It’s been a while since I’ve complained about the narrow understandings of open access that too many people have got, but I’ve been meaning to post about Keith Burgess-Jackson’s provacatively titled Why I Publish in “Predatory” Journals—and Why You Should, Too. He argues rightly that open-access journals have several advantages over traditional journals, but fails to imagine relevant alternatives. To summarize the advantages he discusses:
- Audience: More people will read a freely available article than one that’s only available to subscribers and pirates.
- Publication speed: Traditional journals can be slow both to review an article and to put it into print.
- Length: Traditional journals often won’t publish papers longer than 7-8,000 words.
- Ownership: Traditional journals often require authors to relinquish copyright.
- Referees: Journal referees often respond in obtuse ways. They either reject a paper for weird reasons or demand unnecessary changes.
On the basis of these reasons, he argues that (a) we should stop publishing in traditional journals and (b) we should start paying open-access journals to publish our papers.
This is the falsest of false dilemmas, and the recommendation he arrives at is pretty bad.
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