Though Impact Factor is an important identification for a scholarly journal, considering impact factor alone is not a good idea. Impact factor alone does not mean the quality of a journal.

Impact factor of a journal varies between subjects. For example, medicine related journals may have more impact factor than others publishing in paramedical subjects or other than medical subjects where the readers, researchers or audience are comparatively lesser.

Sometimes, low quality publication can also be seen in high IF journals. Hence, if the quality of articles published in a open access journal are good (they should have been peer reviewed), then you can go for publishing in that journal for wider readership and citation compared to high IF journals.

Thank you Timo. The question however is not, as you suggest (previous topics), whether " there wil be a move to a citation index" or "whether open access is a good idea"". i am asking the reader to weigh up the pro's and con's and make and motivate a specific choice

Open access journals will be my preference.

Thank you Saumendu - why?

I will go for a reputed journal with high impact factor. It will serve my purpose of publishing in a journal with wide circulation and acceptability. Further, I don't have to pay for publishing. Though open access journals are there, in my opinion and knowledge they have not penetrated the scientific arena, as any of ACS, RSC, Wiley or Elsevier journals (in chemistry). Then why should I push my results to some unknown journals?

Thank you Sunil. The payment argument is valid. The second statement: "...thay have not penetrated the scientific arena...", may not be absolutely true. A number of Nobel laureates have published in PLoS One (and thus payed and certainly "penetrated"), e.g. Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Barry Marshall, Oliver Smithies, and Jack W. Szostak.

You see High Impact Factor for my paper is not going to help anyone noe even me in any way... But if available widely it can be useful for others...... As Sunil Varughese said Wide circulation of high IF papers, I dont think it to be correct. If calculated properly Views per paper will be much high for papers published in Open Access journal. And For Acceptance we should start a new debate on Selection Bias policy of these high IF journals. Name a renowned scientist in your paper and every crap will be published. So this is useless talking.

Viewership will not work.. but citation only... if you go for an interview in an IIT, only that matters is where did you publish your work... There only high impact journals will be considered. If you don't know I will tell you one thing. For your application to be shortlisted in an IIT, you need at least five publications in the journals of impact factor above 5.00 (for chemistry). If you see the open access journals, how many journals in the chemistry have above 5.00 impact factor.

You can just make it for the sake of an argument. But it is just a Utopian idea... Reality is far apart...

Regarding the bias in journal refereeing is a different issue and the discussion is going on in the same forum.. which you can actively particitpate.

Here every one is not targeting IIT and moreover Viewership leads to citation. If you don't know I will like to inform that we can Have a blah blah Paper published in a blah blah IF journal.... good. But, that is limited to a certain journal subscribed community. Let it be freely distributed to everyone that makes more sense I think. Though I respect others view , but not when criticized out of nothing. I think I understand my work well and have right to clear my view.

There is nothing like "waste" or no impact factor or product. It depends on how keen is the the observer and how intelligently convert the observations to nice results (let us not forget Prof. Fleming 's keen observation lead to discovery of "PENICILLIN" from

water wash sink)

But fortunately or unfortunately I don't have any junk results to be thrown into trash....

No need to throw ,some one is fortunate to retain for self , for further observations

Thank you all. Sunil may be correct - the highest IF for an open access chemistry journal seems to be 3.3 - at the moment

(see http://www.bath.ac.uk/news/2012/08/02/ccj-impact-factor/)

However, as the above reference (a doubling IF in 12 months), and the one below, demonstrate , the present is no guarantee for the future.

http://eprints.rclis.org/bitstream/10760/5463/1/do_open_access_CRL.pdf

Therefore, to whom would you submit your manuscript to today: renowned journal with a (currently) high IF or OA with (perhaps) an explosive IF tomorrow?

I have just been informed that one of the above links does not work.

This one will: http://www.bath.ac.uk/chemistry/news/

(just click on the title).

If I have no constraints coming from co-author's wishes, I would try to find a journal that is Open Access, regardless of the impact factor, as long as it follows a normal peer review process. I find it frustrating when a paper I would like to read is not freely available. But many other factors come into play: Will I have to pay to get my paper published? Does my paper fit in the aims and scope of the journal? What are the constraints in terms of number of pages, colour figures, paper structuration? Will I be able to use LaTeX to perpare and sublmit my paper?