Monday, January 16, 2017

Open access chemistry publishing options in 2017

I just noticed that my go-to journal increased its APC again.*  Now there's a flat fee of $1095 so I am re-evaluating my options for impact neutral OA publishing. I don't think PeerJ is greedy, so I think the most likely explanation is be that their old model was not sustainable.  I now feel I have been a bit to hard on some other OA publishers (e.g. here and here, but not here).

While price and impact-neutrality is the main consideration, open peer review is a nice bonus that I became accustomed to from PeerJ. In my experience it makes for much better reviews and keeps the tone civil.

Impact neutral journals

$0. Royal Society Open Science has an APC waiver and open peer review. In 2018 the APC will become £900. (The RSC manages "the journal’s chemistry section by commissioning articles and overseeing the peer-review process")

€750. Research Ideas and Outcomes (disclaimer: I am subject editor), open peer review.

$1000 F1000Research. Open peer review

$1095 PeerJ. Open peer review.

$1350 Cogent Chemistry. Has a "pay what you can" policy. Closed peer review. HT +Stephan P. A. Sauer

$1495 PLoS ONE. Closed peer review.

$1675 Scientific Reports. Closed peer review

$2000 ACS Omega. Price for CC-BY by ACS member ($140/year). Closed peer review.

So it looks like Royal Society Open Science is the next thing for me to try, as long as the APC waiver is in place.

Free or reasonably priced journals that judge perceived impact

$0 Chemical Science Closed peer review

$0 Beilstein Journal of Organic Chemistry. Closed peer review. HT +Wendy Patterson

$0 Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology. Closed peer review. HT +Wendy Patterson

$500 ACS Central Science Price for CC-BY by ACS member ($140/year). Closed peer review.

£500 RSC Advances. Closed peer review. (Normally £750)

Let me know if I have missed anything.

Last update: 2017.03.05

*I just noticed that the membership model still exists though the price has increased. I already have a premium membership, so this may still be a viable option for me. If you are a single author or have only one co-author this is still the way to go.


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