Myth 1:
Open-access journals are not peer-reviewed and they publish low quality articles.
◊ The reality is that open access journals (e.g. PLoS Biology, BMC Biology, Nucleic Acids Research, Molecular Systems Biology, etc.) follow similar peer-review guidelines as do other high quality, scholarly journals. The selection criteria of more than 7000 journals published in The Directory of Open Access Journals is that their journals "should exercise quality control on submitted papers through an editor, editorial board, and/or a peer-review system" criteria. Just like any journal, quality of an open access journal is judged by the content of its articles.
Myth 2:
Open-access journals have lower Impact Factors.
◊ The reality is that high impact factors are found in open access journals across many disciplines. Search them in The Directory of Open Access Journals or browse through the titles in Ulrichsweb.
Myth 3:
Open-access articles are not copyrighted.
◊ The reality is that if you publish in an open access journal you may be able to retain copyright of your article, or be required to grant the publisher copyright, in the same manner that if you published in a controlled access (traditional subscription) journal. Many open-access journals allow authors to retain copyright of their work, yet most controlled access journals have agreements requiring transfer of copyright to the publisher. The publisher, in turn, could restrict you from reusing the content of your work in teaching and in other publications. There is no final settlement regarding a copyright policy and all open access journals. Yet, an author, when self-publishing on the Internet, can attach a Creative Commons License and instruct readers what he/she allows as far as copying, distributing, printing, or linking his/her work.
To find about more Open Access myths:
http://www.biomedcentral.com/openaccess/inquiry/myths/?myth=all
http://www.lib.umn.edu/scholcom/top5myths.phtml
http://guides.lib.unc.edu/content.php?pid=121319