Characteristics of OA Diamond Journal Publishing in Non-English-Speaking Countries

1 Introduction

Given the rapid growth of global connectivity regional issues often impact worldwide, either directly or indirectly; as such, it has become more vital to include regional research in global scholarly communication (Khelifa, Amano, and Nuñez 2021). For instance, recent threats to humanity, such as the COVID-19 outbreaks and climate change-related natural disasters, have emphasized the importance of global scholarly communication (Márquez and Porras 2020; UNESCO 2021). Although international scholarly communication should embrace unique and valuable knowledge from geographically diverse areas it nonetheless tends to be centered on research conducted in Western regions with strong economic power (Ford and Alemneh 2022; Sin 2011). In addition, English, which is considered an official academic language, dominates international scholarly journals (Márquez and Porras 2020; O’Neil 2018; Steigerwald et al. 2022). In contrast, regional journals, particularly those from non-English speaking countries (NESC), tend to have lower visibility in international academic communication systems and are thus marginalized (Yoon, Kim, and Chung 2023). Although steady reductions in such disparities have been observed (O’Neil 2018), a dearth of “equity, diversity, and inclusion in science” (Khelifa, Amano, and Nuñez 2021, 109) is still of concern in academia.

One of the main barriers to the global dissemination of regional research is language but recently machine translation techniques have been used to attempt to overcome such impediments (Amano et al. 2021a; Angulo et al. 2021; Steigerwald et al. 2022). Open access (OA) can also foster equitable access to and the sharing of scholarly knowledge (Paquet, van Bellen, and Larivière 2022; UNESCO 2021), primarily by facilitating the international dissemination of local journals. Compared to subscription-based journals OA journals, by nature, provide universal accessibility to scholarly articles as well as readership and citations (Pearce 2022). However, Demeter and Istratti (2020) and Tennant et al. (2019) raise an important issue, namely that the OA model—in which authors pay an Article Processing Charge (APC)—can expand epistemological disparities by disadvantaging under-resourced researchers, women (Larivière et al. 2013), scholars in the social sciences and humanities and those from middle- and lower-income nations, and early career researchers (Cole, Reichmann, and Ross-Hellauer 2023). In this context, OADJs (also called OA platinum journals), which publish manuscripts without APC, have advantages. For example, OADJ can alleviate the burden on academics with insufficient research funds for APC and prevent predatory journal practices that misuse OA models to pursue profits only. Dalton, Tenopir, and Björk (2020) argue that predatory journals undermine OA journals’ credibility. According to Pearce (2022), the increase in the number of OADJ has been faster than that of scholarly journals or OA journals; furthermore, a large-scale survey of OADJ (Bosman, Frantsvåg, and Kramer 2021) reports that the ratio of OADJ in non-English-speaking countries (NESC) was higher than their counterparts.

Within this context this research aims to examine the characteristics of OADJ published in NESC to provide evidence for OADJ’s potential to improve the international dissemination of scholarly journals published in NESC. The following research questions guide this study:

1. RQ1: How different are OA diamond journals’ characteristics published in non-English-speaking countries from those published in English-speaking countries?

2. RQ2: What are the characteristics of OA diamond journals published in non-English-speaking countries regarding the region of publication countries?

3. RQ3: What are the characteristics of OA diamond journals published in non-English-speaking countries regarding the GDP of publication countries?

4. RQ4: What are the characteristics of OA diamond journals published in non-English-speaking countries in terms of journal languages (English only, English and other languages, non-English journals)?

2 International Dissemination of NESC Journals

As a main effort related to the global dissemination of journals from NESC there are studies that measure the internationality of their country’s journals and then make recommendations for enhancing their international visibility. These studies are interested in positioning their journals as “international” and having a worldwide reputation and visibility. Such research adopts various attributes for measuring international scope such as the global composition of authors and editorial boards, listings in international databases, language, access modes, and impact. For instance, Ren and Rousseau (2002) examine the international visibility of Chinese scientific journals covered by the Web of Science (WoS) regarding authors, editorial board composition, and citation trends. They find that even those articles published in internationally-indexed journals remain fairly local and thus have a minor global presence. Zainab (2008) evaluates the internationalization features of two Malaysian journals in terms of the ratio of foreign and Malaysian authors, the distribution of the national affiliation of editors and reviewers, and the geographical distribution of authors who cite the journals’ articles. Shin, Choi, and Seo (2015) assess the internationality of Korean journals in terms of editorial board composition, publication of English language manuscripts, journal impact factor, online accessibility, accessibility of journal websites, journal title (inclusion of “international”), OA status, and indexation in international databases. They reported an insufficiency of these international factors in Korean journals and recommended reinforcing such attributes to increase their global visibility and reputation as international journals. Navas-Fernández, Abadal, and Rodrigues (2018) attempt to identify international characteristics by analyzing 445 Spanish journals indexed in WoS Core Collection and Scopus and find that subject areas, access modes, and publisher type are factors that determine the degree of internationality. They also report that articles with international collaborations had a higher impact and that of foreign authors accompanies the presence of foreign members on editorial committees.

