So how do we distinguish between emerging, legitimate open access journals and dubious, pay-to publish journals?
Important indicators of the legitimacy of open access publishers and journals are:
Publisher’s journals appear in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
Publisher is a member of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA)
Publisher is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)
Publisher is a member of the International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers (STM):