A World of Open Access

I've recently been appointed as one of the Editors-in-Chief (with Alex Singleton) of a new Taylor and Francis/Regional Studies Association open access journal. For the two years prior to the launch of Regional Studies, Regional Science I was also heavily involved in the research and development of the journal. As we're about to start publishing papers, I thought I'd blog on the topic of open access more generally and include some interesting data from the Directory of Open Access Journals, the most authoritative source of open access information on the web. Those with an interest in open access will of course know all about DOAJ and the fact that there are now nearly 10,000 open access journals in the world. 9,990 to be exact (as of 26 November 2013).

However, few people have looked closely at the data on open access; probably because most people are still in debate about the merits and pitfalls of open access itself. The simple fact is that open access publishing is having a major impact on academia and the biggest journal in the world (by volume of papers) is now PLoS ONE, an open access title, as documented by several commentators including Heather Morrison at the University of Ottawa. Now for some data and charts...

The United States has over 1,200 open access journals and seven countries account for more than 50% of all open access journals. Journals come from a total of 124 nations (click charts to enlarge):

by country - full size chart

Open access publishing is currently in a major phase of expansion, but it's not new - for example, 22 new titles were launched in 1985. The peak year to date has been 2011 with 1,099 titles being launched:

by year started - full size chart

The vast majority of open access titles do not charge a publication fee (66%) but a substantial minority do (26%), including many of the best known titles:

by publication fee - full size chart

Your knowledge of, and exposure to, open access will vary greatly by discipline. There are over 500 open access titles in Medicine and more than 160 in Political Science but only 3 in Geology (according to DOAJ):

by discipline - full size chart

The majority of open access titles publish only in English (5,538 or 55%), with the next closest language of publication being Spanish (621 or 6%):

by language - full size chart

The data these charts are based on can be downloaded directly in CSV format from the DOAJ FAQ page. Just scroll down and look for the section entitled "How can I get journal metadata from DOAJ?".

There's a lot of activity in the field of open access but it is highly unequal in terms of its geographic, disciplinary and linguistic distribution. In the subject fields of Regional Studies and Regional Science (the subject areas for our new title) the open access landscape is considerably less crowded - particularly in relation to titles supported by major international learned societies and multinational publishing houses. Given this situation, we expect that Regional Studies, Regional Science (already known more commonly as RSRS) will play an important role in helping improve access to knowledge in regional research across a wide range of disciplines, with a focus on geography, planning and economics.

Look out for our first articles in December, by Andrew Beer (Adelaide, Australia) and Terry Clower (North Texas, United States), Sarah Ayres (Bristol, UK), John Gibney (Birmingham, UK) and Markku Sotarauta (Tampere, Finland).

Bikes in Delft

Not a lot of data analysis or research been done on my part recently. That's because I've been on the road a bit, including attending the Regional Studies Association international conference in Delft. While I was in Delft I was not only amazed by the sheer volume of bikes but also by the way in which bikes are given their own space. I knew about this in advance but it was quite amazing to see it in action, as the short video shows. The video, by the way, was taken on my phone on a slightly windy day at the lovely TU Delft campus.

The number of bikes at Delft station was also staggering, though you can't really even begin to get the scale of it from the picture below...

While I was in Delft I gave a paper on housing market search, based on some Rightmove data. It seemed to go down quite well so hopefully during the summer I'll have time to finish the work and submit it for publication...

How did I manage to do a post without a map? I'm sure I'll rectify this next time.

The Regional Studies Association

Today, I thought I'd write about the Regional Studies Association (RSA) and what they're all about. I am involved with the RSA in a professional capacity but have also enjoyed their conferences, events, and journals for many years and my interests are very much aligned with those of the organisation.

What does the RSA do? Good question...

"The Regional Studies Association is a learned society concerned with analysis of regions and sub national issues. Through our International membership we provide an authoritative voice of, and network for, academics, students, practitioners, policymakers and interested lay people in the field of regional studies."

So, if you're interested in regions, cities, regional economics, spatial analysis, urban issues and anything related to any of these areas, the RSA is likely to be relevant to your work. The international conferences are also really good and in 2010 it takes place in Pécs, in Southern Hungary (about 215km from Zagreb, and 200km from Budapest).

A screenshot of the RSA website is shown below. Take a look by clicking the image.

Euro blogging...

Things have been quieter on the blog front recently because I've been in Lille from 1-5 April and then Leuven from 5-9 April at the Regional Studies Association International Conference 2009. The event brings together key thinkers (not that I think I'm amongst them!) in regional studies from across Europe and the wider world, though it tends to be mostly European. Papers given at the conference were varied and reflect the broad constituency of the field of regional studies itself. So, we find economists mixing with geographers, planners and those who transcend disciplinary boundaries.

Of particular interest for me here was the special session centred on DCLG (a government department in the UK, with responsibilities in England) and the establishment of the new spatial analysis unit, headed by David Wood (economist by training). There were three pleasing aspects about this for me. First, the fact that David Wood and Verity Morgan from DCLG were in attendance in the first place - very good. Second, the fact that there is a new unit within DCLG dedicated to spatial analysis - this is right down my street, as previous posts have shown. Finally, the fact that senior people in the Department are enthusiastic about this kind of work, and particularly work which I had a key role in - I've blogged on it before.

Finally, some visuals on the route from Sheffield to Leuven. I'm taking the Eurostar back...



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