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On social media there is a discussion about the editorial policies of the publisher MDPI, which has been involved in different controversies (see e.g. Jeffrey Beall: What I learned from predatory publishers the Wikipedia article MDPI ) . In the Norwegian Scientific Index the publishing house MDPI has recently been downgraded to zero for the publishing year 2019 . What this will mean for 2019 for the 127 individual MDPI journals listed in the Norwegian index has not yet been made public.
As I recently followed part of this debate on twitter I recalled two strange messages received last autumn from two MDPI journals. I took them first seriously since the Land editorial board contains, among its 64 (!) members several colleagues I respect. I also thought it was associated with the Global Land Programme. And since I have really been a reviewer also for Sustainability (although strange experience) I also thought that message was serious. But as I read these mails I realized they were of the same character as the many similar mails I regularly get from clearly predatory journals. I therefore quickly dismissed them. Luckily I recently found them in my old mailboxes and can now publish them here, as some evidence towards the debate on the reputation of MDPI.
Both messages came from the editorial office and not from any editor/colleague, which they would do if there were serious invitations to a Special Issue. Message B is clearly out of the blue. The article by Bergius et al. they refer to is much quoted already, but does not in any way relate to wild plant gathering.
I leave it for the reader to make up their own opinion about the seriousness of MDPI - there might be other MDPI journals that are more firmly led by a serious academic editor.
A: Message received September 21st 2018 from Land editorial office
Dear Professor Widgren,
Thank you for your continuous support in reviewing for
our journal, /Land/ (ISSN 2073-445X, http://www.mdpi.com/journal/land).
To acknowledge your great efforts, we would like to
invite you to contribute a *FEATURE PAPER* to our journal or the current Special
Issues (http://www.mdpi.com/journal/land/special_issues).
As a feature paper, the Article Processing Charges will
be fully waived.
It can either be a comprehensive review paper or a full
research paper.
The deadline of this activity is *31 November 2018*.
You may submit your manuscript now or up until the
deadline at http://susy.mdpi.com/user/manuscripts/upload?journal=land
The submitted papers should not be under consideration
for publication elsewhere. You are also encouraged to send a short abstract and
tentative title to the Editorial Office at land@mdpi.com
or viola.gao@mdpi.com in advance.
Land (ISSN 2073-445X, http://www.mdpi.com/journal/land)
is an international, scholarly, open access journal of land systems and land
management published quarterly online by MDPI. It has been covered by some
important databases, like ESCI-Web of Science and Scopus. CiteScore
2017 (Scopus): 1.44, which equals rank 50/124 (Q2) in the
category 'Nature and Landscape Conservation' and 129/306 (Q2) in 'Ecology'.
For further details on the submission process, please see
the instructions for authors on the journal website http://www.mdpi.com/journal/land/instructions
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact
us.
We look forward to hearing from you!
--
Best Regards
Ms. Viola Gao
Managing Editor
Skype: viola.gao.mdpi
B Message recieved Dec. 12th 2018 from Sustainability editorial office
| Dear Dr.
Widgren, The journal Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050, IF 2.075) is currently running a Special Issue entitled "Certified Wild Plant Gathering in Organic Farming: Sustainability, Food Safety, Compliance and Supply Chains". Prof. Dr. Christian R. Vogl and Dr. Christoph Schunko, of the Department of Sustainable Agricultural Systems, University of Natural Resources and Life Science Vienna, (Vienna, Austria), are serving as Guest Editors for this issue. We think you could make an excellent contribution, based on your expertise and your following paper: Green economy, Scandinavian investments and agricultural modernization in Tanzania. J. Peasant Stud. 2018, 45, 825-852. A large diversity of organically certified products include ingredients from wild plant species, but consumers, stakeholders and even experts of organic farming are frequently not aware of it. Indeed, around 40% of the total areas certified for organic farming on a global scale are not dedicated to cultivation but to wild plant gathering (including beekeeping). Wild plants can be certified as organic products if gathering areas have not been treated with products forbidden in organic farming for three consecutive years and when the gathering does not impair the stability of habitat and maintenance of species. [...] For further reading, please follow the link to the Special Issue Website at: https://www.mdpi.com/si/sustainability/certified_wild_plant_gathering_organic_farming The submission deadline is 31 December 2019. You may send your manuscript now or up until the deadline. Submitted papers should not be under consideration for publication elsewhere. We also encourage authors to send a short abstract or tentative title to the Editorial Office in advance (sustainability@mdpi.com). Sustainability is fully open access. Open access (unlimited and free access by readers) increases publicity and promotes more frequent citations, as indicated by several studies. Open access is supported by the authors and their institutes. Article Processing Charges of CHF 1400 (APC) apply to accepted papers (APC: CHF 1700 from 1 January 2019 onwards). You may be entitled to a discount if you have previously received a discount code or if your institute is participating in the MDPI Institutional Open Access Program (IOAP), for more information see: http://www.mdpi.com/about/ioap. For further details on the submission process, please see the instructions for authors at the journal website. We look forward to hearing from you. Kind regards, Ms. Kitty Cao Assistant Editor |
22 kommentarer:
Dear Mr. Mats Widgren,
I found your post both revealing and interesting. After reading it I checked the Norwegian Scientific Index and I found MDPI with O. However, a few days ago I checked it again and, astonished, I discovered it is now with a 1. Any explanation? I even have a screenshot with 0 but now it is again 1.
