Re: Dramatic Growth of Open Access

["Sally Morris \(ALPSP\)" <sally.morris@alpsp.org>]

Interesting to hear that all journals are vetted before adding to 
DOAJ. This manifestly was not the case when we ran our volunteer 
survey last year - has the policy changed?  If so, I'm glad to 
hear it

Sally Morris, Chief Executive
Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers
South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex BN13 3UU, UK
Email:  sally.morris@alpsp.org

----- Original Message -----
From: "Heather Morrison" <heatherm@eln.bc.ca>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Monday, April 17, 2006 2:27 AM
Subject: Dramatic Growth of Open Access

> My figures illustrating the dramatic growth of open access are 
> not meant to be a precise indication of the quantity of OA 
> items, only a rough indicator of the growth rate.  Such a 
> precise calculation would require more resources than is 
> available to me.
>
> For example, that more than 780,000 additional records have 
> been added to OAIster in the first quarter of this year, 
> approximately a doubling of last year's growth rate, strongly 
> suggests that open access archives are beginning to fill. 
> However, this is not proof, as not all OAIster records are 
> fulltext; some are OA to metadata only.
>
> The DOAJ increase is a stronger indication of the growth of 
> open access per se, as all titles are vetted to ensure that 
> they meet high quality control (peer review) standards, and 
> that they are fully open access (no delay period).
>
> While the number of articles available that are OA is an 
> important figure, as others have pointed, the increase in OA 
> journals is a strong indicator of the commitment of a great 
> many people around the world to open access. Even a title 
> starting off small with few articles, is a journal with an 
> editorial board, some form of OA business model, and peer 
> reviewers.
>
> Not only is DOAJ increasing in the number of titles - it 
> appears to be increasing in its growth rate as well. About a 
> year ago, DOAJ was adding titles at an average rate of about 1 
> per day. Now, DOAJ is adding new titles at the rate of about 2 
> per day. To see where I am getting these calculations, look up 
> the DOAJ new titles at: http://www.doaj.org/new When 
> interpreting this data, be sure to take into account that DOAJ 
> is a small office.  If there is a temporary decrease in 
> additions to the new titles list over the summer, this may well 
> reflect staff vacations.
>
> Helpful as it would be to know the precise numbers of open 
> access articles, OA implementation is far more important than 
> counting.
>
> Heather G. Morrison
> March 31, 2006 Dramatic Growth of Open Access
> http://tinyurl.com/o7zkf