyana, 2005). Although this benefit is undisputed, it has been suggested that OA publishing also has unintended negative consequences for the same author communities. Chief among these is that the OA funding model used by the most widely recognized and prestigious journals—a reliance on APCs—allows for readers with limited financial resources to access this scientific literature while preventing them from contributing to it. We found that for the overwhelming majority of articles published in the Mirror-Parent ecosystem, the Author Geographic Diversity of articles requiring APCs was significantly lower than that of articles requiring no fee. This was true regardless of whether the OA articles were published in the established Parent journals or the Gold OA Mirrors. The overwhelming majority of these OA articles also had lead authors based in high-income coun- tries. Despite being based in countries nominally eligible for APC waivers, authors from middle-income countries published proportionately few OA articles, but authors in low- income countries published almost entirely subscription-only articles in Parent journals. Taken together, these results strongly suggest that APCs are a barrier to OA publication by scientists from the low-income countries of the Global South. Although authors of articles in Mirror and Parent journals were based in similar numbers of countries, the specific countries in which they were based were markedly different. Articles in Quantitative Science Studies 1136 APCS and Author Diversity l D o w n o a d e d f r o m h t t p : / / d i r e c t . m i t . / e d u q s s / a r t i c e - p d l f / / / / 2 4 1 1 2 3 2 0 0 7 9 3 2 q s s _ a _ 0 0 1 5 7 p d . / f b y g u e s t t o n 0 7 S e p e m b e r 2 0 2 3 Figure 6. Percentage of first authors that are based in different Elsevier Waiver Groups. The solid line is the value for N = 975 articles in Mirror journals; histograms are values for 1,000 identically sized collections of subscription articles from Parent journals (sampled by bootstrapping from N = 34,400 articles). Mirror journals had a far higher proportion of authors from North America, Europe/Central Asia, and the East Asia/Pacific region than similarly sized collections of non-OA articles (Figure 4). This is in sharp contrast to the non-OA articles in Parent journals, where proportion- ately more authors were based in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, the Middle East/North Africa, and Latin America/ The Caribbean. This geographic distribution means that the authorship of OA articles is overwhelmingly concentrated in high-income countries (Figures 5 and S5). Middle-income countries are also proportionately underrepresented in the OA liter- ature. Five of the 15 countries publishing the most OA articles were in that category (i.e., China, India, Brazil, Mexico, Egypt; Figure 2A), vs. seven for subscription-only articles (China, India, Brazil, Iran, Turkey, Russia, Mexico; Figure 2B). Quantitative Science Studies 1137 APCS and Author Diversity Of the more than 37,000 articles we reviewed, only 0.15% had lead authors based in low-income countries. Almost 55% of these were by authors in only four countries—Ethiopia, North Korea, Nepal, and Syria, with the remainder by authors in 15 others. Although this is consistent with the results of prior studies (e.g., Nuñez, Barlow et al., 2019; Stocks, Seales et al., 2008), we were nevertheless surprised to see that only (0.24%) of these were OA—the journals we reviewed all publish research relevant to researchers based in low-income countries (Table 1), and many of these countries have previously been shown to have high rates of OA publication (Iyandemye & Thomas, 2019). Prior studies of regional variation in OA uptake, however, have all included OA journals in which authors could publish at no cost. When surveyed, authors—especially independent researchers, students, and those at institutions focusing on undergraduate education—have identified APCs as a barrier to publication (Coonin & Younce, 2009; Dallmeier-Tiessen, Darby et al., 2011; Warlick & Vaughan, 2007). We provide some of the strongest evidence to date supporting the assertion that this is also the case for researchers in the Global South (Appel, Albagli et al., 2019; Ezema & Onyancha, 2017; Ncayiyana, 2005)—at least for those submitting to the 76 journals included in our review. Although it is conceivable that the differences we observed are due to many of our focal journals having above average APCs (Solomon & Björk, 2012b), we believe this is unlikely to be the cause. Authors in low-income countries report that a single APC can frequently con- sume much of a research project’s budget. Authors in low-income countries are also far more likely to use personal funds to pay APCs (Solomon & Björk, 2012a); even APCs well below the average of $904 often exceed their monthly salary (Peterson et al., 2013) or student stipend
(Table 3). Of course funds to defray publication costs are clearly available to some scientists in
some of these countries (Pavan & Barbosa, 2018, Figures 1 and 2). The most likely explanation
for the observed results is therefore that authors are actively choosing to publish at no cost in
the Parent journal instead of paying to publish in the OA Mirror (Ciocca & Delgado, 2017).
