Publishing in an Open Access Journal

3.3. Conclusion

One of the arguments coming from scholarly circles with respect to Open Access publishing of their research output is that researchers, in order to comply with funder mandates, will be steered towards publishing in Open Access compliant journals that do not necessarily have high impact factors.  This is considered by some researchers as detrimental to their reputation, especially the reputation of their scholarly output amongst their peers worldwide.  There is an assumption of decreased findability of their work and, in relation to this, falling citation rates.  

However, this assumption has been disproved by studies only some of which are cited in previous chapters.  The conclusions of these works are in contradiction with some scholarly arguments that the value of a researcher’s work is dependent on its being published in a journal with a ‘high impact factor’, even if the journal is not an Open Access publication. 

A research paper should have its own intrinsic value regardless of the medium it is published in, and researchers should not worry about losing reputation, of not being recognised internationally for not having their work published in a so-called ‘reputable’ journal.  The paper’s reputation should come before the ‘reputation’ of the publisher.  The ‘reputation’ of the publisher stems from the monetary wealth of that publisher after all: its network of distribution and its power of lobbying and wooing Higher Education institutions.  A researcher’s paper, on the other hand, is a product of intellectual hard work; is valuable in its own right and should be treated as such.