A mega journal (also mega-journal and megajournal) is a

peer-reviewed Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work ( peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer revie ...

academic An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, ...

open access journal Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which research outputs are distributed online, free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 definition), or libre op ...

designed to be much larger than a traditional journal by exercising low selectivity among accepted articles. It was pioneered by '' PLOS ONE''. This "very lucrative publishing model" was soon emulated by other publishers.

Definition

A mega journal has the following defining characteristics: * broad coverage of different subject areas; * accepting articles for publication based on whether they are technically sound rather than selecting for perceived importance; and * using

article processing charge An article processing charge (APC), also known as a publication fee, is a fee which is sometimes charged to authors. Most commonly, it is involved in making a work available as open access (OA), in either a full OA journal or in a hybrid journal ...

s to cover the costs of publishing. Other less universal characteristics are * "an accelerated review and publication process", "fast

turnaround time Turnaround time (TAT) is the amount of time taken to complete a process or fulfill a request. The concept thus overlaps with lead time and can be contrasted with cycle time. Meaning in computing In computing, turnaround time is the total time t ...

"; * "academic editors", even "a large editorial board of academic editors", (instead of professional editors); and * value-added services such as reusable graphics and data through

Creative Commons Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has release ...

licenses. Mega journals are also online-only, with no printed version, and are fully open access, in contrast to

hybrid open access A hybrid open-access journal is a subscription journal in which some of the articles are open access. This status typically requires the payment of a publication fee (also called an article processing charge or APC) to the publisher in order to p ...

journals. Some "predatory" open access publishers use the mega journal model.

Influence

It has been suggested that the academic journal landscape might become dominated by a few mega journals in the future, at least in terms of total number of articles published. Megajournals are also disrupting the market of article processing charges. Their business model may not motivate reviewers, who donate their time to "influence their field, gain exposure to the most current cutting edge research or list their service to a prestigious journal on their CVs." Finally, they may no longer serve as "fora for the exchange ... among colleagues in a particular field or sub-field", as traditionally happened in scholarly journals. To counter that indiscrimination, '' PLOS ONE'', the prototypical megajournal, has started to "package relevant articles into subject-specific collections."

Definition

Influence

List of mega journals

Notes

References

Further reading