Getting Published: Choose Open Access journals

1. Choose an open access journal

• Scopus and Web of Science index open access journals. Select the Open Access checkbox on a search result to find the OA journals met your search criteria.
• Find a journal form the Directory of Open Access Journals

2. Find information about a journal on its website:

• Are there any documentation on mission statement, scope, policy, and submission requirements?
• Does the journal website provide information about the publisher?
• Are articles peer-reviewed? How does the journal handle the peer-review process?
• Who are the editors and members of the editorial board?
• What is the copyright agreement?
• Do you need to pay for an article processing charge in order to publish your article?
• What about the quality of articles in this journal?
• Has the journal had an ISSN (International Standard Serial Number)?
• Is this journal registered in the Directory of Open Access Journals?
• Is this journal a member of Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association?
• Is the journal a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)?

2. Journal impact

Use the following key tools to find journal impact metrics, ranking, and to compare your targeted journal with others within the same discipline: 

• Journal Citation Reports (JCR) - evaluate and compare journals using citation data
• Compare Journals in Scopus - compare and analyse up to 10 journals
• Scopus Journal Metrics - search for journal metrics - CiteScore, SNIP and SJR
• SCIMago Journal & Country Rank
• Find more details on our online guide Research Impact

3. Indexing

Check whether your chosen journal is indexed by following library databases or Google Scholar:

• Scopus
• Web of Science
• Google Scholar
• Ulrichsweb: Global Serials Directory
• Other databases, such as EBSCO databases, ProQuest databases, Wiley Online Library, etc.

4. Do your own research

• Ask around - Your colleagues may know the journal.
• Check who have published in this journal - Well-known authors? Your colleagues or other researchers you known?

5. Think, Check, Submit 

The Think,Check, Submit website provides a checklist for assessing the credentials of a journal or publisher.

6. Find journals' policies on SHERPA

Many journals including some prestigious journals provide OA publishing options to authors . The following are some well-known OA journals that you may publish with:

Find research funders' open access policies on the Sherpa Juliet website

There are some publishers acting unethically especially when it comes to OA journal publishing. The following common signs of predatory journals may help you identify these journals:

• misleading metrics
• hijacked version of other well published journals
• fake editorial boards, or names and affiliations of the editorial board members are not presented clearly
• claimed to be indexed by key databases or DOAJ when they are not
• reproduce articles from other academic journals
• sending spam emails to invite researchers to publish articles with their journals
• unprofessional website, e.g. poor writing, with commercials advertisements, unclear location
• a journal title may be "American journal of ...", but the location of the publisher is in an Asia country
• some of these journals are published in a website that contains a large number of open access journals across a wide range of disciplines

When it comes to decide which journal you would like to publish with, or be an editor or reviewer of a journal, check whether the journal is included in the List of predatory journals and publishers.

You may like to read the following recent studies on the issues of the increasing number of predatory open access journals:

• Priyadarshini, S. (2018). India targets universities in predatory-journal crackdown. Nature, 560, 537-538.  https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-06048-2
• Shen, C. & Bjork, Bo-Christer. (2015). Predatory’ open access: a longitudinal study of article volumes and market characteristics. BMC Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-015-0469-2
• Laine, C. & Winker, M. A. (2017). Identifying predatory or pseudo-journals. Retrieved October 12 2017, from http://www.wame.org/identifying-predatory-or-pseudo-journals.
• Eriksson, S. & Helgesson, G. (2017). The false academy: Predatory publishing in science and bioethics. Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy. 20(163). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11019-016-9740-3

Benefits of OA publishing:

• Reach a more diverse audience and disadvantaged communities
• Research shows that publishing via OA leads to increased rates of citation
• OA enhances universities research profiles 
• Publicly funded research should be made publicly accessible
• Research funders will achieve better returns from their investment
• Quicker turn-around time

Find more details on our Open Access guide.