Rating health policy journals by impact, cost, and OA policies

Jim Till, Assessing health services research journals, Be openly accessible or be obscure blog, February 11, 2008. Contains a discussion of journals in the field of health services research, especially from a Canadian perspective, including ranking (by SCImago, Eigenfactor, etc.), cost-effectiveness, self-archiving policy, and processing fees for OA. Excerpt:

So, what lessons might be learned from these comparisons? Some points to consider:

a) The policies of publishers about Green OA (archiving of post-prints) for these journals range from non-compliant (Lippincott Williams & Wilkins) to complex (Blackwoods) and/or obscure (Project Hope, Blackwoods). The effort required to try to obtain unambiguous information about these Green OA policies is sometimes ridiculous, to an extent that is almost comical.

b) The preferred alternative to Green OA is Gold OA (paid open access to the full text of journal contents). The most prominent OA publisher in the HSR field is BioMed Central (BMC).

c) Some publishers (e.g. Blackwell, Longwoods) do provide Hybrid OA (paid access to individual articles), but the article-processing fees are expensive (e.g. in comparison with BMC's Gold OA journals). Such programs may also have other drawbacks. See Peter Suber's "Nine key questions to ask about any hybrid journal program"...