Research publishing: a 25-year view using Dimensions



Hello fellow journalologists,

The volume of published research articles has grown rapidly over the past 25 years. I’ve been investigating what might have caused the increase and today I want to share my findings with you, in the form of a video.

The video is split into two halves.

The first section (22 minutes viewing time) talks you through the impact on article volumes of (1) Covid, (2) the rise of China, (3) the transition to open access, and (4) the possible effect of paper mills. I also show which subject areas grew the most over the past decade.

The second section (14 minutes viewing time) explains how I used Dimensions (Digital Science) to do the analysis.

Dimensions kindly sponsored this video, but I had full editorial control over the presentation. I’d like to thank Eric Schares, a librarian at Iowa State University, for providing invaluable feedback on an early version of these slides. Needless to say, any errors are my own.

Click the play button below to watch the video on the Digital Science YouTube channel.

video preview

I hope you find the video to be useful and interesting. Please leave a comment on YouTube if you have any questions about the data that I present here or about how I used Dimensions to create the graphs.

Until next time,

James

113 Cherry St #92768, Seattle, WA 98104-2205
Unsubscribe · Preferences

Journalology

The Journalology newsletter helps editors and publishing professionals keep up to date with scholarly publishing, and guides them on how to build influential scholarly journals.

Read more from Journalology

Subscribe to newsletter Hello fellow journalologists, This week’s scholarly publishing news has been dominated by one topic. I've attempted to summarise some of the key news stories and opinions related to the new US administration’s edicts, as they relate to academic journals. The past few weeks have been disorientating and confusing. Soon the smoke will lift and we will have a clearer view of the challenges that are facing us. Cool heads are needed. So is solidarity. Our industry is based...

Subscribe to newsletter Hello fellow journalologists, Sir Theodore "Robbie" Fortescue Fox, who edited The Lancet between 1944 and 1964 noted that there are two types of journal: newspaper journals and recorder journals. We should all be thankful for the role that newspaper journals play in these troubled times. Science and Nature, in particular, play an invaluable news-gathering role, especially during times of political or social upheaval. Scienceinsider has done an incredible job over the...

Subscribe to newsletter Hello fellow journalologists, Welcome to 2025. Many of you will have had some time off and will now be playing catch up. In this issue I’ve attempted to summarise the key news stories that broke over the festive period. There’s a lot to cover, so I’ve dropped the Opinion section to keep this newsletter to a reasonable(ish) length. A new year represents a new beginning. A time to take stock and plan for the year ahead. If you would like to work with me one-to-one, my...