Rafael,

I agree when you say that cites mean that academics read your work. But the other option (impact factor) is based on cites too, although it is based on journal cites and individual article cites. But, on the other hand, there are some examples in that a very bad paper is extremely cited exactly because it is so bad... One alternative is to develop a citation index that could be sensible to that.

Regarding the reviewer power to accept/reject your work based on what so ever policy, it does not change from subscription to open access journal. The peer review process remains a black box where a excelent work can be rejected by a bad reviewer (which is not so good, because it will be accepted in other journal) and a paper full of mistakes can be accepted by the same reviewer. I believe that the reviewr names should be published when they accept a paper, to associate their names to their decision.

Open access, in my view, will limit the information available to those who have good research budgets from one side and, which is much more important, it already is transforming the publication of a paper in a business without quality. I receive a lot of invitations monthly to publish papers, book chapters and to be speaker in conferences. Of course, that is always a small fee of about U$ 1000,00 to that. Am I a so great researcher to by so invited? No, of course! By thay find your name through searches on the internet and invite everyone who has the name linked to one subject ou keyword and send invitations. Is it not a fishing technique? Is this science that we want? My institution pays those fees if I have a paper accepted, but since they are so desperate to get authors, do you believe that a bad paper will be rejected and they will give up the publication fee?

I have serious doubts about that...

Thanks Rafael for bringing the topic to this forum. I have been discussing this issue with some colleagues, as Francisco Osorio (http://www.facso.uchile.cl/noticias/90036/open-library-of-humanities-mega-journals-seeing-from-the-south). While I agree with the need of discussion about the criteria and indicators for assessing the scientific publication, I think there is URGENT to make this in the context of an Organizational Development Plan of higher education institutions, evaluating all tasks and responsibilities of academic career. Academic merit promotion depends of both publication (not necessarily research) and teaching activities, but they aren´t assessing proportionally with our dedication and responsibilities. This results in the undervaluation of teaching in the organizational culture of universities in general, and is one of the structural reasons that reinforce their general lack of professional craft. If this coincides with education policies that, in times of "austerity", reduce the academic value to the hour per day inside the classroom, there is a complete dislocation between our work, quality criteria, and the promotion system.

I would think, based on my experience, that this somewhat discipline ideographic. Some disciplines are much more indexed and fully rated than others. It makes it difficult within some disciplines, let alone thinking about between disciplines, to use this approach.

I sincerely do not see the "paid open access" as a good option to the subscription journals. I see the science turning in a "publication business" and there is a lot of examples available right now. For instance, the Beall's List of predatory journals (http://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/). Although open access allow free access to all published material, it prevents the publishing of all material... Some fields, as Biology always work with big budgets, but in other fields, as Statistics, a great discovery could be obtained with just a personal computer and no budget to publish.

To me, the best option is the Scielo iniciative (www.scielo.org), where journals are free to read AND to publish. Money can be made, without conflict of interest from oficial agencies and advertising.

Related to the citations x impact factor problem, I always think about it. Although I am convinced that neither are a good option, I still could not think in a better solution...

Probably the more different metrics, the merrier. For instance, according to J. Britt Holbrook, Kelli R. Barr & Keith Wayne Brown, considering citations only is not enough in order to estimate the quality of a researcher as one can be cited for either good or bad reasons: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v497/n7450/full/497439a.html

I am not sure which system is better/worse, both have its advantages and disadvantages for scholars.

The one based on open access and cites looks like more "democratic", because it does not depend on any organization (journals/publishing houses) or policies.

But the pressure to professors will be higher because it is less controlable.

Rafael, I did not understand what you mean with "open access and cites looks like more "democratic", because it does not depend on any organization (journals/publishing houses) or policies"

It is not the journals/publishing houses that still control the market? They just changed who will pay the bill...

Sandro, cites mean that academics have read, analized and thought worth citing your paper, that is why I think is more "democratic" than an anonimous peer reviewer who decides to publish your reserach based on some non clear policies and on his subjective opinion.

Regarding the open access journal market, i think is much less controlled by publishing houses than the tradicional one, because, among other things, setting up a journal is much more accesible and afordable to academics, thanks to internet and technology.

Rafael,

I agree when you say that cites mean that academics read your work. But the other option (impact factor) is based on cites too, although it is based on journal cites and individual article cites. But, on the other hand, there are some examples in that a very bad paper is extremely cited exactly because it is so bad... One alternative is to develop a citation index that could be sensible to that.

Regarding the reviewer power to accept/reject your work based on what so ever policy, it does not change from subscription to open access journal. The peer review process remains a black box where a excelent work can be rejected by a bad reviewer (which is not so good, because it will be accepted in other journal) and a paper full of mistakes can be accepted by the same reviewer. I believe that the reviewr names should be published when they accept a paper, to associate their names to their decision.

Open access, in my view, will limit the information available to those who have good research budgets from one side and, which is much more important, it already is transforming the publication of a paper in a business without quality. I receive a lot of invitations monthly to publish papers, book chapters and to be speaker in conferences. Of course, that is always a small fee of about U$ 1000,00 to that. Am I a so great researcher to by so invited? No, of course! By thay find your name through searches on the internet and invite everyone who has the name linked to one subject ou keyword and send invitations. Is it not a fishing technique? Is this science that we want? My institution pays those fees if I have a paper accepted, but since they are so desperate to get authors, do you believe that a bad paper will be rejected and they will give up the publication fee?

