The adoption of Article Processing Charges as a business model by Brazilian Open Access journals

Abstract

Abstract Different funding and business model alternatives for Open Access to scientific publication have been discussed and tried, either by Gold open access journals or by the ‘hybrid’ ones. A growing number of both types of scholarly journals have adopted a publication fee – more specifically an Article Processing Charge – as their open access business model, a procedure that has been the subject of controversies. The objective of this study is to characterize Brazilian open access journals that adopt article processing charges. The main contribution of this study is to audit and support decision making of editorial policies and business models for open access that are being proposed by and for Brazilian journals. We defined a sample of Brazilian open access journals using article processing charges extracted from the Directory of Open Access Journals database in April 2018 along with their classification in the Scimago Journal Ranking, Journal Citation Reports and Qualis Capes system, considered as an indicator of prestige of academic journals. The study reveals that a small number of Brazilian open access journals are currently applying article processing charges, with practices varying mainly according to fields of study, types of organization and classification according to the Qualis system.