Understanding Research Publishing in Open Access journals

Overall Approach to Choosing the Journal 

1. Have you heard of the journal?
   • Submit your research to journals that you would normally find interesting and relevant.
   • Reach out to colleagues and mentors to see in which journals your body of work will best fit. Mentors have an understanding of historical trends in the scientific community in general.
   • Ask Your Librarian to verify the legitimacy of the journal.
      
2. Is the journal indexed in major databases and what is the indexed coverage?  
   • Search in databases such as Scopus, PubMed, CINAHL Complete, or Web of Science to determine if the journal is consistently indexed in the database.  
   • Look up the journal title in the NLM Catalog: Journals referenced in the NCBI Databases. If the journal is found there, you can review the detail record where it provides information about the journal and whether the journal is indexed in any of the NCBI databases such as MEDLINE, PubMed, or PubMed Central. To learn more about the NLM Catalog, click the NLM Catalog Tab above. 
   • Is the journal found in PubMed Central? PubMed Central allows publishers to deposit their OA journal contents for permanent archival without cost upon application and fulfilling features of legitimate and respectable journals for two years of publishing. 
   • If claiming to be a legitimate OA journal, is it in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)? This is a sort of “whitelist” of legitimate journals that must meet specific criteria for inclusion.  
      
3. Does the journal include an editorial policy and the peer-review process? 
   • Be honest about the methodological flaws of your own work. It is unlikely that good reviewers will not identify them. If the reviewers do not see the same limitations as you have, this is a red flag that you have sent your work to a predatory journal. Be concerned if you do not receive any critical feedback and your article is accepted, as this rarely happens with legitimate peer review.
      
4. ​ Does the publisher ask the corresponding author for suggested reviewers? 
   • This is, in general, a negative feature of a journal, and implies it does not have enough legitimacy to qualify as an established journal nor does it have sufficient dedicated reviewers to perform the important service of peer review.  
      
5. Is the journal transparent and following best practice in editorial and peer-review processes, governance, and ownership? 
   • Legitimate journals should have a robust list of policies and procedures on their website, including human and animal subject policies, OA license type (i.e.: Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0), conflict of interest, and informed consent.
      
6. Are there clear policies on plagiarism, authorship, and copyright on the website? Red flags include: 
   • Failure to disclose information to authors.
   • Misleading or suspicious peer-review processes.
   • Inaccurate statements about editorial board membership.
   • Will accept any study including bogus "research" for a fee.
   • No written policies about retractions, corrections, errata, and plagiarism.
   • Requests that manuscripts be submitted by email.
   • Aggressive tactics to solicit article submissions. Send blandishing emails to scientists, inviting them to publish with them.
   • Promised rapid publication.
      
7. Does the journal meet the standard quality of a journal?
   • Read the articles in the journal before submitting an article. Warning signs include grammar errors, poor quality science, a poorly maintained website with prominent misspellings and grammatical errors.
   • Is the name of the journal incongruent with the journal’s mission? Is the name of the journal excessively broad? Does the name of the journal make sense?
   • Is the journal's impact factor clearly stated? Is it too good to be true (> 2)? If not readily available, the impact factors can be found in the InCites Journal Citation Reports (JCR), CiteScore Metrics, or the Scimago Journal & Country Rank.
   • The outlets are profit-driven rather than based on rigorous research/knowledge dissemination.
   • The scope of Interest includes a much larger number of topics than legitimate journals.
     
     
8. Are author fees (Article Processing Charges) reasonable and are they clearly stated up front?
   • Article Processing Charges (APCs) vary by journals ranging from $300 to more than $4,000 USD. Click here for publishers and journals that offer a discount to UC authors who are paying APCs to make their articles openly available.
   • Do they offer discounts or waivers to early-junior author/scholars from LMICs who can’t afford to pay the author fee?
   • Can you find the publication fee easily identified on the website, or is it hidden many screens back with obscure navigation
     
     
9. Was your journal or publisher listed in the Beall's List of Predatory, Open-Access Publishers?
   • Do not submit your manuscript to any of the publishers or journals found in the Beall's list. 

Source: Hansoti B, Langdorf MI, Murphy LS. Discriminating Between Legitimate and Predatory Open Access Journals: Report from the International Federation for Emergency Medicine Research Committee. West J Emerg Med. 2016 Sep;17(5):497-507.  doi: 10.5811/westjem.2016.7.30328. Epub 2016 Aug 8. Review. PMID: 27625710; PMCID: PMC5017830.

Statement on Article Publication Resulting from NIH Funded Research.

NIH Grants Policy Statement - 8.2 Availability of Research Results: Publications, Intellectual Property Rights, and Sharing Research Resources.

NIH urges grantees to publish only in credible journals, Global Health Matters Newsletter, November / December 2017 | Volume 16, Issue 6.

Continuing Steps to Ensuring Credibility of NIH Research: Selecting Journals with Credible Practices. Open Mike blog post by Dr. Michael Lauer, NIH's Deputy Director for Extramural Research, November 8, 2017.

Calling on librarians to help ensure the credibility of published research results
National Library of Medicine (NLM)/NIH blog post, November 7, 2017