Globala Open Access-tidskrifter? : En bibliometrisk undersökning av den geografiska spridningen av Open Access-tidskrifter och författare, samt huruvida förekomsten av APC påverkar denna spridning

Sammanfattning: This master’s thesis is a bibliometric study of the geographic distribution of Open Access journals and the authors who publish in them. With the vision of Open Access as a means for global participation in the sciences in mind, the aim of this study is to investigate the creators of knowledge in Open Access journals by geograpically study the journals and the authors who publish in them. The aim is further to study whether the occurance of Article Processing Charges (APC) have an effect on the geographical distribution of Open Access journals and the authors. Critical voices claim that APC (a fee that the author through their insitution pays the publisher to publish their work in Open Access journals) hinder researchers in countries with less resources to publish their work Open Access, and that it therefore contradicts the fundamental idea of the concept of Open Access. Earlier studies have discussed the inequalities that countries with less resources in Global South faces in relation to the economically stronger countries in Global North in the in the pursuit of an Open Access publishing system. In this thesis I study the creators of knowledge in Open Access journals in a global context and thereby wish to contribute to earlier work of investigating Open Access journals and the authors in those journals geographically. The geographical data about the Open Access journals and information about APC are collected through the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), and the data about the scientists geographical location are collected through the database-platform Web of Science (WoS). The results shows that the majority of the Open Access journals are published in Europe and most of the authors are also affiliated to European organizations. The number of Open Access journals in Europe are even more dominant among the ones funded by APC. South America only publish a small share of the APC-funded Open Access journals in the world, but considerably more Open Access journals without APC. The results further shows that authors in Global South mainly publish their work in their own countries and regions, as well as in Open Access journals without APC. The authors in Global North mainly publish in APC-funded Open Access journals and they publish more internationally.