The citation advantage for open access science journals with and without article processing charges

In this study of access models, we compared citation performance in journals that do and do not levy article processing charges (APCs) as part of their business model. We used a sample of journals from the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) science class and its 13 subclasses and recorded four citation metrics: JIF, H-index, citations per publication (CPP) and quartile rank. We examined 1881 science journals indexed in DOAJ. Thomson Reuters Journal Citation Reports and Web of Science were used to extract JIF, H-index, CPP and quartile category. Overall, the JIF, H-index and CPP indicated that APC and non-APC open access (OA) journals had equal impact. Quartile category ranking indicated a difference in favour of APC journals. In each science subclass, we found significant differences between APC and non-APC journals in all citation metrics except for quartile rank. Discipline-related variations were observed in non-APC journals. Differences in the rank positions of scores in different groups identified citation advantages for non-APC journals in physiology, zoology, microbiology and geology, followed by botany, astronomy and general biology. Impact ranged from moderate to low in physics, chemistry, human anatomy, mathematics, general science and natural history. The results suggest that authors should consider field- and discipline-related differences in the OA citation advantage, especially when they are considering non-APC OA journals categorised in two or more subjects. This may encourage OA publishing at least in the science class.