Impact and Bibliometrics: Publishing in Open Access journals

Information and resources for helping scholars assess and improve the impact of their research and scholarship.

Resources for evaluating Open Access journals

Publishing in Open Access Journals

Open Access journals are an up-and-coming phenomena. Like all new innovations, whether economic or technological “consumers” should choose carefully. Below are resources for authors interested in submitting an article to an Open Access scholarly journal, including ways to get help paying fees associated with such publishing.

Please note:  Some traditional closed-access publishers have Open Access (for a fee) options. We call this “hybrid open access” and generally don’t recommend it. These are not truly Open Access journals because only some of the articles are openly available.

Choosing the right Open Access journal:

We are hearing of authors receiving solicitations from unknown journals and wondering if they are legitimate. Good question!  Here are resources for determining:

  1. Is the journal listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)?  DOAJ is a directory of Open Access journals that have met some (newly revised and internationally discussed and vetted) standards. 
  2. Is the publisher of the journal a member of the Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA), an association of publishers of Open Access journals?  OASPA also uses internationally discussed and vetted criteria.
  3. Does it meet the Open Access Journal Quality Indicators test?  This resource lists positive and negative indicators that authors can use to determine if the Open Access journal in which they want to publish is legitimate. 
  4. Is it on Beall’s List of “predatory journals”? That list is the work of one librarian at one university who came up with his own set of criteria that are not internationally accepted standards, but were a starting point for important global discussions in the publishing (and Open Access) communities.  The most egregious may be listed there, although some have argued that it is biased against legitimate non-English or non-first world publishers and that based on his criteria a couple of the largest commercial “predatory” publishers that are “closed access” should be listed as well.

KU authors publishing in fully Open Access journals can apply for funds to help pay for article processing fees.