It is clear for me MDPI is a predatory publisher and its journal Sustainability is a clear example of it. See, for example, Sustainabilty scheduled for 2019 more than 680 special issues (plus 12 regular issues).
The Norwegian Scientific Index has not put the journals from MDPI at level zero. You can check yourself here:
https://dbh.nsd.uib.no/publiseringskanaler/KanalForlagInfo.action?id=26778
Please, check your source before posting.
copy-pasta of the journals listed in the Norwegian database (mostly LVL 1)
1 Administrative Sciences
1 Aerospace
1 Agriculture
1 Agronomy
1 Algorithms
1 Animals
1 Antibiotics
1 Antioxidants
1 Applied Sciences
1 Atmosphere
1 Atoms
1 Axioms
1 Batteries
1 Behavioral Sciences
1 Bioengineering
1 Biology (Basel)
1 Biomolecules
1 Biosensors
1 Brain Sciences
1 Buildings
1 Cancers
1 Catalysts
1 Cells
1 Ceramics
1 Challenges
1 ChemEngineering
1 Chemosensors
1 Children
1 Climate
1 Coatings
1 Colloids and Interfaces
1 Computation
1 Computers
1 Cryptography
1 Crystals
1 Data
1 Designs
1 Diagnostics (Basel)
1 Diseases
1 Diversity
1 Drones
1 Econometrics
1 Economies
1 Education Sciences
1 Electronics
1 Energies
1 Entropy
1 Environments
1 Fibers
1 Fluids
1 Foods
1 Forests
1 Future Internet
1 Galaxies
1 Games
1 Gels
1 Genealogy
1 Genes
1 Geosciences
1 Geriatrics (Basel)
1 Healthcare
1 Heritage — Open Access Journal of Knowledge, Conservation and Management of Cultural and Natural Heritage
1 Humanities
1 Hydrology
1 Informatics
1 Information
1 Inorganics
1 Insects
1 International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
1 International Journal of Financial Studies (IJFS)
1 International Journal of Molecular Sciences
1 International Journal of Turbomachinery, Propulsion and Power
1 ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information
1 Journal of Cardiovascular Development and Disease (JCDD)
1 Journal of Clinical Medicine
1 Journal of Composites Science
1 Journal of Functional Biomaterials
1 Journal of Functional Morphology and Kinesiology
1 Journal of fungi (JoF)
1 Journal of Imaging
1 Journal of Intelligence
1 Journal of Low Power Electronics and Applications
1 Journal of Manufacturing and Materials Processing (JMMP)
1 Journal of Marine Science and Engineering
1 Journal of Open Innovation: Technology, Market, and Complexity
1 Journal of Risk and Financial Management
1 Journal of Sensor and Actuator Networks
1 Land
1 LAWS
1 Life
1 Logistics
1 Lubricants
1 Marine Drugs
1 Materials
1 Mathematics
1 Medicina (Kaunas)
1 Membranes
1 Metabolites
1 Metals
1 Micromachines
1 Microorganisms
1 Minerals
1 Molecules
1 Multimodal Technologies and Interaction
1 Nanomaterials
1 Nutrients
1 Pathogens
1 Pharmaceuticals
1 Pharmaceutics
1 Pharmacy
1 Philosophies
1 Photonics
1 Plants
1 Plasma
1 Polymers
1 Proceedings
1 Processes
1 Proteomes
1 Publications
1 Religions
1 Remote Sensing
1 Resources
1 Risks
1 Robotics
1 Safety
1 Scientia pharmaceutica
1 Sensors
1 Social Sciences
1 Societies
1 Sports
1 Sustainability
1 Symmetry
1 Systems
1 Technologies
1 Toxics
1 Toxins
1 Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease
1 Universe
1 Urban Science
1 Vaccines
1 Veterinary Sciences (Vet. sci.)
1 Viruses
1 Vision
1 Water
1 World Electric Vehicle Journal
- Arts
- Big Data and Cognitive Computing — Open Access Journal
- Clocks & Sleep
- Corrosion and Materials Degradation
- Fishes
- Forecasting
- J — Open Access Journal of Multidisciplinary Science
- Languages
- Molbank
- Recycling
Yes you are right. The reference to the Norwegian index was right at the moment it was published but have changed now. I do not know their policies. My comment about the index was only referring to the publishing company not to the individual journals (at the time of my blog post almost a year ago).
Hi Mats
so please advise is Water a predatory journal. HAve limited resources to check at the moment given the global situation and work from home is not the norm for me. Ive been given this query to check on behalf of a lecturer who wants to publish.