The lack of OA articles by authors based in low-income countries is particularly surprising
given that most of these countries are eligible for APC waivers via Elsevier’s “Research4Life”
program (Table S1). We suggest there are at least three potential explanations for this. The first
is that publisher policies for waiving APCs can be quite restrictive. For instance, the publisher
of the journals included in our review will only waive APCs in cases where every coauthor of
an article is based in a country that is waiver eligible (Elsevier, 2020). Many of the articles in
our data set with first authors based in low-income countries had international collaborators in
locations that rendered the articles ineligible for discounted or free publication (see also Gray,
2020). Second, it may be that authors were unaware that waivers existed (Powell, Johnson, &
Herbert, 2020) or that journal or publisher’s staff failed to recognize their eligibility and offer to
transfer their submission to the OA Mirror (Lawson, 2015). Finally, even large discounts on
APCs are unlikely to be sufficient for many authors (Iyandemye & Thomas, 2019). This is
almost certainly true for authors in countries that are bizarrely offered only partial discounts
despite socioeconomic conditions that are similar to those in nearby countries where authors
can publish OA at no expense (e.g., Honduras and Guatemala vs. Nicaragua, respectively;
Table S1). In absolute terms, however, the minimal benefit of partial waivers may be most pro-
nounced for authors in middle income countries such as Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, and
Malaysia—especially when they engage in productive collaborations with scientists based
in other middle-income countries (Smith, Weinberger et al., 2014) that are ineligible for
waivers despite challenging economic conditions (Ciocca & Delgado, 2017). Regardless of
the mechanism, our results suggest that waiver programs designed to increase the representa-
tion of scientists from the Global South in the OA literature by reducing APCs have at best
Quantitative Science Studies
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APCS and Author Diversity
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Figure 7. For the 20 countries publishing the most open access (OA) articles, the number of OA articles published in Mirror journals vs. OA
articles published in Parent journals. Abbreviations: DNK = Denmark, AUT = Austria, NOR = Norway, KOR = South Korea, SWE = Sweden,
BEL = Belgium, CHE = Switzerland, ESP = Spain, CAN = Canada, ITA = Italy, DEU = Germany, IND = India, JPN = Japan, BRA = Brazil, AUS =
Australia, FRA = France, NLD = Netherlands, GBR = Great Britain, CHN = China, USA = United States.)
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failed to do so, and at worst had the opposite effect. Finally, our results also suggest there are
some important differences in the way authors perceive Parent and Mirror journals. That there
are some OA articles by authors from low-income countries in Parent journals but none in
Mirror journals suggests a preference for more established titles. The same appears to be true
for authors in high- and middle-income countries, who generally publish far more OA papers
in Parent journals than their respective Mirrors (Figure 7). This skew is particularly notable
given that publication in Gold-OA journals is increasingly required by funders in some of these
countries. Finally, the results suggest that authors in two of the world’s leading producers of
scientific publications—China and the United States (Zhou & Leydesdorff, 2006)—either
remain wary of OA publication or do not find the incentives for publishing OA particularly
compelling (Jamali, Nicholas et al., 2020; Xu, He et al., 2020). When these authors have
opted for OA, the clearly prefer established Parent journals over the recently established
Mirrors.
Quantitative Science Studies
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APCS and Author Diversity
4.1. Caveats and Future Directions
Inference in bibliometric studies must be drawn with care, as patterns such as those we doc-
umented are the result of a complex combination of presubmission decisions by authors and
postsubmission decisions by editors. However, the ability to compare OA articles published
in Mirror and Parent journals means that we can control for many of the factors influencing
these decisions. Most notably, the journals in a Mirror-Parent pair have identical editorial
boards, editorial philosophy, and publication priorities. Although any implicit biases held
by editors against authors from particular countries would undoubtedly reduce the overall rep-
resentation of these countries in the literature, the reduction would be independent of which
publication type was chosen by authors. In addition, the journals in our analyses are all pub-
lished by a single company—with a few exceptions (e.g., the Series B journals of the American
Mathematical Society), the mirror journal concept has yet to be adopted by other publishers or
academic societies. However, these journals represent a wide range of disciplines and are
marketed to a global author pool and readership. As such, we believe our results are consistent
with APCs being a key mechanism underlying presubmission decisions by authors (Ciocca &
Delgado, 2017; Solomon & Björk, 2012a).
