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Is publishing in open access journal a good impression ? I mean publishing in such journals (where one has to pay money), will it be valuable compared to other journals ?

RIchard Williams
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    A good impression in what way, exactly? – Buffy Feb 27 '21 at 14:34
  • @Buffy: see the edit. – RIchard Williams Feb 27 '21 at 14:42
  • Say more if you can. Valuable? Do you just mean to your overall academic reputation or something else? – Buffy Feb 27 '21 at 14:43
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    OA does not necessarily equal paying money (APCs, or article processing charges). There are plenty of free OA journals as well - and many closed access journals where you nevertheless need to pay APCs. – anpami Feb 27 '21 at 15:05
  • This is further complicated by the fact that nearly all journals that are not open access offer an open access option. Simply liking open access does not help you choose a journal. – Anonymous Physicist Feb 28 '21 at 00:57
  • As a side notice, Springer-Nature recently made their journals OpenAccess for German scientists. Basically, with a right affiliation you publish in their journal and your magically becomes OpenAccess. (I understand, that you are asking about journals that are fully OpenAccess, and some are predatory. But having OpenAccess publications can also mean publications in hybrid journals.) – Oleg Lobachev Feb 28 '21 at 12:02
  • Please make your question less vague. – einpoklum Feb 28 '21 at 13:37
  • Might be some very small reputation boost if people can see all your articles are open access and available to anyone rather than being hidden behind paywalls. – Tom Feb 28 '21 at 14:56

2 Answers2

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It depends entirely on the journal. There are good and bad open access journals, just as there are good and bad closed access journals.

For example, in biology Nature Communications, Cell Reports, eLife, PLoS Biology and Genome Biology are all open access journals with excellent reputations.

PLoS One, BMC genomics, PeerJ, Scientific Reports are open access journals that have a reputation (earned or not) of publishing work which is sound, but maybe less exciting.

And then there are various lower quality open access journals that people might be suspicious of.

This is no different from closed access journals.

Ian Sudbery
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  • Nature comms and excellent reputation is a bit of a stretch but I buy the rest of your list. –  Feb 27 '21 at 18:38
  • Nature Comms definitely gets you into 4* territory around here. – Ian Sudbery Feb 27 '21 at 19:32
  • @Libor stretch? I'd say it has the best reputation on the list by far. – terdon Feb 28 '21 at 15:32
  • "Sorry you didn't get into the journal you submitted to, for $5000 we publish it anyway. Otherwise we delete everything and you start over somewhere else." That Nature comms? It's got more in common with a hostage situation than a normal journal. –  Feb 28 '21 at 16:42
  • Nonsense, I've submitted to Nature Comms 3 times. The first two I got desk rejections. The 3rd paper we tried at Nature Comms has now been under review for 6 months and we are on our 2nd revision. – Ian Sudbery Feb 28 '21 at 18:43
  • Every single one of my colleagues (myself included) has a Nature Comms paper. Every single case I'm aware of was the unified peer review dropping it from another Nature journal. You take the offer because it means publishing with the reviews you have instead of having to restart the process. In general I find that the papers in it are around what I'd expect from PLoS one and I'd put it in that tier. –  Feb 28 '21 at 19:59
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    Maybe its field specific. The papers in my field in Nat Comms are generally very good. If you wanted something more like PLoS one, then you'd be look that "Nature" Scientific Reports.Its not like publishing in Nature or Nature Genetics costs any less than publishing in Nat Comms anyway really. – Ian Sudbery Mar 01 '21 at 10:56
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    @Libor I've also thought about Nature Comms in such hostage terms, but that doesn't stop it from being a good journal, with a reputation for publishing a lot of great papers (indeed often ones that didn't meet the flashiness standards of the glossy journals). – Anyon Mar 01 '21 at 22:07
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For academic reputation purposes, publishing in a reputable open access journal is fine. I'm assuming that the journal goes through a proper review and editorial process and that papers might be rejected for quality or innovation reasons. Otherwise, it may be a predatory journal that just wants your money and will publish anything.

But it is the reputation of the journal and its adherence to norms that makes this valid, not whether the authors (or their grants) or subscribers pay for the costs, etc. of publishing.

In some ways, it is a (minor) reputation enhancement since you are doing something for the public beyond what is required by absorbing the costs.

But do a bit of investigation of any journal (open access or not).

Buffy
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