Thanks
Cavall
Hi Mats
so please advise is Water a predatory journal. HAve limited resources to check at the moment given the global situation and work from home is not the norm for me. Ive been given this query to check on behalf of a lecturer who wants to publish.
Thanks
Cavall
Dear Cavall,
I have no specific knowledge of the MDPI journal Water and cannot give advice. In my blog post I only wanted to give some evidence concerning what I deemed bad behaviour from two MDPI journals. Since I wrote this blog post some other views on MDPI has also been published
https://danbrockington.com/2019/12/04/an-open-letter-to-mdpi-publishing/
Dan Brockington is a colleague I respect so I think his documentation and views are worth considering.
Moreover, when I wrote this post the Norwegian index did not mention individueal journals for 2019 only the publishing house. That has changed now as you can see from previous comments. The Norwegian Index now mentions Water as OK but of course not among the top journals in the field as Water Research.
https://dbh.nsd.uib.no/publiseringskanaler/KanalTidsskriftInfo.action?id=476788&bibsys=false&request_locale=en
I suggest you look at the editorial board. Do the members there belong to the top researchers in the field? I am not able to judge.
Mats
I just received from Water a message that is (substantively) identical to B Message.
Daniel Schiffman
I just received from Water a message that is (substantively) identical to B Message.
Daniel Schiffman
This interesting comment came from Edward Moore in Gothenburg - I made some mistake in the handling so it was not published immedeiately. Here it comes
Hej Mats,
I was asked to review some articles for the MDPI journal, Diagnostics, about 2 years ago. The review process went smoothly and I was impressed at the speed the journal took from submission, to Editor consideration to send out for review, review by 2 or 3 reviewers, the response of the authors and subsequent re-review process to decision. The whole process time was about one month. Later, they contacted me to join the Diagnostics Editorial Board - that was in January 2019. Since then, I have been contacted about once or twice every 3 months to assess whether an article should go out for review. The Publishers never sent articles for review if I had indicated that they should not go for review. The Publishers responded to my suggestions in cases of 'conflicting' reviews and have contacted me for assessing articles with 'conflicting' reviews. When I receive a manuscript for consideration to send out for review, it comes with a list of reviewers, selected by the Publishers and also at least 3 suggested by the authors of the manuscript. The Publishers ask the Editor to assess the compentence of the listed reviewers - so, the Editor has the opportunity to reject any reviewers that do not have the expertise or that appear to be 'friends' of the authors. Editors may also suggerst reviewers for the submitted manuscript. The Publishers do 'push' reviewers and editors to come to decisions - I think the average time for a review of a manuscript submitted to Diagnostics is about 10 days.
MDPI does seem to push the special topics issues - I guess the Special Issues are a money-maker for them. At the time that I joined the EB of Diagnostics, they solicited a topic from me for a Special Issue; I have not yet proposed a topic for that journal. This year, I joined the EB of another MDPI journal, Microorganisms. The experience with the Publishers of that journal has been much the same and I am acting as Co-Editor for a Special Issue for that journal - to be published next year. Before I proposed a special topic, I contacted another Editor that had edited a Special Issue; she told me that the process had gone smoothly and she had been supported by the Publishers. So far, in the case of my Special Issue, the Publishers have been efficient in organising everything.