Our results also suggest several promising directions for future research. The first is to inves-
tigate why scientists in many countries (e.g., China, United States, United Kingdom) apparently
prefer publishing OA articles in Parent journals. These academic communities might consider
OA Mirrors to be of lower quality (Ellers et al., 2017) or be unsure of their status with respect to
funder mandates, regardless of the journal’s affiliation with an academic society, publisher, or
connection with an established subscription journal (Editage, 2018). Authors may also be
hesitant to consider them as outlets for their work because they do not yet have impact
factors or other metrics used for evaluating personnel, programs, or institutions (Appel et al.,
2019; Pavan & Barbosa, 2018; Xu et al., 2020). Finally, they might also be concerned
regarding their status with respect to the OA mandates of their particular funders and institu-
tions in light of the recent decision that Mirror journals are not “Plan S”-compliant (cOAlitionS,
2021).
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Second, it is unclear why single-author papers are so much more common in Mirror jour-
nals than they are in Parent journals. The choice to publish in OA Mirrors could be based on
the content or format of the article (e.g., essay vs. data paper), or that particular authors have
access to funds with which to pay APCs. However, it could also reflect deference by first
authors to coauthors preferring to publish in Parent journals, potentially coupled with disci-
plinary differences in norms regarding coauthorship and author order (Fox, Ritchey, & Paine,
2018; Parish, Boyack, & Ioannidis, 2018). Although previous studies have elucidated individual
author preferences regarding journal choice and manuscript submission (Rowley, Sbaffi et al.,
2020), little is known about how submission choices are influenced by the preferences of co-
authors. The data presented here suggest that they can be, particularly with when it comes to
the decision to submit to OA outlets such as Mirror journals.
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Finally, our results point to the need for research on how to make waiver programs a more
effective means of reducing financial barriers to OA publication. In addition to the impact of
rules that limit waivers for authors from low-income countries based on where their coauthors
are based, we suggest that authors in middle-income countries merit particular attention: Many
are ineligible for even partial APC waivers, and even partial waivers are often insufficient.
Insights into these topics will help editors, publishers, and the broader scientific community
develop strategies to ensure that prestigious OA journals are truly accessible to scientists from
the Global South (Rodriguez, 2014).
Quantitative Science Studies
1140
APCS and Author Diversity
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank N. Emery, C. Scott, and D. Forero for assistance in gathering preliminary data for the
project. M. Nuñez, A. S. Mason, three anonymous reviewers, and Ludo Waltman provided
feedback on the manuscript.
AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS
Audrey C. Smith: Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Writing—Original draft,
Writing—Review & editing. Leandra Merz: Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology,
Writing—Original draft, Writing—Review & editing. Jesse B. Borden: Formal analysis, Inves-
tigation, Methodology, Software, Writing—Review & editing. Chris K. Gulick: Formal analysis,
Investigation, Methodology, Writing—Review & editing. Akhil R. Kshirsagar: Formal analysis,
Investigation, Methodology, Writing—Review & editing. Emilio M. Bruna: Conceptualization,
Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Supervi-
sion, Visualization, Writing—Original draft, Writing—Review & editing.
COMPETING INTERESTS
The authors have no competing interests.
FUNDING INFORMATION
This research was not funded.
DATA AVAILABILITY
The complete citation records were downloaded from the Web of Science Core Collection and
SCOPUS; although the complete original records cannot be made available due to copyright
restrictions, a processed version of these records with the additional data needed to reproduce
the analyses presented here has been archived at Zenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo
.5500293). This archive also includes the version of the R code used to process the raw data,
carry out the analyses on the processed data, and create the figures, tables, and manuscript.
Updates to the code will are available on Github (https://github.com/BrunaLab/APCdiversity),
where users can also make suggestions for improvement.
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