Hi all, I have been to some Open Access Journal websites, and according to them, if our papers are selected, we will need to pay about 150 Euro for two hard copies of the journal. Is this standard practice or vanity publishing? Hope someone can share their experiences.

Hi Reishizuno,

I have seen this as well. Some established journals, like the British Medical Journal request a fee to be paid for publication. However, this should be paid by the institution, not by the individual authors. However, a great many other quality papers do not request any money. Several of the Open Access journals request a fee.

I would do the following:

1. Try to get your work published in quality journal that does not request money
2. Try the quality paper that requests a fee, yet only if your institution is prepared to pay this.
3. Avoid Open Access papers that request a fee, unless you are convinced of the quality / that it is really worth it

Good luck:-)

I really don't think it's worth publishing in such journals, except if you simply wanted another line on your CV or hoping to work in some parts of the developing world where it really doesn't matter. Personally, I'll take a look at the journal ranking in my discipline or sub-discipline (I know some would dispute the ranking criteria), seek the opinion of established academics in my field regarding which journals they consider to be of high impact and then try to submit to such journals. In the academia, particularly in the developed world, academic departments are more keen on candidates who publish in high impact journals and whose publications in such high impact academic journals can count, in the UK, for example, for the RAE ranking.

Not vanity publishing at all, just a different model of publishing.

Whether it's worth it depends on your field and the quality of the publication. In my field, open access journals are increasingly popular because:
(i) They enable wider dissemination of findings, particularly to resource-poor settings where knowledge is needed but hard to pay for
(ii) It's considered good practice given that the money that funded the research came from the public purse, so the public should arguably have access to it.

In my field there are some high quality, high impact factor open access journals which I would be delighted to see my work in (e.g. PLoSMed). These days it's common to write into grant applications money for publication costs. In fact some funding councils require that the work is accessibly published. But things may be different in your field, so you need to weigh up the reputation of the journal and how important it is to you that your work is widely accessible.

Here's a previous discussion of Open Access publishing with some further thoughts from me and other forum users:
http://www.postgraduateforum.com/threadViewer.aspx?TID=15971

Thanks Hazyjane, Patseya, and Rick.