So, I wss at first a bit suspicious about MDPI journals but all of my experience has been more or less the same as with other journals for which I have reviewed or served as Editor. The only significant difference that I have noticed has been - to my experience of 30 years publishing peer-review articles - the remarkable speed with which they are able to process their publications. I hope this 'review' helps people to consider MDPI journals.
Edward Moore, Prof of Bacteriology, University of Gothenburg
Thank you Edward for your informative contribution.
My personal experience with MDPI journals (Entropy, Water, Geosciences) as reviewer, associate guest editor and author is quite similar to Edward Moore's. If you are interested in more details, please see my reply to a question/discussion on ResearchGate (https://www.researchgate.net/post/How-to-deal-with-Potentially-Predatory-Open-Access-Journals-and-Publishers-the-case-of-MDPIs-Sustainability-journal).
I wish to stress that this post reflects my personal opinion and should not be construed to be NGI's stance in this matter.
Dieter Issler
Norwegian Geotechnical Institute (NGI)
Oslo, Norway
This comment from Edward Moore is very contradicting. He states that "The Publishers do 'push' reviewers and editors to come to decisions - I think the average time for a review of a manuscript submitted to Diagnostics is about 10 days.". I am the editor of AMT and know that you can never ever properly review a paper in less than 10 days. I received a paper for Remote Sensing (MDPI) once and regret it forever. The day after you accept to review a paper, they start sending emails after emails and begging you for the review. So I just wrote one paragraph and telling them due to the short amount of time given by the journal, I wasn't able to properly review the paper and am just writing an overall review. Interestingly, they even did not consider that short paragraph in revising the paper, and the paper was online in less than a week after I sent my reviews. Please don't waste your papers by publishing them in MDPI journals. There are 100 of good journals managed by associations such as AGU, EGU, AMS, QJRMS. Please also note that the University of Gothenburg is different and much lower than Chalmers University, so do not be confused.
This comment from Edward Moore is very contradicting. He states that "The Publishers do 'push' reviewers and editors to come to decisions - I think the average time for a review of a manuscript submitted to Diagnostics is about 10 days.". I am the editor of AMT and know that you can never ever properly review a paper in less than 10 days. I received a paper for Remote Sensing (MDPI) once and regret it forever. The day after you accept to review a paper, they start sending emails after emails and begging you for the review. So I just wrote one paragraph and telling them due to the short amount of time given by the journal, I wasn't able to properly review the paper and am just writing an overall review. Interestingly, they even did not consider that short paragraph in revising the paper, and the paper was online in less than a week after I sent my reviews. Please don't waste your papers by publishing them in MDPI journals. There are 100 of good journals managed by associations such as AGU, EGU, AMS, QJRMS. Please also note that the University of Gothenburg is different and much lower than Chalmers University, so do not be confused.
Regarding the comments of David who thinks that my earlier comments on the MDPI publishers are 'contradicting', I do not understand the aggressive response or that my comments contradict - what? I simply offered my experience in working with 3 journals of the MDPI publishers because there were some questions by different researchers about what to expect from the MFPI publishers. I personally do not care if anyone submits or reviews or edits journals for MDPI; my research group has submitted only one article to an MDPI journal. David obviously has an axe to grind against all journals of MDPI because of a bad experience with one of the MDPI journals. I have never received reminders for submitting reviews within 24 hours of agreeing to review an article but I have received reminders to complete an Editor assessment of reviews within 48 hours. They can be, as I indicated, 'pushy'. At that time, I informed the publishing assistant that it was not reasonable to expect a decision in such a short time and that I would submit the assessment as soon as possible. I received a note of apology and they were happy to wait for the Editor assessment. The 3 MDPI journals for which I have reviewed articles request a review within 10 days. In most cases, I have submitted the review within the 10 days but there have been times when I could not complete the review within their requested time. In those cases, I requested more time from the publishing assistant, which was not a problem in most cases; in one case, I submitted the review on day 21. I have found the conduct of the MDPI journals for which I have reviewed and served on the EBs, refreshing, in comparison with several other journals that take 3 months or longer to receive back the first Reviewer's Comments. As for David's comments about the University of Gothenburg being 'much lower' than Chalmers Univ, he seems to suggest that my comments are in question because UG is ranked lower than Chalmers Univ. In fact, according to the ranking of universities in Sweden, UG is ranked number 5, ahead of Chalmers (ranked 7 - 9); however, Chalmers is a technical university, which skews rankings. In any case, the ranking of a university probably has little to do with the individual researchers and their publishing experience. I can only say that with the experience of more than 200 publications in peer-reviewed journals over 30 years, I have not found anything about MDPI to be problematic or suspicious.
