Modern science has been transformed by open access (OA) publishing levied a significant economic burden on the authors. This article analyzes the discrepancies among OA publication fees in pharmacology, toxicology, and pharmaceutics. The observations comprise 160 OA journals and their corresponding Q ranking, SJR, H index, impact factor, country, and cost of publication. The OA fees were found to depend on the quality matrices, which was unexpected. Differences in OA fees raise ethical questions as OA fees are meant to cover the publication charges by the publishers or generate more revenues by taking advantage of the authors' temptation to publish in high-impact journals. Despite our findings being based on limited sample size and belonging to a particular field (pharmacy), it will shed considerable light on the issue of discrepancies among APCs charged by OA journals.
Keywords: Impact factor; Open access; Publication fees; Q ranking.
©2023 The Authors.