Gold Open Access Journals: selecting a journal to submit your manuscript to

To date, most Gold Open Access journals have adapted the publishing model used by traditional journals. The main variation has been to move costs from individual or library subscriptions to author(s). If an article is accepted for publication, author(s) pay an Article Processing Charge (APC) to the journal publisher to have their article published.

PLoS, the Public Library of Science, is a non-profit publisher which only publishes Open Access journals, covering topics in science and medicine. Impact Factors range from 16.3 to 4.1.

BioMed Central publishes 243 Open Access journals in Science, Technology and Medicine. Impact Factors range from 9.0 to less than 1.

Social Sciences Directory and Humanities Directory are two brand new journals. The first issue of Social Sciences Directory was published on 24 September and the first issue of Humanities Directory is coming soon.

DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals
DOAJ is a comprehensive list of Open Access scientific and scholarly journals. Journal content is guaranteed by either peer-review or editorial quality control.

Watchlist
Two new Open Access journals, both announced in 2012, are experimenting with publishing models that differ substantially from traditional models. Both journals are publishing articles in the biological and sciences.

PeerJ requires a per-author lifetime membership rather than a per-article processing charge. Memberships are dependent on authors providing at least one review a year. PeerJ articles are accepted on the basis of scientific validity, but not necessarily importance or impact.

eLife is built around a more efficient publishing process, which proposes to exploit digital media in the presentation of results, and catalyse innovation in research communication, by experimentation, collaboration, and continuous improvement. eLife is targeting the most outstanding advancements from basic research through to applied studies.

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