This is an interesting discussion. I have googled the MDPI journals "Sustainability" and "Healthcare", since I have reviewed manuscripts for them. Ok, their processes are impressingly quick and with 2-3 reviewers. Still, I have reviewed a manuscript for Healthcare and suggested it to be rejected twice (also the other reviewer suggested reject), and yesterday I recieved it a THIRD revision. I find this process highly problematic, and I have never experienced this with any other journal.
Dear Colleagues,
I think it is the responsibility of Reviewers and Editors to contact the publishing office of a journal with any complaint about the handling of the publishing process of any articles. Remember that Open Access journals all are balancing the 'academia' of objective reviews of articles with the 'business' of publishing fees. But, I assume that, in most cases, non-predatory journals are able to follow guidelines for objective and reliable publishing of articles. If they do not, it is the obligation of the Reviewers and Editors to request explanations for the handling of those articles. I have not had the experience described by dagens cynisim; the 3 MDPI journals that I have reviewed and edited articles for have followed my recommendations, in most cases - in the case of one article, they went ahead and accepted the article, with two other positive reviews, when I had recommended to send it out (again) for minor revision. I counted that as an example of the type of disagreement that happens in the review process - how many cases can anyone count of articles rejected by one journal and accepted by another? Academic publishing is not an exact science. But, non-predatory journals do have guidelines that are followed. There may be some differences in processing of articles by the different MDPI journals.
Edward Moore, Prof of Bacteriology, University of Gothenburg
Dear colleagues,
I also think that this is an interesting discussion and useful forum to share experiences. I see that there is even a debate about the ranking of the universities here. So I thought it might be useful to write some sentences. I will share my own experience with MDPI, Elsevier, Springer, SAGE, Wiley, IEEE, Taylor and Francis, IOP, PLOS. I will not name any journals, universities or colleagues to protect privacy. I work at a university ranked top 10 in the world. I serve as an associate editor in one of the Springer journals with impact factor. I reviewed more than 200 papers for around 30 journals in the last few years. And published some papers in high impact journals.
Quality of the editorial and review processes change in every journal regardless of the publisher. For instance, some of the high ranked Q1 journals published by Elsevier have biased editorial process. As an author, I was asked to add irrelevant papers to my reference list by the reviewers and editors were fine with it. In the end, I had to add these papers in my reference list. As a reviewer, I recommended to reject some papers with harsh comments, but the editors accepted them. I was invited to review a paper by one of the not so good but also not so bad SAGE journals. The second reviewer was either the editor-in-chief of the journal who is a very esteemed person or someone working in his group. The first suggestion by the second reviewer was including 6 papers in the reference list published by the editor-in-chief. The authors were fine with it, and the paper was published. IEEE journals have rigorous peer review processes except Access. My experience with Springer and Wiley journals as reviewer were more or less fair. But as an author, I had biases worked for or against me depending on the editors. So far, I reviewed around 20 papers for 5 different journals in MDPI. My comments were not taken into serious only in one paper.
All the rest were rejected or published according to my comments and of course, other reviewers' comments. Some MDPI journals has incredible esteemed colleagues working in the same department with me in their editorial boards. I agree that MDPI sends too many emails, but Frontiers journals also send. They ask 1 week to review, but IEEE Access also asks 1 week. Other publishers ask around 10 or 14 days. As an editor, I ask 14 days to complete the reviews. Every journal aims to reduce the average time between the initial submission and the first decision. Publishers push us to reduce it more and more. There are biases in MDPI review process, but there are also biases in Elsevier, SAGE, IEEE or others. It depends on the people in the editorial board. Is MDPI a predatory publisher? For me it doesn’t seem so, it has some problems like all the other publishers.
PS: Please also be aware that the reviewers only recommend the decision, but editors decide on the outcome. So it does not mean that you will reject and the paper will be rejected.
