Open access publishing: a study of current practices in orthopaedic research

Area of Science:

• Orthopaedic research
• Scholarly publishing
• Bibliometrics

Background:

• Open access (OA) publishing has transformed scientific dissemination, offering benefits particularly for low-income countries.
• Concerns persist regarding high publication fees, peer review integrity, and research quality in OA models.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the prevalence of OA publishing in orthopaedic research.
• To compare citation metrics and evidence quality between OA and traditional subscription-based orthopaedic journals.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of 63 orthopaedic journals listed in the Journal Citation Report (JCR) for 2012 bibliometric data.
• Identification of Level I evidence studies within PubMed for each journal.
• Review of journal websites for OA policies and assessment of hybrid and fully OA models.

Main Results:

• Only 8% of journals were fully OA; 31.7% were hybrid, offering OA options upon payment.
• No significant differences were found in impact factor, citation counts, self-citation rates, or Level I evidence volume between OA and subscription journals (p > 0.05).

Conclusions:

• OA journals are present but not widespread in orthopaica research; hybrid models are common.
• OA and subscription-based orthopaedic journals demonstrate comparable bibliometric performance and evidence quality.
• Further development of regulated OA systems is needed to ensure research quality in orthopaedics.