Scholarly Communication

Not all open-access journals are "predatory"!  Some very reputable journals do require author's fees for publishing within open-access journals.  Here's a short list of qualities that define a "predatory" journal, according to Berger and Cirasella (2015):

• Editors or editorial board members with no or fake academic affiliations
• Lack of clarity about publishing fees
• Publisher names and journal titles with geographic terms that are unrelated to the publisher’s physical location or journal’s geographic scope
• Bogus impact factor claims and invented metrics
• False claims about where the journal is indexed

Berger, M., & Cirasella, J. (2015). Beyond Beall’s list: Better understanding predatory publishers. College & Research Libraries News, 76(3), 132–135. Retrieved from http://crln.acrl.org/content/76/3/132.full

Authors should consider these journal qualities before submitting an article for publication:

For additional assistance in evaluating journals, please contact your subject librarian.

For a thought-provoking perspective about alternatives to publication in peer-reviewed journals, please read:

Choosing Real-World Impact Over Impact Factor

by Dr. Sam Wineburg, as published on the Chronicle of Higher Education website (August 26, 2013).

A helpful read for scholars seeking to publish in any discipline!