The overall leaderboard averages current and backfile metadata. Publishers with large historical catalogs get dragged down by old content they can't retroactively fix. The current era leaderboard ranks purely on current-era content (last 2 years per Crossref), showing who's doing the best work right now.
The Industry Is Better Than It Looks
When you strip away historical backfiles, the picture improves meaningfully:
| Metric | Overall | Current Era | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average score | 19 | 23 | +4 |
| Grade A publishers | 2 | 11 | +9 |
| Grade B publishers | 41 | 251 | +210 |
| Grade F publishers | 19,547 | 17,665 | -1,882 |
2,844 publishers (12.4%) earn a higher grade on current content than overall. The industry is improving — it's just buried under decades of legacy metadata.
The Biggest Transformations
These large publishers look completely different when judged on recent work:
| Publisher | Current Works | Overall | Current | Jump |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Physical Society | 55K | 58 (C) | 81 (A) | C→A |
| American Society for Microbiology | 15K | 67 (B) | 86 (A) | B→A |
| American Chemical Society | 210K | 48 (D) | 70 (B) | D→B |
| American Meteorological Society | 4K | 41 (D) | 66 (B) | D→B |
| IEEE | 883K | 34 (F) | 41 (D) | F→D |
| SAGE Publications | 234K | 48 (D) | 61 (C) | D→C |
| BMJ | 64K | 33 (F) | 47 (D) | F→D |
| Wolters Kluwer | 237K | 26 (F) | 35 (D) | F→D |
APS is the standout — a C-overall publisher producing A-grade metadata right now (score 81, #6 among all active publishers). ASM jumps from B to A (#3 in current era, score 86).
American Scholarly Societies Are Quietly Leading
A striking pattern: US-based scholarly societies dominate the current-era large publisher rankings. ASM, APS, AAS, PNAS, AGU, and ACS all score B or higher — while the commercial giants (Elsevier, Springer, Wiley) remain D's. These societies, not the publishing conglomerates, are setting the standard for metadata quality at scale.
Commercial Publishers: Improved, But Still D's
| Publisher | Current Works | Current Score | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|
| MDPI | 632K | 68 | B |
| SAGE | 234K | 61 | C |
| IOP Publishing | 117K | 55 | C |
| Wiley | 895K | 48 | D |
| Springer Nature | 2.0M | 47 | D |
| Elsevier | 3.0M | 42 | D |
| IEEE | 883K | 41 | D |
| OUP | 451K | 29 | F |
MDPI remains the only commercial-scale publisher to earn a B. OUP is the worst performer among major publishers even on current content — still an F at 29.
Only 135 Publishers Got Worse
Just 135 publishers (0.6%) score lower on current content than overall. The most notable: eLife dropped from D (39) to F (31) — surprising for an open-access pioneer. Most downgrades are small regional publishers.
South Korea Still Dominates
33 of the top 50 current-era publishers are South Korean — nearly identical to the overall leaderboard. The pattern holds regardless of how you measure.
Organizations and Funding Are Still the Gap
Even on current content, the weakest dimensions remain essentially empty:
| Dimension | Average (current era) |
|---|---|
| Access | 47/100 |
| People (ORCIDs) | 28/100 |
| Provenance | 25/100 |
| Organizations (ROR) | 7/100 |
| Funding | 2/100 |
The industry has made progress on provenance and ORCIDs, but institutional identifiers and funding metadata remain nearly empty across the board.
The Bottom Line
The current-era view reveals a more optimistic story. The industry is getting better — 2,844 publishers earn a higher grade on recent content. American scholarly societies are producing A and B-grade metadata at scale. But the commercial giants (Elsevier, Springer, Wiley) are stuck in D territory even on their newest content, and two entire dimensions (organizations, funding) remain essentially absent across the board.