I know that the processing period for the publication of the open-access article is relatively short, but it has the high processing fees of publishing. What happens to copyright issues if we publish anything for open access? Who covers the costs of publishing? If we do not get funds from our university how can we publish our findings? And many more questions ... It is interesting to know how you deal with these options.
There are so many discussion threads on open access publishing on RG already that it might be worth while to check these out.
Carmen, you forgot to mention the fourth category, which are the predatory OA journals, which are only in it to make money of naive scientists. This is the most rapidly expanding category. Always consult Beall’s List before considering publication in OA journals. http://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/
Mahmoud. You write in your question "I know that the processing period for the publication of the open-access article is relatively short". By this you seem to think that processing time by non OA journals is longer. Why do you that? All the manuscript handling, from submission, through editorial handling, passing the manuscript out to referees, getting reviews back, getting revised version from the authors and finally making the manuscript print-ready, all of this occurs electronically nowadays, irrespective of the journal being OA or not. Then, most non OA journals will place an electronic version on their website "ahead of print". The only difference is that those who don't have a subscription to that non OA journal will not be able to access the pdf file.
So I'd say that the manuscript handling time in not primarily affected by the journal being OA or not (unless they're skimping on the referee process). Different journal simply have different handlig times based on the amount of manuscripts they receive, the number of staff etc.
Predatory OA journals tend to have very short processing periods (just a couple of weeks), as their main strategy is to collect the authors' money for whatever they send to the journal: they will either not organize the review process at all or will make it very simple, as they earn on accepting papers (they charge acceptance fees). Try to avoid such journals, most people will not read them, anyway. If you publish your work in such journals, traditional journals will refuse to publish it again. Most traditional journals do not charge authors, they charge readers or their universities.
Thank you Tiia. What you said is true. In fact, my worry is growing of such predatory OA journals in an exponential rate. Every time i open my mailbox i have to delete some! If there was a list of such low quality OA journals then we could probably filter them out.
Have you seen this list of predatory publishers? http://scholarlyoa.com/2012/12/06/bealls-list-of-predatory-publishers-2013/
Although there are some very good OA journals, the 3 October 2013 issue of Sci Dev Net (www.scidev.net/global/communication/journalisn) has an excellent commentary on a paper published in Science (www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/60.full) entitled "Who is afraid of peer review" (Science 342: 60-65, 2013) by JOHN BOHANNON which sheds light on the predatory nature of a substantial number of publishers of open access scientific journals. The title of this Sci Dev Net commentary "Sting exposes 'wild west' of open-access publishing[ is self explanatory of the extent of the problem. Hence, before you spend your valuable research funds on publishing in an OA journal, please do a background check on the OA journal that you plan to submit your paper to. At the very least, do read the above two mentioned articles on OA journals so that you can avoid being cheated by predatory publishers of bogus journals despite the claims made in their journal websites..
People interested in an update on predatory journals, following the cessation of Beall's List updates and it's removal, might like to refer to an article in today's Times Higher Education (6 April 2017, pp. 42 & 43), reporting work by Larissa Shamseer and David Moher (link below but access may be restricted to subscribers).
Their study resulted in a list of 13 warning signs:
1. The scope of interest includes non-biomedical subjects alongside biomedical topics, or multiple, wide-ranging and unrelated fields of study are combined
2. The website contains spelling and grammar errors
3, Images are distorted/fuzzy, intended to look like something they are not, or are unauthorised
4.The home page language targets authors rather than readers
5, The Index Copernicus Value is promoted on the website
6. Description of the manuscript handling process is lacking
7. Manuscripts are requested to be submitted via email
8. Rapid publication is promised
9. There is no retraction policy
10. Information on whether and how journal content will be digitally preserved Is absent
11. The article processing/publication charge is very low (eg,
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