Whereas the above studies were conducted internally (i.e., by NESC themselves) there are also efforts led by external or international agencies. Over the last decade international academic databases such as WoS Core Collection and Scopus have tried to increase the proportion of non-English journals by reflecting the growing number of excellent journals among NESC. Gazni and Ghaseminik (2016), using the citable documents (articles, reviews, and proceeding papers) indexed in WoS between 1991 and 2014, examine the trends of journal internationality. They find that older journals are more global than newer journals and that journals became increasingly international four to six years after being indexed by WoS. Moreover, they observed that journals produced by multinational publishers continue to be more global than those produced by national publishers. Within the context that WoS had added approximately 1,600 regional journals to their database to enhance the visibility of high-quality local studies, Purnell and Quevedo-Blasco (2013) evaluate the influence that adding Spanish regional journals to WoS has had on the publishing and citation trends of Spanish researchers. Regarding the internationalization of Scopus, as stated by Elsevier (2020, 19): “[T]tiles from all geographical regions are covered, including non-English titles [… and] approximately 22 % of titles in Scopus are published in languages other than English, adding up to 40 local languages.”

Among NESC, research has attempted to transition from non-English journals to English journals and examine the impact of these transitions. Dinkel et al. (2004) analyze the transition of two German-language journals to English-language ones. They find that the transition to English-language journals increased the number of foreign authors and domestic researchers’ citations. Moreover, they note that switching to English as its publishing language would expand a journal’s internationalization and worldwide dissemination. Using the WoS, Kirchik, Gingras, and Larivière (2012) examine the impact of translating Russian-language articles into English. For Russia’s international scientific visibility they conclude that publishing original English-language articles in English-language journals is a more effective internationalization approach than translating local publications. They also suggest that if a country aims to enhance international awareness of its scientific work efforts should be made to promote publishing in reputable English-language journals.

With the development of machine translation technologies recent efforts have been made to adopt such technology for internationally disseminating research. Steigerwald et al. (2022) argue that machine translation techniques can indeed be a solution for attaining a greater degree of global dissemination and suggest that individuals and institutions could support multilingual scholarly communities. They conclude that machine translation can “transform a monolingual scientific hub into a more distributed, multilingual scientific network” (1). Amano et al. (2021a) analyze the contribution of non-English journal manuscripts to the field of global diversity conservation and report that incorporating non-English research expands the field’s geographical coverage. Moreover, they urge the disciplines to incorporate non-English studies to overcome the lack of local evidence and face global challenges. They also discuss how machine translation can help to expand English-centered scholarly communication and propose methods for writing scholarly papers that can be machine-translated effectively.

As reviewed thus far, the international dissemination of NESC journals has received attention among researchers and machine translation has been used recently to overcome language barriers. In addition to language issues, accessibility to multilingual scholarly journals is another problem for multilingual scholarly communication. However, a dearth of studies examine OA journals published in NESC. Thus, in this context, this study examines the characteristics of OADJ published in NESC.

3 Research Methods

This study analyzed the OA Diamond Journals Study Dataset (Bosman, Frantsvåg, and Kramer 2021a), commissioned by cOAlition S.^[1] OA Diamond Journals Study (OADJS) was a large-scale study on OADJ to provide “an analysis of the global landscape of OA diamond journals and platforms, identify their current funding models and their technical and organizational challenges” (Bosman, Frantsvåg, and Kramer 2021a, 6). The data was collected from June 2020 to February 2021 by a consortium of ten organizations who published two reports which are freely available in the OA Diamond Journals Study, Part 1: Findings (Bosman, Frantsvåg, and Kramer 2021a) and OA Diamond Journals Study, Part 2: Recommendations (Becerril et al. 2021).

