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Get Published

Publish your research. This guide is designed to assist emerging researchers and provide an update for experienced researchers.

Checking journal websites

It may help to keep a spreadsheet of possible journals and record details.

Journal websites

  • The journal's aims and scope - ensure your paper fits the subject area covered by the journal
  • Check the editors and editorial board credentials
  • Look for the author information page for instructions
  • Find the submission and format requirements
  • Read carefully any forms you need to fill in and sign - see Rights and Copyright on this guide
  • Check the acceptance rate, peer-review process and timeframe
  • Check the journal archiving practices
  • If it is Open Access, is it a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) or Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association?
  • Check the APC (Article Processing Charge) if you wish to make your article open access

The journal may come under AUT's Read & Publish Agreement. See the section in this guide.

Example of information available on a journal webpage

Check the information circled. This is a hybrid journal which is included in AUTs subscription covering APCs. Go the Read & Publishing section for more information.

Take care that the journal you have selected is good quality. Submitting to a poor-quality journal can have an impact on your research profile.

Is the journal discoverable?

Check whether articles in your chosen journal or the journal can be found in a database or other locations where researchers in your field will search.  

You may want to search Altmetric Explorer for mentions in social media.

Check publishers' policies on copyright, archiving and the APC charge

  • SHEPA/RoMEO: search for publishers' copyright and self-archiving policies as well as APC charges 
  • DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals): find article process charge (APC) fee by journals indexed in DOAJ 

Think, check, submit

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

Journal impact

Journal ranking

Metrics and raking lists may be used to identifying the impact of a journal in a particular research discipline. 

Find metrics for journals or compare your targeted journals within a discipline: 

  • Scopus Journal ranking - find journal ranking list in your subject
  • The Comparing journals tool in Scopus - comparing your short listed journals
  • SCImago Journal & Country Rank
    SCImago is a publicly available portal with journal and country ranking using sourced from Scopus. The metrics (SJR and SIR) can be used to assess journals by subject category.
    • On the homepage select Journal Ranks> Explore and use the menu to select subjects
    • You can also download to Excel for a full list of journals on the subject and ranking details, including quartiles
    • Compare journals SJR Compare Journals (scimagojr.com)
  • Journal websites may provide these details

See the Research Impact guide for more information on metrics.

 

Read reviews shared by other researchers

The following tools provide reviews on journals shared by researchers around the World:

  • JournalReviewer - provide user experience with academic journals' review processes
  • SciRev - researchers share their experience with scientific review process
  • Quality Open Access market - using journal score cards, QOAM is a marketplace for scientific and scholarly open access journals

Predatory journals

Predatory journals are published by dubious publishers. Journals charge APC fees for publishing but do not conduct quality checks and reviews for the articles they published.

When selecting a journal for publishing, you should check the journal website and issues thoroughly, and especially look at the following common signs of poor quality or predatory journals:

  • Misleading metrics
  • Hijacked version of other well published journals
  • Extremely short peer review period and process 
  • Fake editorial boards, or names and affiliations of the editorial board members are not presented clearly
  • Claimed to be indexed by key databases or Directory of Open Access Journals when they are not
  • Reproduce articles from other academic journals
  • Charge APC fees to publish a manuscript in a short time e.g., 2-4 weeks
  • Send spam emails to invite researchers to publish articles with their journals
  • Unprofessional website e.g., poor writing, with advertisements, unclear location
  • Some of these journals are published on a website that have a large number of publications across a wide range of disciplines

COPE, the Committee on Publication Ethics has some useful guides.

Check and avoid publishing in predatory journals

Dobusch, L., & Heimstädt, M. (2019). Predatory publishing in management research: A call for open peer review. Management Learning, 50(5), 607-619. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350507619878820

Eriksson, S., & Helgesson, G. (2017). The false academy: Predatory publishing in science and bioethics. Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy, 20(2), 163-170. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11019-016-9740-3

Grudniewicz, A., Moher, D., & Cobey, K. D. (2019). Predatory journals: No definition, no defence. Nature, 576, 210-212. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03759-y

Shen, C., & Björk, B.-C. (2015). ‘Predatory’ open access: A longitudinal study of article volumes and market characteristics. BMC Medicine, 13(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-015-0469-2

Siler, K., Vincent-Larmarre, P., & Lariviere, V. (2021). Predatory publishers' latest scam: Bootlegged and rebranded papers. Nature, 598, 563-565. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02906-8

Retraction watch

Retraction Watch reports on the retraction, or removal of a published paper from an academic journal due to incorrect data or reporting. A journal with frequent retractions may indicate poor editorial or review processes.