Like Robert - I would be wary. The more reputable and established open access journals are not really about quick review rates and low fees - especially those with good impact factors - such as BMC-series journals. I'm an Associate Editor for BMC Public Health. The review times are deliberate and thorough and take as long as they need to take to make a final, considered evaluation. If accepted, the publication fees are competitive, in the current market, but they are not low.

You can 'throw' your money away, if you wish, at low quality 'predatory' open access journals that have low quality review processes (if any) - but they will still cost you a fee and no-one is going to read them, they will hardly get cited (if at all) and they will not enhance your career trajectory.

I think authors and researchers need to be very wary about these journals. I have seen a lot of articles that are published in them, and, with few exceptions, those articles are pretty appalling. They demonstrate little knowledge on the part of authors, reviewers (if they exist), and editors about the conventions of good research practice and presentation.

There might be SOME journals of the type you describe, but in my experience they're few and far between.

Like Robert - I would be wary. The more reputable and established open access journals are not really about quick review rates and low fees - especially those with good impact factors - such as BMC-series journals. I'm an Associate Editor for BMC Public Health. The review times are deliberate and thorough and take as long as they need to take to make a final, considered evaluation. If accepted, the publication fees are competitive, in the current market, but they are not low.

You can 'throw' your money away, if you wish, at low quality 'predatory' open access journals that have low quality review processes (if any) - but they will still cost you a fee and no-one is going to read them, they will hardly get cited (if at all) and they will not enhance your career trajectory.

I would check the previous issues and assess the quality before sending manuscript to one of these journals. Not all of these journals are really bad ones. Some are good, so try to check on them.

No, I don't think so.

Try to think about the long Term: visibility of the research, citations and research impact. Any research has to take its time in development, submission, and peer review.

Otherwise, the research will be published with no visibility, citation and impact.

Predatory journals are a nuisance and their proliferation is because of several reasons. For example, in India, because of the mandatory requirement of publication of one or more articles for the award of doctoral degrees and for evaluating faculty for career advancement based on the API (Academic Performance Index) score, predatory journals including several open access journals are mushrooming. Most of these publications bypass the classical peer review system and publish the articles in record speed!

In India, as the problem is acute, the UGC (university Grants Commission) has launched the Consortium of Academic and Research Ethics (CARE) to approve a new official list of academic publications (https://ugccare.unipune.ac.in). Now, prospective students as well as faculty members have to ascertain whether their journal is UGC approved!