The OADJS online survey, which was used to collect the OADJS dataset, was prepared in six languages (English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese) and disseminated to diamond journals identified in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), 30 mailing lists, nine hosting platforms and aggregators, ten partners and community websites, and several personalities and social media accounts, to be shared worldwide. The dataset includes 1,619 journals (Bosman et al. 2021b). The current study utilized the OADJS dataset (and survey instrument) and two supplementary datasets, as described below. First, since the current study focuses on OA diamond journal publishing in NESC 123 journals whose publication countries were not identified were excluded from 1,619 journals for the current study. For this exclusion process Q14 of the OADJS survey instrument asking journal publication countries (OADJS Q14) was used and as a result 1,496 journals from 84 countries were thus selected for this current study. Second, in accordance with RQ1–RQ4, four variables should be identified: the official language of the journal’s publication country (RQ1), the regions of the journal’s publication country (RQ2), the GDP of the journal’s publication country (RQ3), and the journal’s language (RQ4). For RQ1, based on the journal publication countries (OADJS Q14), their official languages were identified using Encyclopedia Britannica’s website.^[2] The OADJS dataset includes the regions of the journals’ publication countries, which were processed from OADJS Q14, with these data used for RQ2. For RQ3, based on the journals’ publication countries (OADJS Q14), GDP (2020 data) and income levels were identified using the World Bank’s data.^[3] Table 1 shows a comparison of the ratios of income levels between countries in the OADJS dataset and those in the World Bank’s dataset. Overall, countries included in OADJS have a relatively higher income level than those recorded in the World Bank data. Because only three countries were in the low-income level category the current study combined lower-middle and low-income levels for further analysis. For RQ4 the journal’s language was obtained from the OADJS dataset (OADJS Q18).

To examine the characteristics of journal publishing in the current study, the study’s authors systematically selected the questions shown in Table 2. The OADJS survey instrument has a section entitled “Challenges” which includes a set of questions asking the participant to rate the level of challenges that a journal faces in six areas (peer-review management, editorial workflow, dissemination, indexation and visibility, skills and competencies, and sustainability and funding). Because the current study’s authors regarded these six areas as important in sustaining and operating OADJ, they selected 18 questions related to them. Next, these questions were classified into three categories, as shown in Table 2. In addition, six questions demonstrating the general characteristics of journals were also selected.

4 Findings

Figure 1:

Challenges in six areas: a comparison of OA diamond journals in English-speaking countries and non-English speaking-countries (1: low concern; 5: significant concern).

Figure 2:

Challenges in six areas: comparison among OA diamond journals in six regions (1: low concern; 5: significant concern).

Figure 3:

Challenges in six areas: a comparison among OA diamond journals in non-English-speaking countries in terms of GDP (1: low concern; 5: significant concern).

Figure 4:

Challenges in six areas: a comparison of OA diamond journals in non-English-speaking countries in terms of journal languages (1: low concern; 5: significant concern).

5 Discussion

Given the need for improved global scholarly communication (Márquez and Porras 2020; UNESCO 2021), as demonstrated by major threats to humanity including the COVID-19 pandemic and natural disasters, we set out to investigate the major issues and role of OA diamond journals (OADJ) in reducing disparities and enhancing global scholarly communication. We analyzed the characteristics of OA diamond journals (OADJ) published in NESC with an emphasis on these major issues and barriers including language (global scholarly communication has mainly been centered on English-language journals published in Western countries), resources available to authors and publishers (those in high and upper-middle-income nations have multiple sources of financial resources whereas those in lower income countries have a sole source – publishers), gender (women face more barriers; see for instance Larivière et al. 2013), discipline (scholars in the social sciences and humanities have fewer opportunities for support), country status (those in low and middle-income countries face serious barriers), and career stage (early career researchers have limited networks and opportunities).

In a related work, Ford and Alemneh (2022) establish a framework for identifying the obstacles faced by low- and middle-income countries which explains these hurdles leading to epistemic injustice in three dimensions: consuming (accessing), producing, and sharing. We also argue that OADJ can facilitate reducing barriers pertaining to these three classifications. Our analysis showed that 82.4 % of OADJ were published in countries using non-English as an official language. NESC publishing OADJ could be categorized into two groups: one group where the OADJ model is actively practiced and the other group where OADJ has not gained traction. Western Europe, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and high income countries are in the former group. In contrast, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and lower-middle and low income countries are in the latter. OADJ distribution among NESC is: Western Europe (47.4 %), Latin America (25.9 %), Eastern Europe (18.6 %), high income countries (64.0 %), Asia (5.2 %), the Middle East (1.9 %), Africa (1.1 %), and lower-middle and low income countries (4.3 %). This distribution is also consistent with the average number of OADJ per country in each region (Western Europe [38.93 journals per country], Latin America [21.27 journals per country], Eastern Europe [14.31 journals per country], Asia [6.4 journals per country], the Middle East [5.74 journals per country], and Africa [2.17 journals per country]. The relationships between regions and GDP are reported in Supplementary Table 9.

