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Cited by 27Publishing and Scholarly CommunicationAcademic Publishing and Open Accessscientometrics and bibliometrics research

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 16 of the 16 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

The Changing Medical Publishing Industry: Economics, Expansion, and Equity

Open access
Booth, Christopher M., Ross, Joseph S., Detsky, Allan S.·2023·Journal of General Internal Medicine
DOI 10.1007/s11606-023-08307-zPMC PMC10651592
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Abstract

Medical journal publishing has changed dramatically over the past decade. The shift from print to electronic distribution altered the industry's economic model. This was followed by open access mandates from funding organizations and the subsequent imposition of article processing charges on authors. The medical publishing industry is large and while there is variation across journals, it is overall highly profitable. As journals have moved to digital dissemination, advertising revenues decreased and publishers shifted some of the losses onto authors by way of article processing charges. The number of open access journals has increased substantially in recent years. The open access model presents an equity paradox; while it liberates scientific knowledge for the consumer, it presents barriers to those who produce research. This emerging "pay-to-publish" system offers advantages to authors who work in countries and at institutes with more resources. Finally, the medical publishing industry represents an unusual business model; the people who provide both the content and the external peer review receive no payment from the publisher, who generates revenue from the content. The very unusual economic model of this industry makes it vulnerable to disruptive change. The economic model of medical publishing is rapidly evolving and this will lead to disruption of the industry. These changes will accelerate dissemination of science and may lead to a shift away from lower-impact journals towards pre-print servers.

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  • The business model of the academic publishing industry is to generate revenue from scientific publications, and fake publishing makes publishers vulnerable to disruptive change.

    “Because the business model of the academic publishing industry is to generate revenue from scientific publications, fake publishing makes publishers vulnerable to disruptive change (Booth et al. 2023).”

    From Fake publications in biomedical science: red-flagging method indicates mass production (2026) · cites this paper as Booth et al. 2023

    The Abstract and “A Vulnerable Economic Model” section say publishers generate revenue from scientific content and that their unusual economic model is vulnerable to disruptive change. They do not say fake publishing causes that vulnerability; the paper instead discusses changes such as alternative dissemination platforms. No page numbers are available in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.88)

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Research works printed but not linked: 1

  1. Directory of Open Access Journals. Available at: https://doaj.org/search/journals?source=%7B%22query%22%3A%7B%22match_all%22%3A%7B%7D%7D%2C%22size%22%3A50%2C%22sort%22%3A%5B%7B%22created_date%22%3A%7B%22order%22%3A%22desc%22%7D%7D%5D%2C%22track_total_hits%22%3Atrue%7D. Last accessed March 30, 2023.

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Metadata

Authors
Booth, C. M., Ross, J. S., & Detsky, A. S.
Affiliations
  • Queen's University (CA)
  • Yale University (US)
  • Mount Sinai Hospital (CA)
Corresponding author
Detsky, Allan S.
ORCID
Venue
Journal of General Internal Medicine
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2023-07-12
Volume
38
Issue
14
Pages
3242-3246
ISSN
  • 0884-8734 (ISSN-L)
  • 1525-1497
DOI
10.1007/s11606-023-08307-z
PMC
PMC10651592
OpenAlex
W4384023989
Cited by
27
References
16
Citations by year
2026: 9 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 9
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Journal of General Internal Medicine (publishedVersion, other-oa)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, other-oa)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Funders
  • McGill University
  • Arnold Ventures
  • National Institutes of Health (UL1TR001863)
  • Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (R01 HS025164, R01HS022882)
  • National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (R01HL144644)
  • National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Library and Information Sciences › Publishing and Scholarly Communication
  • Social Sciences › Library and Information Sciences › Academic Publishing and Open Access
  • Social Sciences › Library and Information Sciences › scientometrics and bibliometrics research
Keywords
medical journal publishing, publishing economics, open access, article processing charges, pay-to-publish, digital publishing, print-to-digital transition, advertising revenue, equity in scholarly publishing, disruptive change, preprint servers, peer review, scholarly communication
MeSH terms
Electronics, Humans, Peer Review, Publishing, Models, Economic

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