Hello Carolyn,

There are two types of open access journals, the 'bogus' ones out there to make big money from authors, and those affiliated with established publishers (emerald, elsevier, sage, taylor&francis, etc)

Your choice between OA and C journals, should depend on the pros and cons of each. Below are some pros and cons to each:

Open access journals

Pros:

- OA journals have a wider, but non-specialist audience

- have fast turnaround period from submission to final publication, usually with 3days to 2weeks or 1 month.

- anyone can download your work free of charge

Cons:

- they perform very poorly in national and international journal ranking

- world-class scholars often refuse to act as reviewers for many OA journals particularly if the OA journal is not affiliated with mainstream publishers such as Elsevier, Emerald, Taylor&Francis, Sage, and other popular publishers. (PS: I also do not review for OA journals).

- Authors have complained about the poor reviewers' review they receive from OA journals (some reviewers of OA journals give review reports that are so basic that even a college student can it write-up, hence, not helpful!)

- final publication often contain embarrassing errors and typos due to the absence or lack of post-acceptance editorial

- Pay a fee for submission with a promise of 7 day acceptance. Ridiculous!

- Authors have complained of OA journals' websites taken down which means they lose their publications hosted on those sites. Compared to closed journals, OA journals do not invest or invest too little in online website security, which means online article can disappear from the internet if the website goes down

- There have been multiple reports of plagarised manuscript submitted, and published in some OA journals. There is high-level plagarism in some OA journals.

Closed access journals

Pros:

- they have high quality editorial board members.

- they perform very well in national and international journal rankings

- world-class scholars are happy to review your work submitted to closed journals affiliated with mainstream publishers such as Elsevier, Emerald, Taylor&Francis, Sage, and other popular publishers.

- Becoming a reviewer for an A-rated journal or 4* journal can be a good thing on your CV, as faculty tenure committee can take that into account.

- They provide excellent and helpful reviewers' reviews

- Final publication do not contain embarrassing errors and typing errors are significantly reduced due to the rigorous post-acceptance editorial

- there is very low probability that the website of closed-access journals will be taken down, since they invest much in online website security and maintenance.

- Most closed-journals are specialist journals

Cons: - Not everyone can access articles published here. You must pay to read.

- the readers of these journals are specialist audience, not a diverse group of audience.

- For some closed journals the author will pay a fee for submission, and the fees are quite high. Ridiculous!

- Paying the submission fee, does not guarantee that your manuscript will accepted or viewed favourably.

- the waiting period to receive reviewers' response, can be very frustrating and annoying depending on the journal. Some journals take 3-6months for provide first review report.

- the handling editor of some closed journals can forget your manuscript. Hence, there is need to send a reminder after every 3months (speaking from experience)

- if the closed journal is a specialist journal, there may be an elite group that can veto the acceptance/rejection of submitted manuscripts.

The choice between open or closed journals can be a difficult one. Choose the one you think works best for you. For me, I use a mix of both depending on the audience I am targeting.

Hope this helps!

Peterson

Peterson i am extremely grateful for the elaborate feedback.

Hi,

if I have to choose, I will always choose the closed-access journals that require subscription on the open access one, although it depends , to a large extent, on the discipline. In the sciences there are respected and reliable open access journals, that sometimes belong to the association of that discipline. In the social sciences and the humanities, the open access journals are sometimes predatory, and you have to choose carefully a reliable journal.

Free closed access journal because they are considered to be quality journals and recognised by higher education insitutions.

Carolyn, you may want to opt for closed access for now. This is because of questions of credibility and acceptability/recognition and even rankings by Universities around the world. Springer, Sage, Emerald, Elgar publications all host several journals whose editorial board members are serious scholars in reputable Universities. There are excellent and highly ranked journals which are also hosted by Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Standford, MDPI, Elsevier etc. etc. The reputation matters, you know.....

Open access in such journals is great (if you can pay) especially because it allows your work to be freely and easily diffused. Always check the editors' and editorial board members' affiliations and what has been published in those journals of your choice. If in doubt, please ask senior scholars in your field for suggestions. Best wishes!

It appears majority of us are for closed journals which are considered superior quality. However these journals are mostly not readily accessible to most developing countries researchers. Will we opt for quality at the expense of accessibility and audience?

I think what really matters is the recognition of the journal at hand. Once it is not a predatory journal, it doesn't really matter whether it is OA or C. I must also add that the quality of some OA journals is far better than some C journals. Again, OA does not entirely mean that the author will have to pay for publication. I have seen some OA journals which are funded by government/funding bodies implying that authors are not allowed to commit personal financial resources. T&F, Elsevier, Springer, AOSIS, Sage, Inderscience, Emerald, Wiley, MDPI are notable publications that should undeniably come in mind whether or not the journal at hand is OA or closed.

A point well made Mohammed that no need to be fuzzy about open access or paid journals. Indeed the reputation or brand of the publisher is important as long as we watch out for predator journals.