Accept me, accept me not: What do journal acceptance rates really mean?

This study considers what journal acceptance rates can tell a submitting author about a journal and whether the rate is a signal of other journal attributes  – impact or quality, for example.

Highlights:

• Journal acceptance rates should not be used as evaluative metrics for journals: we find no evidence that acceptance rates are a reliable signal of quality or impact.
• Journal acceptance rates are useful for submitting authors and ICSR recommends that they be made publicly available where possible.
• Gold open access journals do tend to have higher acceptance rates than other open access types, but these also tend to be younger journals: as these journals age, will those acceptance rates decrease, or will the open access model influence the acceptance rate?

Download the article on SSRN

Also available in the following languages

下载报告

Загрузить статью (PDF, 8.9 MB)