{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,3]],"date-time":"2026-06-03T20:05:56Z","timestamp":1780517156953,"version":"3.54.1"},"reference-count":65,"publisher":"Emerald","issue":"2","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2017,3,13]],"date-time":"2017-03-13T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1489363200000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/www.emerald.com\/insight\/site-policies"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["JD"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2017,3,13]]},"abstract":"<jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-subheading\">Purpose<\/jats:title><jats:p>Open-access mega-journals (OAMJs) represent an increasingly important part of the scholarly communication landscape. OAMJs, such as<jats:italic>PLOS ONE<\/jats:italic>, are large scale, broad scope journals that operate an open access business model (normally based on article-processing charges), and which employ a novel form of peer review, focussing on scientific \u201csoundness\u201d and eschewing judgement of novelty or importance. The purpose of this paper is to examine the discourses relating to OAMJs, and their place within scholarly publishing, and considers attitudes towards mega-journals within the academic community.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-subheading\">Design\/methodology\/approach<\/jats:title><jats:p>This paper presents a review of the literature of OAMJs structured around four defining characteristics: scale, disciplinary scope, peer review policy, and economic model. The existing scholarly literature was augmented by searches of more informal outputs, such as blogs and e-mail discussion lists, to capture the debate in its entirety.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-subheading\">Findings<\/jats:title><jats:p>While the academic literature relating specifically to OAMJs is relatively sparse, discussion in other fora is detailed and animated, with debates ranging from the sustainability and ethics of the mega-journal model, to the impact of soundness-only peer review on article quality and discoverability, and the potential for OAMJs to represent a paradigm-shifting development in scholarly publishing.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-subheading\">Originality\/value<\/jats:title><jats:p>This paper represents the first comprehensive review of the mega-journal phenomenon, drawing not only on the published academic literature, but also grey, professional and informal sources. The paper advances a number of ways in which the role of OAMJs in the scholarly communication environment can be conceptualised.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.1108\/jd-06-2016-0082","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2017,2,22]],"date-time":"2017-02-22T11:36:36Z","timestamp":1487763396000},"page":"263-283","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":89,"title":["Open-access mega-journals"],"prefix":"10.1108","volume":"73","author":[{"given":"Valerie","family":"Spezi","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-0611-9083","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Simon","family":"Wakeling","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-4696-764X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Stephen","family":"Pinfield","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Claire","family":"Creaser","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Jenny","family":"Fry","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Peter","family":"Willett","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"140","reference":[{"key":"key2020120901414210300_ref001","unstructured":"Anderson, K. 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(2012), \u201cPLoS ONE \u2013 a personal farewell\u201d, PLoS ONE Blog, 18 May, available at: http:\/\/blogs.plos.org\/everyone\/2012\/05\/18\/plos-one-a-personal-farewell\/ (accessed 10 December 2015)."},{"key":"key2020120901414210300_ref004","unstructured":"Binfield, P. (2013), \u201cOpen access megajournals \u2013 have they changed everything?\u201d , Creative Commons Blog, 23 October, available at: http:\/\/creativecommons.org.nz\/2013\/10\/open-access-megajournals-have-they-changed-everything\/ (accessed 29 December 2015)."},{"key":"key2020120901414210300_ref005","unstructured":"BioMed Central (2016), \u201cThe BMC-series journals\u201d, available at: www.biomedcentral.com\/p\/the-bmc-series-journals (accessed 15 February 2016)."},{"key":"key2020120901414210300_ref006","first-page":"1","article-title":"Have the \u2018mega-journals\u2019 reached the limits to growth?","volume":"3","year":"2015","journal-title":"PeerJ"},{"issue":"1","key":"key2020120901414210300_ref007","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"9","DOI":"10.1002\/leap.1007","article-title":"Peer review in megajournals compared with traditional scholarly journals: does it make a difference?","volume":"29","year":"2016","journal-title":"Learned Publishing"},{"issue":"2","key":"key2020120901414210300_ref008","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"85","DOI":"10.1087\/20150202","article-title":"Emerging new methods of peer review in scholarly journals","volume":"28","year":"2015","journal-title":"Learned Publishing"},{"key":"key2020120901414210300_ref009","unstructured":"Bj\u00f6rk, B.-C. and Solomon, D. 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