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Research Skills

Choose a Publisher

Make sure your work has the most impact and broadest reach when you choose a publisher for your research.

Find the Right Journal

To find the most appropriate journal to submit your work, consider:

  • The publishing company or organization
  • The membership and credentials of those on the editorial board
  • Their peer review process
  • Acceptance rate
  • Where it is indexed

For publishing in biomedical sciences, enter your article or abstract into JANE (Journal Author Name Estimator) to find the best matching journals based on the contents of PubMed.

Assess Impact 

Use the Journal Citation Reports database to determine the impact factor of a journal or compare multiple journals. The Scopus database provides advanced tools for citation analysis and journal ranking.

Scopus Article Metrics Video Tutorial.

Other useful metrics include:

Open Access

Open Access publishers and repositories are an alternative to traditional publication models. Open Access publishing makes materials available to readers for free and often has less restrictive author copyright and licensing terms than traditional publishers.

Open Access journals may charge publication fees. We have Read and Publish agreements in place with Elsevier and Oxford University Press, but are unable to provide funding for publicaiton fees from other publishers. Fees can be included in grant applications, or some publishers may provide waivers or discounts.

Open Access Publishing Options

Dune: Digital UNE
DUNE:Digital UNE is UNE’s open access repository created to host works by UNE students, faculty, staff and alumni for free. For information about publishing in DUNE contact Digital Access Librarian Bethany Kenyon.
Subject Repositories
See the Simmons College list of disciplinary repositories for subject specific open access options that accept submissions by authors from any institution.
DOAJ
The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) lists high quality, peer-reviewed open access research publications. DOAJ covers all open access academic journals which use appropriate quality controls.

Avoid Predatory Publishers

Predatory practices in online publishing are unfortunately widespread. Academics can be aggressively targeted by journals which appear legitimate but which do not meet the standards of a scholarly journal. Cabell’s Predatory Reports maintains a list of journals known to engage in predatory practices so you can avoid interacting with these publications.

Author’s Rights

Academic publishers often request a full copyright transfer, which gives the publisher complete ownership of your work. You could lose the right to make copies for use in your classroom or for colleagues, or to republish your work with another publisher or as a book chapter. Consider negotiating your contract to offer a limited license for the rights they need to publish, or to retain the rights you’d like to keep during transfer. The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) Author’s Addendum can help you understand the process.

head shot of Sonya Durney
Sonya Durney, Scholarly Communication Research & Teaching Librarian

QUESTIONS & HELP

Contact Scholarly Communication Research and Teaching Librarian Sonya Durney with any questions about copyright, journal evaluation, or author’s rights.