Vol. 17 No. 2 (2026)
Articles

Publication times and costs in Open Access journals: A thematic analysis of the Scopus–DOAJ ecosystem

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  • Jean Paul Castillo Nuñez,
  • Lloy Pinedo-Tuanama,
  • Paolo Arones-Perez,
  • Madeleine Gavilán-Colca
Jean Paul Castillo Nuñez
Universidad Privada Norbert Wiener
Lloy Pinedo-Tuanama
Universidad Privada Norbert Wiener
Bio
Paolo Arones-Perez
Universidad Privada Norbert Wiener
Bio
Madeleine Gavilán-Colca
Universidad Privada Norbert Wiener
Bio
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/jlis.it-725

Published 2026-05-15

Keywords

  • Open access,
  • APCs,
  • Publication timelines,
  • Editorial processes,
  • Subject area disparities.

How to Cite

Castillo Nuñez, Jean Paul, Lloy Pinedo-Tuanama, Paolo Arones-Perez, and Madeleine Gavilán-Colca. 2026. “Publication Times and Costs in Open Access Journals: A Thematic Analysis of the Scopus–DOAJ Ecosystem”. JLIS.It 17 (2):116-37. https://doi.org/10.36253/jlis.it-725.

Copyright (c) 2026 Jean Paul Castillo Nuñez, Lloy Pinedo-Tuanama, Paolo Arones-Perez, Madeleine Gavilán-Colca

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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Abstract

The expansion of open access has positioned Article Processing Charges (APCs) and publication times as key dimensions for understanding the functioning of the scholarly publishing system. This study aims to characterise both components in scientific journals that are simultaneously indexed in Scopus and listed in DOAJ, identifying patterns by subject area and quartile. Data from Scopus, the 2024 SJR and DOAJ were integrated, considering only active journals with available information on average time to publication and APCs. The analysis, descriptive in nature, examined the distribution of these indicators across subject areas and editorial levels. The results show that publication times are similar among journals within the same subject area but differ when comparing different subject areas, whereas publication costs display larger differences in the upper quartiles and tend to decrease in the lower ones, with parallel trajectories in Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Health Sciences and a differentiated pattern in Social Sciences. The study provides an updated empirical characterisation of how temporal stability and economic stratification coexist within a broad segment of the open access ecosystem.

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