Open access journals - pros and cons

[Jacov]

Dear all,

I wonder if it is reasonable to publish in these „new“ open-access journals like http://www.frontiersin.org/

For me it sounds like: “Publish whatever you want as long as you pay for it”. Maybe I am wrong with this.

If I would hire people (e.g. Postdocs) with almost all publications in such journals I would be suspicious.

What do you guy’s think about this “pay and publish” policy?

[trinker]

I think it has come about because the current system is pretty messed up. In my field one top tiered journal published 3 articles the first quarter. With all these people vying for tenure it's pretty impossible if journals aren't:

a) putting out more stuff
b) getting faster turn around on submissions

though this doesn't really answer your question.

[Dragan]

I would say that you need to be careful and select open access journals that have a good established reputation.

I pretty much have restricted my selection of open access journals to the Hindawi (ISRN) journals:

http://www.hindawi.com/

It's been reported that this publishing firm rejects between 60% - 65% of articles that are submitted into there online manuscript tracking system.

[victorxstc]

For me it sounds like: “Publish whatever you want as long as you pay for it”. Maybe I am wrong with this.

I agree with you about 95% of such journals. However there are very few good open access journals as well.

Which journal do you want to submit to? How much does it charge for publishing your article?

[Karabiner]

What do you guy’s think about this “pay and publish” policy?

Open access is a great idea. The traditional journals hide results of publicy
funded research behind paywalls. And some publishers' charges are grotesque
(as an author, I boycot Elsevier, cf. http://thecostofknowledge.com/).

As with traditional journals, open access journals are of varying quality. But
there are some instances of open access where you can even check out
the quality of the review process (for example in biomedcentral)! That is
something that I haven't seen in traditional journals.

Kind regards

K.

[bugman]

We were currently looking at getting a few subscriptions at work, but a certain few journals were going to charge ridiculous prices. I am all for open access as long as there is a robust peer review processes. Journals in the Applied Ecology series charge ~ 1500.00 per article if the author(s) choose to make it open access. Its almost worth enrolling in a uni degree just to get data abse access!

[duskstar]

At lot of open access journals have an open peer review process, and I find that quite interesting. As others have said, I do wonder if there is a certain amount of "pay and be published". However I have had work published in what I hope are the more respectable journals, indeed all my work has been rigourously peer reviewed, sometimes several times.

[Jacov]

Of course, prices for articles in well-established journals are ridiculous and exorbitant. But this is actually not the issue. My experience is that open-access journals are often dismissed.

In my area professors definitely dismiss results from such journals. For example, if you apply for a PostDoc job at a university, publications in such journals do not really count. Also in industry scientists mostly read the traditional journals.

I mean it is definitely nice to publish several papers per year (because I still think that the review process is very relaxed) but my experience is that one paper in a well-establish journal has much more reputation.

If I would have a really innovative result I would never go into “pay and publish” journals.

Just my two cents! (by the way I also heard very good things about hindawi)

[Eugenie]

I agree that journal reputation is important when you are early career. Just having lots
of publications is not as important as having some solid ones in established journals.
So I would not suggest young researchers publish in such a journal unless it has an established
reputation. On the other hand--if you are already a senior researcher, then I believe
it is an excellent goal to work with other senior researchers on helping a good free-access
journal establish its reputation, both through publishing there and helping to referee.

In mathematics, it is common to post preprints on the arxiv. I see it also lists statistics,
but I don't know if it is common in the statistics community to publicise research in this way.
Generally even when the article is published, the arxiv listing stays up. Anyway, it is a way
to get your research out there through an established route before it has gone through the
(in maths often lengthy) formal review process.

Also, sometimes people who have written expository articles or short notes that they don't intend
to publish, but which they wish to make available, they post them on the arxiv.

http://arxiv.org/archive/stat

[Dragan]

I agree that journal reputation is important when you are early career. Just having lots
of publications is not as important as having some solid ones in established journals.
So I would not suggest young researchers publish in such a journal unless it has an established
reputation. On the other hand--if you are already a senior researcher, then I believe
it is an excellent goal to work with other senior researchers on helping a good free-access
journal establish its reputation, both through publishing there and helping to referee.

I agree---your suggestions are very good.

[Ericlearnsplus]

I agree that journal reputation is important when you are early career. Just having lots
of publications is not as important as having some solid ones in established journals.
So I would not suggest young researchers publish in such a journal unless it has an established
reputation. On the other hand--if you are already a senior researcher, then I believe
it is an excellent goal to work with other senior researchers on helping a good free-access
journal establish its reputation, both through publishing there and helping to referee.

In mathematics, it is common to post preprints on the arxiv. I see it also lists statistics,
but I don't know if it is common in the statistics community to publicise research in this way.
Generally even when the article is published, the arxiv listing stays up. Anyway, it is a way
to get your research out there through an established route before it has gone through the
(in maths often lengthy) formal review process.

Also, sometimes people who have written expository articles or short notes that they don't intend
to publish, but which they wish to make available, they post them on the arxiv.

http://arxiv.org/archive/stat

That makes sense!

[Clem]

Open access is a great idea. The traditional journals hide results of publicy
funded research behind paywalls. And some publishers' charges are grotesque
(as an author, I boycot Elsevier, cf. http://thecostofknowledge.com/).

As with traditional journals, open access journals are of varying quality. But
there are some instances of open access where you can even check out
the quality of the review process (for example in biomedcentral)! That is
something that I haven't seen in traditional journals.

Kind regards

K.

Interesting link, I had never heard of that before.