I agree with Jan Velterop that there are low-quality and junk non-OA journals, just as there are low-quality and junk OA journals (though I do think there is evidence that the pay-to-publish OA model has lowered the cost, risk and barriers to start-up low-quality and junk journals).
I referred to my own paper for the explanation of why I think this is just a symptom of the prematurity of gold OA journals at this time (pre-green-OA). Once we have 100% green OA (because all institutions and funders have mandated it), journal publishing will just be the peer review service, and its quality standards will be ensured by providing it on the no-fault basis I described: Author pays (a little) for each round of peer review, not for acceptance. Acceptance just means your paper is certified as having met the established quality standards of the journal that accepted it. Access and archiving are provided by the institutional repositories, not the publisher. But that's all premature: Green OA self-archiving, and green OA self-archiving mandates first. Authors who pay-to-publish today -- whether in OA or non-OA journals -- will get exactly what they pay for if they publish in journals with low quality standards. But let us not pretend they are doing that for OA, because they can have OA by meeting the standards of a high quality journal -- and then self-archiving their final, accepted drafts. Amen, Stevan On Sat, Oct 29, 2011 at 1:18 PM, Jan Velterop <velte...@gmail.com> wrote: > Stevan Harnad responded to most of Eric van der Velde's doubts > (http://bit.ly/v3OAqq) straightforwardly â and fairly, I think. To Eric's > question whether OA publishing amounts to vanity publishing, he responds with > a few references to his own papers, that perhaps don't quite answer the > question, so let me say a few words about that. > > It could be argued that much of academic publishing is "vanity publishing". > That is because it's purpose is not only to convey research results to the > rest of the academic community, but also â and one can be forgiven for > thinking that that's often the primary purpose â to support the author's > reputation and academic prowess in what I call the academic 'ego-system'. > It's "publish or perish" after all, and not "read or rot". So 'vanity > publishing' of sorts (arguably peer-review even adds to the vanity, certainly > to the effect on exhibit-able prowess) is a necessity in the academic > 'ego-system' to survive and thrive. > > It's quite probable that Eric didn't have this kind of 'vanity' in mind, but > just the sort of unfiltered, unchecked publishing more akin to blog posts and > the like. Well, OA publishing doesn't provide that any more than traditional > publishing. Of course, there may be a few OA journals that are rather > cavalier with the peer-review process, but such journals also exist in the > traditional subscription-based publishing world. The temptation to accept > articles that might not quite pass muster is also present in traditional > subscription journals, because they do not only fail when they don't have > enough subscriptions; they also fail when they have not enough papers. > Indeed, traditional publishers rely effectively on the publication of ever > more papers to be able to increase their revenues. Just as OA publishers do. > > OA journals are not more likely than traditional subscription journals to > lower their standards. What they may do more (I'm thinking of e.g. PLoS One) > is to remove as much as possible subjective selection criteria (often > confused with 'quality') and selection criteria based on the amount of space > a journal has (due, for instance, to having a print edition). Such space > limitations may result (and frequently do, is my impression) in rejection of > perfectly publishable and even subjectively high quality articles, just > because it so happens that just before an article on a similar topic has been > accepted, or an article by researchers from the same institution, or an > article considered to have higher citation-potential (an example of what is > often confused with quality), or some such argument. This kind of selection > is often seen as resulting in higher quality, but is in reality quite > arbitrary, even spurious. > > Jan Velterop
