and how you can avoid them”
This is the title of a blog post by ImpactStory, impactstory.org, and it discusses what are essentially three myths about publishing in an open access, online only journal. I know that the chemistry community generally has been slow to accept the open access movement, but with ACS jumping on the bandwagon, it’s time we all took note. The post is well worth the read, so I am posting a few snippets here. For the full post, see http://blog.impactstory.org/the-3-dangers-of-publishing-in-megajournals-and-how-you-can-avoid-them/
- Megajournals publish prestigious science: top scientists, including Nobelists, publish there. They also serve as their editors and advisory board members.
- Megajournals boost citation and readership impact: A 2008 BMJ study showed that “full text downloads were 89% higher, PDF downloads 42% higher, and unique visitors 23% higher for open access articles than for subscription access articles.”
- Megajournals promote real-world use: The most famous example is of Jack Andraka, a teenager who devised a test for pancreatic cancer using information found in Open Access medical literature.
- Megajournals publish fast: Rather than having to prove to your reviewers the significance of your findings, you just have to prove that the underlying science is sound. That leaves you with more time to do other research.
- Megajournals save money: Megajournals also often cheaper to publish in, due to economies of scale. PeerJ claims that their even cheaper prices–$299 flat rate for as many articles as you want to publish, ever–have saved academia over $1 million to date.
Other myths debunked: ‘No one in my field will see my article’, and ‘It will look like I couldn’t get published in a good journal’. See http://blog.impactstory.org/the-3-dangers-of-publishing-in-megajournals-and-how-you-can-avoid-them/ to find out the facts.