Publishing in open access journals

[curious_yaourt]

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Hi everyone,
I'm a MS3 preparing to apply ENT. I don't want to add to any neuroticism but today for the first time I heard that some equally competitive specialties look down on publications in open access journals, to the point that they won't count it as one of. your 1st author pubs. I was quite shocked as I'd never heard of programs discerning research quality in this way. What are people's experiences with this? Is publishing in open access journals truly looked down upon?

 

[JBM16BYU]

Generally, it is encouraged to publish in journals that 1) have the highest impact factor you can (generally the highest regarded journals), 2) are indexed in PubMed (generally more respectable journals but not always, are able to be more widely searched by others to discover your article), and 3) are subscription-based rather than Open Access. However, several caveats exist. The most notable caveat is that several respectable journals, after accepting your manuscript for publication, ask whether you would like to publish subscription (reader or institution pay for subscription to access full articles) or Open Access (free to the reader, the authors have to pay). Journals linked to some medical societies offer this choice option. Some have transitioned from subscription only to Open Access only. My general advice to trainees is to strive to publish subscription since paying to publish is usually quite expensive ($100’s - $1000’s) and, in my personal opinion, a silly ask of journals which often make large profits. From a residency application standpoint, unless the application reviewer is going through each individual article, in the choice option journals there is no way for them to know just from a listed reference in the application.

 

[Med Ed]

Every choice can be criticized. I've had students publish in open access journals with fast turnaround largely because they don't have the time horizon to endure months (or years) of trying to get their work accepted into a more traditional venue. Can't say I blame them.

Conversely, a student who does get a publication in a high IF journal could be questioned as to whether they are just riding someone else's coattails.

It is generally advisable to publish in the best place you can, given whatever circumstances exist. If someone take issue with it, well, we cannot be all things to all people.

 

[Wistfulness]

I would hope PDs wouldn't hold the decision to publish in an Open-Access vs. SciHub-Access journal against you. If it's published in a predatory journal where it's not peer reviewed and there's no standards, that's a different thing. They're gonna hold that against you.

Publish the best place you can, if they're going to hold it against you... not much you can do there.

 

[JBM16BYU]

Unfortunately, some predatory journals are really good at hiding intentions and/or give the appearance of legitimacy. As a rule, I’d say near 100% of predatory journals do portray themselves as Open Access and require a fee from the authors (how the scam perpetuates and a profit is made at the expense of the mislead authors).

Some medical students fall prey to these publications purely from poor advice from inexperienced research mentors. In those situations, I also feel for the medical student who simply is new to the world or research and publications and don’t feel that should be held against them either.

In a “publish or perish” rat race, others may feel the need or pressure to publish and may also fall prey and their work gets lost in the depths of the internet.