Kind regards
Today I received a message from the managing editor of "Sensors" that is substantively identical to Message B. It actually made me google for information about this MDPI journal which is how I detected this blog.
Michael Tangermann, Radboud University, NL
I want to share my experience with you. I submitted my original and unpublished work to the MDPI Sustainability journal.
The paper has been submitted to the journal by me.
For no reason, the assistant editor mentioned that there is a conflict of interest and put an unreasonable delay on my paper.
After almost two weeks, the paper gone through the review process.
The paper has been revised by me two times.
One of the reviewers asked to remove a few of the references, which I did.
The paper got accepted.
The content of the paper has been thoroughly changed by the English Editing Department without my consent.
The English Editing Department said that I have to re-add the removed references, which I did.
The assistant editor said that she must contact again the reviewer and academic editor for approval of adding the references.
After almost 10 days, she came back to me and said that the academic editor mentioned that only one reference should be added, and the reviewer has forced to put his/her papers in the references section, which all were irrelevant to the topic of this paper.
I, as the author, have the right to accept or reject references suggested by the reviewer to be included in the paper. I rejected adding the references suggested by the reviewer, which is common practice.
The assistant editor suggested withdrawing the paper, which I did.
The assistant editor did NOT process the paper withdrawal, and the paper was still with the editorial office for no reason.
I had the right to submit a paper that has been withdrawn to the same or different journal. In that case, a new academic editor and reviewers would be assigned to review the paper. I submitted the paper 24 hours after withdrawal.
The newly submitted paper has been withdrawn again by the editorial office without providing any reason.
I have been waiting for more than a month to get to know about the final decision on my paper which was submitted ~2.5 months ago.
I do not need to remind you that the guest editor has no vote/right to force me to add or remove references. But in my case, he/she did that. You can clearly see how unlawful, unethical, and unprofessional acts have been made all by the MDPI team.
I checked the Committee on Publication Ethics and it is clearly indicated that as long the author ensures that he/she does not end up excessively self-citing, self-citation would be absolutely ethical. In addition, when the references are 100% relevant, I don't think, I have to be obligated to cite irrelevant papers suggested by the reviewer. Indeed, the number of references is high enough that self-citation can be disregarded. Hence, the ethical line had been followed. I submitted the paper on 2020-12-10 at 22:15:22 p.m., it has been accepted on 6 January 2021 and as of today, Feb. 23, 2021, the situation of my paper is vague and even, the editorial team does not reply to any email.
All authors should be very very very careful before submitting papers to this journal. If a journal is not on the list of predatory journals, it does not mean that it is not a predatory one.
MDPI Sustainability journal is 100% predatory, there is no doubt. I have asked to withdraw my paper three times and they do not care at all. They have taken my paper hostage because I mentioned that I will surely share my experience with others.
I won't submit my garbage papers to the MDPI Sustainability journal because my garbage papers worth more than their entire journal. Indeed, I won't review any paper for them too.
I have been co-author on an article submitted to an MDPI journal in 2013 (Future Internet). We received very critical (negative) reviewer comments and also our revision was met with both reviewers voting for reject.
However, the editor asked us to cite a number of papers and then the paper could be accepted.
This would have been the point for me to withdraw the submission, and I recommended this to the main author. However, publications count towards career planning and so essentially, we followed the recommendation of the editor.
The paper was published and this has been the last time that I did anything for or with MDPI. I don't cite, review or write for MDPI.
I have been co-author on an article submitted to an MDPI journal in 2013 (Future Internet). We received very critical (negative) reviewer comments and also our revision was met with both reviewers voting for reject.
However, the editor asked us to cite a number of papers and then the paper could be accepted.
This would have been the point for me to withdraw the submission, and I recommended this to the main author. However, publications count towards career planning and so essentially, we followed the recommendation of the editor.
The paper was published and this has been the last time that I did anything for or with MDPI. I don't cite, review or write for MDPI.
Open access has a fundamental problem: while in traditional publishing, the incentive of the publisher is to publish high quality material so that the journal would be attractive to potential readers that would in turn buy articles, in Open Access, the incentive of the publisher is to accept more articles, since the author pays.
There are better and worse Open Access publishers, however, what can be said in general is that in tendency, Open Access has a pressure to lower the quality in favor of higher output. This follows very basic economic mechanisms and it is regardless of the publisher.
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