Methodology & Notes

Sources 

This dashboard is based on analysis of data from Scopus, Elsevier, ESAC initiative and the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) and will be updated annually.  The data supplied by Scopus are from a combination of both proprietary data and data from openly available sources, including the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and Unpaywall.  All data included in this dashboard is available to download via the link at the bottom of this page and to re-use under the terms of a  CC BY-NC license. 

Methodology 

Scopus data in the form of two separate datasets (overview by countries/regions and overview by funder) was analysed via Microsoft PowerBI. Input data has been enriched by the means of lookup tables, to enable splits by: 

• Open Access types 

• Discipline (STM or SSH) 

• Regions (i.e. groups of countries) 

• Research4Life eligible countries/regions 

• Funders 

Data visualisations from PowerBI have subsequently been exported in csv format for visualisation using the Flourish platform. 

Each article, review and conference paper considered in this dashboard was assigned to unique categories for the purposes of analysis and visualisation. For example, where the country/region is displayed, this only reflects the country of the corresponding author, while the countries/regions of co-authors are not shown. Similarly, articles, reviews and conference papers have been assigned to a unique discipline, based on the Science-Metrix Classification of Scientific Journals, and each article, review or conference paper was assigned to a unique OA type (e.g. a gold OA article deposited in an institutional repository is only counted once as gold OA rather than twice as gold OA and green OA). Although this approach introduces an extent of simplification, it was necessary to avoid double counting in our analysis. 

To understand whether an author was offered gold open access, but did not take it up, Scopus and Elsevier data was examined to establish whether gold open access was used by other publications in the journal. If at least one of the articles in the journal in a given year was published gold open access, then the entire journal is considered to have offered gold open access to all authors in that publication year.  

With each annual update there will be slight variation across the dataset due to the continuous updating and refinement of the data held within Scopus. 

Classification 

Scopus defines articles as based on original research or opinion, review papers as significant reviews of original research that has already been published, and conference papers as original articles reporting data presented at a conference or symposium.  For further information, please see the Scopus Content Coverage Guide.    

Scopus records were mapped to the Science-Metrix Classification of Scientific Journals (7th public release) and then assigned to disciplinary groupings via lookup, as shown in the table below. 

Geographic regions are identified using the United Nations M49 standard.  Click on the following links  for more information on the identification of North America and South America.  The European Union was identified using this List of Member States (the United Kingdom is omitted in 2021 due to ceasing its membership).  The grouping named Research4Life displays the aggregated total output of articles, reviews and conference papers by corresponding authors based in eligible countries/regions (lists A and B). 

Access Type Definitions 

Each article, review and conference paper considered in this dashboard was assigned to a single access type based on the following definitions.  

Bronze: an open access publishing route whereby an article or monograph is made free-to-read on the publisher’s website and as such is supported by subscriptions or other forms of payment.  It is made available under a general publisher policy (e.g. after an embargo expires), for a specific purpose (e.g. for content of broad interest), or on an ad-hoc basis.   Such publications may have limited or unclear reuse rights or be freely available only for a limited time.  Some may have licenses considered to be an “open license” and others may not. Therefore, some of these articles might be considered gold if they had more complete metadata, while others may not meet the commonly accepted definitions of open access, such as the declaration of the Budapest Open Access Initiative. 

Gold: an open access publishing route where the final published version of an article (see Version of Record) is freely and permanently available online immediately on publication, for anyone, anywhere to read. Re-use depends on the license applied to the article. Article Publishing Charge (APC) may apply. For the STM OA Dashboard, articles, reviews, and conference papers that have been published in a hybrid journal via gold are included in this category. Versions of Record without a Creative Commons License but which are free to read on the publisher site are classified as bronze within the data shown.  The number of gold open access publications identified here therefore may be less than other sources which use a broader definition of gold. 

Green: an open access publishing route where a version of an article is publicly shared online in a repository or on a website, often as an Accepted Manuscript. This type of access is generally supported by subscriptions to the journal in which they are published and other forms of payment.  To support a sustainable business model, publishers may maintain an embargo, a period where the article is only available from the publisher, and/or may retain an Exclusive License to Publish (sometimes for a limited time) through an agreement with the author. 

Subscription-only: a publishing route by which funding for publication is provided through individual or institutional payments. Articles are then available to researchers at institutions that subscribe to the journal at no cost. Individuals without subscription access may have other options for access, including individual payment per article, links or access provided legally by the author, document delivery or temporary access or renting access or interlibrary loan. Researchers based in Low- and Middle-Income countries/regions may be able to take advantage of reduced or no cost subscriptions offered to their institutions through such organizations as Research4Life. 

Limitations 

Versions of Record without a Creative Commons license but which are free to read on the publisher site are classified as bronze within the data shown. It is therefore likely that the number of gold open access publications may be less than other sources which use a broader definition of gold.  Despite this, we are confident that the data accurately reflects the trends identified and discussed. Additionally, the open access type known as diamond or platinum is likely counted within the category of gold.  It was not possible to refine the data sufficiently to identify this OA type separately.  

Please note that the balance of subscription-only and green open access items for the most recent year reported is likely to be affected by embargoes and may change in future iterations of the dashboard. 

The method used to measure the opportunity for an author to choose gold OA may undercount the scale of gold OA offered in the market, as potentially there are journals that allow gold OA, but do not actually end up publishing any OA articles in a given year. 

It is acknowledged that each of these data sources is subject to limitations, such as reduced coverage of local language publications from low- and middle-income countries/regions. The use of alternative data sources might yield different results to those presented here. 

Some percentages may not add up to 100% due to rounding.  Figures were uploaded with two decimal places and then rounded to the nearest whole number in each visualisation by Flourish.   

From April 2024, Scopus updated its OA tagging policy to fully align with the Unpaywall definitions.  This change affected roughly 2 million OA tags in Scopus and represented roughly 8.4% of the 24 million+ OA items currently in Scopus.  The result was that documents shifted their classification status either from bronze to hybrid or gold, or from hybrid to gold. The change did not cause items to lose OA status, or for non-OA items to become OA.  For the STM OA dashboard, readers will see a small increase to rates of gold publication and a corresponding decrease in bronze across the dataset compared to previous versions of the dashboard. Slight variations across the dataset will occur with each annual update of the dashboard due to the continuous updating and refinement of the data held within Scopus. 

ESAC data concerning Transformative Agreements is self-reported by libraries and consortia on a voluntary basis. 

Acknowledgments 

This dashboard is the product of a collaboration involving STM publisher members, who provided data that underpin the dashboard; the independent consulting firm, Research Consulting, which provided guidance throughout the project and provided the formulation of data analysis methodology, processing, and validation; and Scopus, which also provided data and analysis. 

Click here to download data (.xlsx) 

For more information, contact us by email 

If you wish to reuse any of the information presented as part of this dashboard, please cite it as follows: 

International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM). (2025. The STM Open Access Dashboard. [Online]. Available from:  https://www.stm-assoc.org/oa-dashboard/ 

Last updated: October 2025 

Charts created using https://flourish.studio