To maintain the highest standard of research integrity, care should be taken to avoid unethical open access journals and publishers.
If you receive an email from a journal or publisher promising an incredibly quick turn around on peer review, this is unlikely to be a genuine scholarly journal.
The Think. Check. Submit. checklist helps you identify trusted journals for your research.
Other points to consider in identifying trusted journals for your research:
- Check the National Library of Australia catalogue for a genuine ISSN.
- Research the Editorial Board:
- Are the members listed on the journal’s website?
- Are there more than four members listed on their website?
- Have the members of the Board published in the journal?
- Is the Chief Editor’s email an institutional or organisational email account?
- Check the website and journal for spelling errors and other indicators of poor quality.
- Check the Directory of Open Access Journals for your publisher. Journals in this directory must meet criteria prior to being listed.
- High quality open access journals are indexed in the following databases Scopus, PubMed or Web of Science.
- Check the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA) to see if your chosen journal is a member. OASPA requires members to adhere to very specific criteria to publish open access.