I believe that access to research databases should be available at almost no cost or for free for all active researchers. Unfortunately, many leading publishers disagree with me, which is sad.

Open access versions of published papers with reputable publishers like Springer are rather costly, whereas  open access publishers with lower or no publication fees quite often do not keep standards high enough.

As a fellow sympathetic to "traditional" views on publishing, I like to submit my papers to journals that, in addition to online version, have also traditional paper versions and do not charge publication fees. It always feels good to receive reprints of my my published papers to share with the colleagues later on. My university disposes funds to pay publication fees, but I do not use them very often...

I agree but additionally open access suffers from a bad name in many scientific areas caused by the predatory publishers that publish papers without real review with the only purpose to get a fee.

I think the way forward is the diamond open access model (free for authors and readers) which I think can be made possible by scientific societies creating and supporting journals in their fields. 

There is a bottleneck in a scientific publication which at least for young or early career scholars is difficult to be avoided. If you need to publish in well-positioned journals, open access most of the times is a secondary aspect. Moreover, as Henrik Rasmus has said, we see abusive practices in many Open Access journals. However, also it is true that in other journals, even high ranked journals, use the open access option as an additional funding method, opening a point of institutional weakness regarding academic corruption. 

In an ideal world, the dissemination of research and data should be free to access. Unfortunately, publishing groups have utilised this as a business venture. There are enormous advantages of publishing research in open access journal, however, following challenges are quite common, in addition to the one asked in the question; 

(1) Publishing in open access sometimes requires some administration work, for example, formatting the manuscript according to journal template. However, in traditional journals, the authors have not to worry about this. 

(2) Article processing charges 

(3) Journal impact factor, in science and medicine especially, researchers are rated by their ability to publish in journals with a high impact factor. However, most open access journals don't have an impact factor. I think this is a misconception which needs clarification as it takes some time before new journals, both traditional and open access, can acquire an impact factor. I think the situation will improve in next five years when some good open access journals, of course not charging any fee, will acquire impact factor.  

(4) The number of good quality open-access journals, as it varies from discipline to discipline. 

In am relative new to publications and to being a corresponding author. But I feel that we, as scientists, should not pay for providing the scientific community with our highest professional service and input, i.e. the publication. If you are a presenter do you pay to present in a TV show? You do not, they pay you for your professional work.... in the same manner I prefer not to opt for open access journals. However I do agree with most of you, that the current institutional subscription system to big publishers is a total rip-off, where even Harvard  cannot afford paying to provide access to all scientific journals. 

Most of Open Access Journals, I am talking about trusted ones, are very expensive journals, where publishing cost of about 2500$ per one paper!

Regards,

Emad

That's right Emad Kamil Hussein

There are some not-for profit open access initiative where publishing costs are very minimal or often free - for instance, BJPharm (www.bjpharm.hud.ac.uk) works on no fee basis and publishing costs are supported by the University Press.

Thank you so much respected colleague Dr. Hamid, sir I utterly agree with your point of view.

Regards,

Emad