It seems that Havard is fearing the Open-Access journals, and decides to do a false research project to shown that Open-Access Journals accepts bad/wrong papers. They submitted a paper for some Open-Access journals and found out that a high percentage accepted this paper.
What is people is claiming now? That Open-Access Journals does not do peer review, or do that poorly, and they are more interested in publishing anything than to access the quality of the document being published.
The fact is that this study is a mistake from the beginning. What does a percentage says? If I say that 80% of woman cheat their husbands, would this say they are worst than man? Probably man percentage is higher, but if it wasn’t computed, there is no way to compare.
So, what does it mean that a lot of Open-Access journals accept innacceptable papers? Just that. It doesn’t mean regular journals are better, or that conferences are better. You might know that there is a complete industry behind conferences (I organized a bunch of them, higher cost so far was 120 euro, and I offered lunches and dinner.. other I attend cost more than 500 euro and offer nothing at all!). The same happens with regular journals, and with Open-Access journals, of course.
But please, do a valid research. Take the article and submit to the same number of Open-Access journals, standard journals, and conferences. Then compare the results. That is research! Computing a meaningfull means nothing.
Please do not blacken Open-Access journals. They are the way to go for public research!