Among the NESC in which the OADJ model is actively practiced it was found that, in general, foreign readership was perceived as less critical. However, the share of foreign authors was higher (particularly among high income countries). In addition, certain unique characteristics were observed by specific regions. For instance, OADJ from Latin America, primarily upper-middle income countries, yielded high percentages for publishing in non-English languages and being registered in Latin American index systems. Because both Spanish and Portuguese are the dominant languages used in Latin America (The Columbia Encyclopedia 2023), and given that Spanish is the second most widely spoken first language in the world (Central Intelligence Agency 2023), it appears that they have established their own scholarly community centered around their languages. Among European journals, the ratios for English and other languages were higher than for other regions. Journals from Latin America and Western Europe showed higher usage of institutional platforms for dissemination and hosting. They also reported that research organizations and national funding/government agencies were their main financial sources. Although these countries indicated stronger intentions for staying within the OADJ model the main barriers regarding model sustainability differed. Latin America cited economic viability, Eastern Europe reported economic viability and JIF, and Western Europe—which is comprised mainly of high income countries—listed longer term feasibility. Overall, high income countries expressed lower levels of concern for operating within the OADJ model.

Some common characteristics were also found among the group for whom OADJ has not gained traction; notably, this segment of countries are the regions in which, according to Ford and Alemneh (2022), researchers have additional barriers to consuming, producing, and sharing research outputs. Journals from Africa and the Middle East relied more on volunteers for the journal’s operation, used national and international platforms for dissemination/hosting more often, and received more financial support from publishers. Differences in funding sources were noticed among ESC, high income NESC, and low income NESC. Compared to OADJ in ESC, NESC journals had remarkably rare levels of support from libraries and foundation/trust; among OADJ in higher income NESC, national/government funding was more prevalent. However, among OADJ lower income NESC, publishers were the more common funding source. The importance of foreign readership was common among OADJ from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. For the journals from these regions economic viability, JIF, and longer-term feasibility were cited as obstacles to sustainability. In contrast, the percentage of those considering moving away from the OA model was much higher in Africa.

6 Conclusion

Although global scholarly communication should include regional diversity it has unfortunately been centered on English-language journals published in Western countries with significant economic power. To reduce epistemological disparity the current study examined the characteristics of OADJ published in NESC. More than 80 % of OADJ were published in NESC; European countries, Latin America, and high income nations were the leading regions publishing OADJ. However, approximately 76 % of NESC OADJ were published in English or English and other languages. Among NESC journals produced in low and lower-middle income countries the publisher was cited as the primary funding source. In contrast, for NESC journals produced in higher income nations, the national/government category was reported as the primary source of financial support. As for intentions to stay with the OADJ model, these were higher among NESC journals than ESC journals. However, among NESC journals, the ratios of those moving away from the model were higher among African, Asian, Eastern European, and English language journals which all highly regard the importance of JIF. Regarding the indexes in which the journals were registered, DOAJ and Google Scholar were the most popular among NESC journals. DOAJ was more dominant in Africa and the Middle East and Google Scholar was the more common choice for Asian journals. Latin American journals were indexed in the Latindex catalog, Redalyc, and Scielo. Notably, high income countries showed lower indexing rates but lower income countries had higher numbers in this category. When it came to NESC journals 32.7 % answered that international readership is essential; this was particularly vital for those from low and lower-middle income countries, whereas the importance of international readership was much lower among Latin American journals.

Suggestions for enhancing the environment of OADJ practices were also discussed. Countries actively publishing OADJ seem to have relatively stable OADJ operating systems. Those in Latin America have established their scholarly communities in their own languages. Therefore, for this group, recommendations for promoting the engagement of scholarly communication at the international level were considered. For the countries that did not gain traction on OADJ well-established systematic support at the international level was advised. Finally, this study demonstrated OADJ’s potential for reducing epistemic disparity and enhancing global scholarly communication and future research agenda.