Open-access megajournals lose momentum

Science Magazine  September 13, 2019
When PLOS ONE debuted in 2006, it became the world’s largest journal, publishing more than 30,000 papers at its height in 2013 and spawning more than a dozen imitators. From 2013 to 2018, PLOS ONE’s output fell by 44%. Growth in new megajournals has not offset the declines. In 2018, PLOS ONE, Scientific Reports, and 11 smaller megajournals collectively published about 3% of the global papers total. Driving the fall in output is a decline in submissions, they have lost have their appeal of rapid publication and as publishing volumes have declined, so have megajournals’ connections to the frontiers of science. Even while the founding megajournals have lost momentum, others that are more selective or specialized are thriving. Three discipline-focused megajournals have grown rapidly in recent years: Medicine, from the publisher Wolters Kluwer; BMJ Open; and IEEE Access…read more.