A decade of changes in OA and non-OA journal publication and production

Abstract

The objective of this study was to explore the trends in the publication and production of open access (OA) and non-OA journals and articles over the last decade. Non-OA journals include subscription and hybrid journals, the articles of which cannot be freely accessed by researchers. To conduct this study, we used SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) data from 2011 to 2021. In analyzing the SJR data, we categorized publishers by the number of journals and articles published. The results showed the following: (a) although the number of OA journals has increased rapidly between 2011 and 2021, their share of total publications is still significantly lower than that of non-OA journals; (b) between 2011 and 2021, the number of publishers of non-OA journals had decreased slightly, while the number of OA journal publishers has increased rapidly; (c) publishers of all sizes increased the production of OA journal articles between 2011 and 2021, but the share of top publishers increased the most; and (d) MDPI, as a born-OA publisher, has become a global leader in OA journal article publishing in recent years.