Questions about some SAGE journals

[sckott]

• ISSN https://api.journalsdb.org/journals/0263-6174 (Adsorption science & technology):
  • Seems to be missing APC available on site. Looks like https://www.hindawi.com/journals/ast/guidelines/ has the APC: $1350 (This one used to be SAGE)
• ISSN https://api.journalsdb.org/journals/1084-8223 (Home health care management & practice):
  • Curious about data returned in this API. The entry in the field apc_prices: [ ] I assume means there's no APC data for this title? Looks like https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/journal/home-health-care-management-practice#submission-guidelines says "There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this journal." I don't know if these pages are manually looked at or scraped. Assuming a human saw this page, do we take this sentence to mean the APC is then $0? If so, would the APC data returned then be 0 (zero) instead of empty (no data)?
• Same as above item for https://api.journalsdb.org/journals/0004-8674
• Same as above item for https://api.journalsdb.org/journals/1367-4935

[caseydm]

Our initial goal was to provide subscription/APC pricing for the top 5 publishers, which are Elsevier, Taylor & Francis, SAGE, Springer Nature, and Wiley. So that is why the first one does not have APC pricing available. Although it is a gray area since they have a partnership with SAGE. But for that journal the publisher is still considered Hindawi? I can add APC pricing for those three partnership journals if it is helpful.

Yes, if an apc_prices field is [] then that means there is no APC data for that journal. The main reason your other three journals do not have APC data is because they are not considered open access journals. That is shown in the field open_access -> is_gold_journal. So from looking at those journals there is no option to publish open access so an APC is not involved (I could be wrong if they are open access or not, sometimes it's tricky to determine that). So while the journal says "no publication fee" sometimes they are talking about other fees they may charge beyond APC fees.

If the journals were open access but there was no fee, the way I would categorize it is apc_prices['apc_metadata']['fully_subsidized'] = true, like this journal: https://api.journalsdb.org/journals/2524-4434. The reason for using that over $0 was to accurately capture how most journals are stating they do not have an APC fee, which is "there is no APC for this journal as the ___ society covers the publishing costs'. It is probably useful to add $0 to the apc_prices as well, what do you think? I imagine your use case is you mainly want to know $0 or not?

[sckott]

Thanks for the clarification on these!

For the Hindawi journal, do whatever you think fits within your remit. If you're sticking to the big 5 then no worries about that Hindawi journal. That journal per se isn't a huge deal - it's just an example of some things I've hit up against with APC's lately

Ahhh, I don't think I was aware that APCs was only an open access thing. I've payed to publish in a closed journal, but I guess those are "page charges"?

Thanks for pointing out the fully_subsidized bit. Hadn't seen an example like that yet.

Yeah, for me, I think what's important to know is the distinction between no data and $0. As long as that's clear then I'm all good I think

[caseydm]

Ok. I will hold off on Hindawi for now.

Yes I think APC is primarily associated with open access. I have seen some edge cases where you can pay less for a 'closed access' version of the article, such as this: https://www.agu.org/Publish-with-AGU/Publish/Author-Resources/Publication-fees. But that was compared against an open access option. Usually the other fees are called page fees or something else (like this https://www.pnas.org/authors/fees-and-licenses) and we do not track those right now.

I'll get those fully_subsidized journals updated so they also have a price of $0 for APC.

[sckott]

Thanks for clarifying on APCs and page charges.

Great, thanks much.

[jasonpriem]

I think you guys already know this, but for clarification in case it's helpful: yes, APCs are an OA thing. However, many subscription journals offer an OA option--if you pay the APC, your article will be OA even though the rest of the journal isn't. Journals that do this are called "Hybrid OA." They have an APC and a subscription fee.

This works quite nicely for publishers, because they are getting paid twice.

Hybrid journals are a very important consideration for Unsub, because those are often ones that have lots of OA content in them (from authors paying APCs), and so are good candidates for cancellation. j

On Mon, Oct 4, 2021 at 3:46 PM Scott Chamberlain @.***> wrote:

Thanks for clarifying on APCs and page charges.

Great, thanks much.

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[sckott]

Thanks that's helpful @jasonpriem Especially about Hybrid journals being a good candidate for cancellation