I have serious doubts about that...

Sandro I agree. Have in mind that our open access system is relatively new and is changing many things in the industry, and that the journals that ask for a fee are based in the same "old" traditional system: prestige, indexation and impact factor. Perhaps the "prestige" should move from journals to authors.

Regarding impact factor, except Google Scholar's, they are calculated based in the cites of a private publisher/business, as Thomson Reuters, Scopus or EBSCOhost, which makes me feel uneasy.

Sandro,

I am very interested in your proposal of making the referees' names public after they accept a paper. As a matter of fact, I proposed a topic on the question a few weeks earlier: https://www.researchgate.net/post/In_blind_peer_reviews_should_the_name_of_the_referees_be_mentioned_in_the_published_version_of_a_paper

At some point I though that if I would find enough people agreeing, I would possibly start to work on an open letter or a petition addressed to editors; but the feedback I got was not so great and I did not continue to think about it.

There is an interesting paper I read some time ago that performed a game simulating non-blinded peer review and found that it resulted in a more colaborative and quick process. I will find it again and share here.

Here is the the article I cited above, about cooperation:

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0026895

And about citing and impact factor, recently, 67 journals were suspended from JCR because of stacking strategy to improve citation numbers. Stacking occurs when journals combined cross references with the objective to increase the numbers. Below, a note about the case (only in portuguese:

http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/ciencia/2013/07/1305305-quatro-revistas-brasileiras-sao-suspensas-de-indice-internacional.shtml

I feel both can be tought off but the journal indexing is good for authors

I believe the citation is not really transparent as i have noted that some journals publish different versions of same paper and increase citations. some publishers have become syndicate and the cite papers from only a selected journals? many issues are unclear regarding citations. Some do not value Google citations and prefer pubmed citations/scopus

I agre, it is true that citation metrics are not clear, so i thing it is fair and possible to do something to increase the probabilities of our papers to be found and cited.

http://howtopublishinjournals.com/2013/07/29/citation-impact-workouts/

Revolution of open access publications have indeed done a great job where in your paper becomes freely available online. I still have many problems with some journals published by springer and elseivier which charge for viewing and downloading papers that have been published (some are published even before 50 years ago)

What is the use of such publications that we are not free to read. This was may be done to avoid plagiarism.

Recently I have published an article entitled "Effective Strategies for Increasing Citation Frequency" which is available online on http://ssrn.com/abstract=2344585 . You can find over 33 different ways for increasing the citations impact.

the more the journal is indexed, the open access, citation will automatically improve. citation also depends on the type of research

Sure, the paper novelty has the main effect on the citations. However, improve articles' visibility by publishing in an Open Access journal will improve citation counts.

Growth of commercial companies specializing in scientific publications and assessment of their significance: is it the inevitable reality? How does it affect scientific productivity?

I believe that the lack of discussion of articles and reviews satisfies not only editors of these journals, but many authors also.

In such journals each article is presented as a ready product. Owners of such journals are not interested in changing the status of articles that can happen as a result of scientific discussion.

Sure, Open Access journal will improve accessibility and visibility of the paper. However, we should consider predatory journals as well.

"Open Access = no impact" and "OA displaces research funding from research" are some of myths about Open Science in general, and reflect the successes (and misinformation) of the private publishers lobbying.

Are there predatory journals hiding on the OA wave? Sure! Do they publish for profit at expense of quality? I bet they do! But that is nothing new.

In the pre-OA and pre-internet age were there bad journals? Yes! Was the peer-review quality as variable? Yes!!! And remember, there was no money to be made for the editors and reviewers more than now.

Does OA displace research funds? Only if you adopt the Gold Open Access as a strategy, and even then CERN will argue with you (very convincingly!) that long-term that is not true either.

There is an alternative that many funders support, Green Open Access. What does it cost? 5 min per article. Is there infrastructure for it? Yes! Does it support university strategy to "create knowledge and benefit society"? Yes! Does it help the individual needs for impact and visibility in a Publish or Perish reality? Yes!

Let`s agree to disagree

Should Open Science become the norm? Should OA be part of the Research Evaluation Frameworks (REF) for tenure in future? Should researchers be evaluated on IF or how much societal impact their research has?

Just some of the questions European Commission is currently polling the research community on. Do have your voice heard on a level politically more visible than this (albeit very enjoyable) discussion group.

Links below 

http://www.consultation-science20.eu/survey/consultation-science-20

@IVO We can not simply say "Are there predatory journals hiding on the OA wave? Sure! Do they publish for profit at expense of quality? I bet they do! But that is nothing new" . Since, we are able to find many good OA journal as well.

Open access definitely. It helps improving the accessibility as well as visibility of the paper ultimately helping to disseminate the scientific knowledge to mass. 

I vote for all 3, and the nature will decide - survival of the fittest or the best one, or may be combinational - all are human made and so will have their time of survival and choosing / as per demands 

I also think the three things mentioned are very important

I also think the three things mentioned are very important