Reasons To Go For Open Access: Perspectives From A Clinician And A Librarian

In recognition of Open Access week, Dr Pascal Meier an interventional cardiologist from University College London and Yale Medical School, and Whitney Townsend, the coordinator of the Health Sciences Executive Research Services at University of Michigan, provide their views on the benefits of open access publishing.

Dr Pascal Meier

“The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about” Oscar Wilde

During the first few years of my academic career, I only used to submit my articles to “traditional” print journals. I would apply a “top-down” submission system for my papers: a list of traditional scholarly journals in my research field, ordered according to impact factors. I would submit the article to the highest ranked journal first, where it usually got rejected, and I would subsequently submit to the next journal, and then to the next until it eventually got accepted.

However, during a fellowship at the University of Michigan, I extended my research into the library, performing systematic reviews and meta-analyses. During my discussions with librarians, especially with Whitney Townsend, I got exposure to the idea of open access publishing. Most of the open access journals claimed to provide a fast and efficient review and publishing service. This was a very compelling argument after I had become a little frustrated with my “top-down” submission approach which was very slow, and it usually took ages until a paper finally got accepted and published.