OA increases submissions, citations, and quality for journals in developing countries

D.K. Sahu, Open access in the developing world: regaining the lost impact, a presentation at the Workshop on Electronic Publishing and Open Access: Developing Country Perspectives (Bangalore, India, Nov 2-3, 2006). 

Journals from the developing world usually face problems of poor science, poor visibility and poor recognition. Good science done in the developing countries is usually published in the high impact foreign journals. Open access (OA) can help to improve quality of journals by attracting good science and more authors. OA could also improve citations and impact factor. Medknow Publications, an open access publisher from India, now publishing 39 journals has shown the advantages and impact of OA for the developing world. The OA journals attract more virtual readers [e.g. JPGM's website attracts over 3000 visitors every day]. With increased visibility most journals have been able to attract more articles and thus publish regularly, more number of articles per issue and more number of issues per year. By providing free access, none of these journals have lost the subscribers to the print version; in fact, the subscriptions for print versions have increased over last 4 years. OA has also shown impact on the citations received by the journals.