8292016 Open access indexing and publication costs of occupational health journals

<h3>Objective</h3> Open access (OA) publishing allows research to be freely available to readers, whilst costs are usually transferred to authors, funders, or institutions. This study explores OA indexing and publication costs among occupational health journals. <h3>Material and Methods</h3> We queried the Ulrichsweb database (a comprehensive catalog for academic and non-academic publications) for publications under the subject ‘occupational health and safety’. Filters were applied to restrict the search to active peer-reviewed journals with either print or online formats. After deduplication, journals were searched for indexing in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). Data on OA status, article processing charges (APC), and author copyright retention were retrieved from DOAJ. The DIAMAS criteria (persistent identification, scholarly journal, OA with licenses, no fees, open to all authors, and community-owned) were used to define diamond OA journals when all criteria were met. Publishers were labelled as commercial or non-commercial by reviewing publishers’ websites and stock exchange listings. APC were compared by type of publisher (commercial/non-commercial) with the Mann-Whitney U-test. A p &lt; 0.05 was considered statistically significant. <h3>Results</h3> Out of the 107 journals analyzed, 33 (30.8%) were fully OA and 15 (14%) were diamond OA journals. In the subset of fully OA journals, 6 (18.2%) were owned by commercial publishers and 27 (81.8%), non-commercial. Journals owned by commercial publishers charged higher APC (median: 1532.5 EUR, IQR: 671.25 – 1745) than non-commercial (median: 0 EUR, IQR: 0 – 421, p = 0.02). Fifteen (14%) OA journals allowed authors to retain copyright of their works. <h3>Conclusion</h3> Nearly one third of occupational health journals in Ulrichsweb are fully OA and less than 2 in 10, diamond OA. Those owned by commercial publishers charge higher APC. Existing occupational health journals could evaluate transitioning to non-commercial or diamond OA models, while new diamond OA journal initiatives could be encouraged.