Open access publishing: the proliferation of journals of questionable quality | European Journal of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery | Oxford Academic
peter.suber's bookmarks 2024-09-15
Summary:
"Authors receive increasing numbers of unprompted invitations to submit papers for publication. These invitations have in common flattery and urgency and offer a rapid process towards highly probable publication of whatever is submitted. A sage senior colleague might well advise you to delete such e-mails on sight but for doctors trying to build up their curriculum vitae or résumé, these approaches are seductive....
If the question of charges was not answered, I followed up with a further e-mail. When I closed my study after 6 months, I had saved 320 e-mail exchanges for analysis. The approaches were from 112 separately identifiable journal titles.
The Article Processing Charge (APC) was rarely mentioned at the outset. Of the 112 journals, only 2 supplied an APC in their original approach to me, but 72 gave a price in response to my request. These were usually given in dollars ranging from $30 to $3295 (median $1210, interquartile range $525–2000). I received no explicit answer from 35 journals...."