Welcome. In this guide, you will find resources and tips to help you choose a publication venue for your research. You will find information on open access journals, preprint servers, predatory publishers, as well as tools you can use to identify quality journals.
Where to start:
Next steps:
Conference or Journal?
In some disciplines, like computer science and engineering, it is more common for researchers to submit papers to be presented at a conference than to submit an article to a journal.
Recommended reading:
Open-access journals differ from subscription-based journals in that their content is free for everyone to read.
There are two main models for open access publishing: green open access and gold open access.
The gold open access model is centered on publication in an open access journal or a hybrid journal. In either case, the authors will likely have to pay an Article Processing Charge (APC) to the journal for publication. Hybrid journals are subscription journals which offer authors the option to make their article open access along the same lines as the gold open access model.
Read more about APCs and library support for open access publishing.
The green open access model requires additional work on the part of authors, who must identify a subscription based journal which grants them the right to deposit their manuscript in an online repository. You can learn more about the different open access models and the implications for your research project here.
Legitimate open-access journals follow the same standards for rigorous publishing that traditional subscription-based scholarly journals do. Their inclusion in a subject-based literature index like Chemical Abstracts or a directory with strong inclusion criteria like the Directory of Open Access Journals means that they have been reviewed by experts and judged worthy. These journals will be transparent on their websites about their editorial oversight, affiliations, selection criteria, peer review process, and any charges to authors.
While some open access journals have questionable practices (see the "Predatory Publishers and Deceptive Publishing Practices" tab for more), open access publishing should not be regarded as inferior to traditional subscription-based journals.
Recommended reading:
Serving as a peer reviewer can be a great way to familiarize yourself with the scholarly publishing process. The American Psychological Association's Science Student Council has created a guide for grad students about becoming a peer reviewer:
...And why should you have one?
An ORCID is a unique identifier assigned to an author, like a Social Security Number. It's a way of distinguishing between authors with similar names, and determining if two different versions of a name actually belong to the same author (eg. if a name changes due to marriage).
Publishers are starting to require that authors include their ORCID or sign up for one during the submission process. Why not create your ORCID now?
If you've gone through this guide and find that you need additional help, please contact us!
The Ask-A-Librarian page provides a variety of ways you can get in touch with us here at the library.
If you have comments or questions, please contact a librarian.
You can find additional resources on understanding the publication process below: