Open Journal of Astrophysics

Peter Coles LISA 10, 4th November 20251 The Academic Publishing Industry •Global revenues of the academic publishing industry amount to about, €28 billion per annum (2019 figure) •This exceeds the annual global revenues of the recorded music industry. •Profit margins for these publishers are much larger (up to 45%) than e.g. Apple, Google and BMW. • The worst offenders are the `Big Four’: Elsevier, Springer, Wiley and Taylor & Francis. •The academic community is being fleeced! LISA 10, 4th November 20252 LISA 10, 4th November 20253 •Most research in astrophysics (and other “blue skies” subjects) is funded by the taxpayer, so the public should have access to it. •Open science is better science •Does Open Access Publishing go far enough? •Everything needed to reproduce the results should be made public: data, analysis tools, the lot… Why Open Access? LISA 10, 4th November 20254 Open Access: Green, Gold & Diamond • “Gold” = free to readers, usually paid for by authors (via “Article Processing Charge”) – this is often large, in order to maintain revenue in the absence of subscription income. • “Green” = “free” to authors and readers (e.g. arXiv, institutional repositories, etc) self-archiving (possibly) after an embargo period • “Diamond” = immediately free to authors and readers. •Open Access of some form is often mandatoryor some funding agencies, and this is likely to increase (Plan S). LISA 10, 4th November 20255 •Most new astrophysics research has been available via in Open Access format via the arXiv for > 30 years. •Running costs are $1M per annum: this amounts to an average of $11 per paper. •Who looks at journals anyway? •Why not just referee the arXiv submissions? •Hence, the arXiv overlay journal. Why Academic Journals? LISA 10, 4th November 20256 LISA 10, 4th November 20257 LISA 10, 4th November 20258 https://astro.theoj.org LISA 10, 4th November 20259 Submissions LISA 10, 4th November 202516 LISA 10, 4th November 202517 LISA 10, 4th November 202518 Journal Impact Factor (𝐼𝐹) Let 𝑁(𝑖) be the number of papers published by the journal in year 𝑖 and let 𝐶(𝑗|𝑚, 𝑛) be the number of citations obtained in year 𝑗 by papers published in the journal in year 𝑚 and year 𝑛. Then the Journal Impact Factor for year 𝑘 is defined to be 𝐼𝐹 𝑘 = 𝐶 𝑘−1 𝑘−2,𝑘−3) 𝑁 𝑘−2 +𝑁(𝑘−3) For example, the Impact Factor for 2022 is based on citations received in 2021 for papers published in 2019 and 2020. LISA 10, 4th November 2025 19 LISA 10, 4th November 202520 LISA 10, 4th November 202521 LISA 10, 4th November 202522 LISA 10, 4th November 202523 Kareem El-Badry: “He has published articles in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, The Astrophysical Journal, and The Open Journal of Astrophysics, among other leading scientific journals.” LISA 10, 4th November 202524 • Please consider submitting papers! – if it is appropriate for the astro-ph section of the arXiv then we will consider it! • The rate-limiting step in the publishing process is refereeing, so please take any refereeing requests seriously – this is not a predatory journal! • Want to be an Editor? • Support the arXiv! To support the Open Journal of Astrophysics… LISA 10, 4th November 202525