Publishing through Open Access: Journal Quality - Where to Publish?

• Scope of the journal is well-defined and clearly stated

• Journal's primary audience is researchers/practitioners

• Editor, editorial board are recognised experts in the field

• Journal is affiliated with or sponsored by an established scholarly or academic institution

• Articles are within the scope of the journal and meet the standards of the discipline

• Any fees or charges for publishing in the journal are easily found on the journal website and clearly explained

• Articles have DOIs (Digital Object Identifiers)

• Journal clearly indicates rights for use and re-use of articles at the article level (for instance, Creative Commons license)

• Journal has ISSN (International Standard Serial Number, such as1234-5678)

• Publisher is a member of Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association or conforms to their code of conduct

• Journal is registered at UlrichsWeb, Global Serials Directory

• Journal is registered in the Directory of Open Access Journals

• Journal is included in subject databases or indexes

Source

• Journal website is difficult to locate or identify

• Publisher "About" information is absent on the journal's website 

• A single editor is listed and editorial board information is absent

• Publisher direct marketing (spamming) or other advertising is obtrusive

• Instructions for authors are not available

• Information on peer review and copyright is absent or unclear on the journal website

• Journal scope statement is absent or extremely vague

• No information is provided about the publisher, or the information provided does not clearly indicate a relationship to a mission to disseminate research content

• Repeat lead authors in the same issue

• Publisher has a negative reputation (documented examples in The Chronicle of Higher Education, list-servs, etc.)

Source

Quantitative measures of a journal's importance like journal impact factor are not always available for many disciplines, especially the humanities.  As a result, any attempt to determine which journals in subjects like literature and philosophy are more highly regarded than others must rely on qualitative criteria.

• An investigation of a journal's editors and editorial board members can help determine a journal's quality. Journals usually list their names, academic degrees, and institutional affiliations, giving enough information to find their pages on institutional websites where their academic training and publications may be listed.  
• In order for a journal to be considered a scholarly publication, it must have a peer review or referee process whereby papers submitted for consideration are read by at least two scholars knowledgeable about the paper's topic. In most cases, the identities of the reviewers are not made known to the author.  If a journal has a peer review process, it is usually detailed within journal issues or on the journal's website. 
• Every academic discipline has at least one or two indexes or abstracts that are essential tools for doing research in the subject. Most index publishers use some form of a selection process to determine which journals will be indexed to make sure researchers will find the most important articles. 
• A journal's rate of accepting submissions for publication might be considered a measure of quality.  A low acceptance rate can mean that the journal receives far more article manuscripts than it can publish, an indication that scholars prefer it above others for submitting their work. However, it is not always easy to find acceptance rates for many journals. Moreover, there is no standard way to calculate acceptance rate.
• Journals published by university presses tend to be among the more highly regarded, but not all university presses are equal. To some extent, the reputation of a university press reflects the reputation of the university itself, and although they are not without their critics, lists of university rankings can give some indication of a school's quality.
• Two other important types of publishers are scholarly societies and commercial publishers like Wiley-Blackwell and Springer. In both cases there is no ready measure of journal's importance, and using some of the other qualitative criteria described on this page might be the best approach.

Source

Predatory publishers operate substandard quality journals while charging authors substantial fees to publish their research. Editorial standards are often low, peer-review process are of poor-quality (or don't exist at all), and the journals are not indexed in scholarly databases.

You can use the information below to assess a publisher and verify their standards.

• Are they indexed in scholarly databases? Check popular databases such as Scopus, Web of Science, or ProQuest to see if the journal is indexed. Predatory journals will usually not appear in scholarly databases.
• Does the journal appear in the DOAJ? If the journal appears in the DOAJ, it's more likely that it is a legitimate Open Access journal.
• Who is the editor and who is on the editorial board? The journal should be transparent about the membership of their editorial board, and the members of the board should be established and reputable.
• Are their contact details and publishing processes publicly available? Their contact details should be publicly available and should include an address for their offices. Predatory publishers often don't include all the information you would expect to see on a publisher's website. The peer-review process may not be explained to authors, and is often very quick or there may be no review process at all.
• Are they transparent about their publishing costs? A legitimate Open Access journal will be transparent about their publishing charges. If there is no information publicly available about these costs, you may be dealing with a predatory publisher.
  • Check the lists of predatory publishers from Beall's List  and Stop Predatory Journals: If a journal or publishers is included in either of these lists, it's more likely that they may be a predatory publisher
• Do they send unsolicited emails? Predatory publishers will often send flattering emails to authors asking them to contribute to a journal or conference.
• Do the titles sound strange? Journal or conference titles may sounds similar to legitimate publications, or may use vague terms.

The Think. Check. Submit. checklist is a useful tool for assessing journal publishers:

• Think.Check.Submit. Journal Checklist

Source

We would love feedback if this page was useful to you! If you have additional questions please reach out to us and we can try our best to help.