New ALPSP survey reveals trends in journal publishing - 02 Jun 2006
A summary of the main conclusions can be found at www.alpsp.org.
The Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP), US, has carried out a second major study on the policies and practices of 400 international academic journal publishers, both non-profit and commercial. The survey has revealed facts and figures on the way publishers are responding to the challenges of the online world.
The survey, ‘Scholarly Publishing Practice: Academic journal publishers’ policies and practices in online publishing,’ was conducted by John Cox of John Cox Associates Ltd. and Laura Cox of Frontline Global Marketing Services Ltd. during 2005-end. According to the findings, about 90 percent of journals are now available online, generally with their backfiles as well; pricing and licensing models are evolving rapidly to meet customer demands; and there is widespread experimentation with full open access journals.
A response rate of 55 percent was achieved (including all the major publishers), providing hard evidence of the significant changes in publishing policy and practice that have been made since the first survey was undertaken in 2003. Of the 174 publishers who responded, 123 also publish books and 33 publish databases.
