Open access mirror journals: an experiment in brand loyalty

Open access (OA) mirror journals have been launched by Elsevier as an alternative or supplement to original non-OA journals [1]. These OA mirror journals have the same title, aims and scope, editorial board, and peer-review process as their parent journal, and are distinguished by an “X” after the name. However, because the OA mirror journals have their own ISSNs (International Standard Serial Numbers), they are completely separate journals, which does not fit with Harrison’s [1] assertion that by publishing OA mirror journals, Elsevier is responding to authors’ need to publish in OA journals while simultaneously not wanting to sacrifice their association with the leading journal brands in their field. Asai [2] compared 22 pairs of Elsevier’s OA mirror journals with their parent journals and found that the parent journals were more preferred by authors. This essay analyses Elsevier’s OA mirror journals as an experiment of one publisher, which has a dominant position in the scientific publishing market. Elsevier has set an ambitious price level for article processing charges (APCs) in these OA mirror journals. The evolution of the price level for mirror journals, compared with the evolution of the price level for APCs for other Elsevier’s journals, is used to assess the success of Elsevier’s experiment.