Publishing

As experienced researcher yourself, you do know the most relevant journals in your field of study. These are the journals that you read yourself. However, the number of journals grows rapidly and you may find new journals that are worth your attention. You can rely on your own knowledge and take advice from colleagues, but there are also tools out there that help you finding the right journal. Moreover, you can also identify new interesting journals.   

You can enter your title, some keywords and sometimes even the abstract of your manuscript, and you will get journal suggestions. There are a number of tools that search within journals, as they are published by different publishers.   

• Manuscript Matcher 24 000 journals indexed in Web of Science  
• Jane: Journal/Author Name Estimator journals indexed in MEDLINE  

In addition,  the most prestigious academic publishers offer their own tools.  

• Journal Finder (Elsevier)   
• Springer Journal Suggester   
• Wiley Journal Finder   
• Taylor & Francis Suggester  
• IEEE Publication Recommender  

When you choose a journal from a major and commonly recognized publisher such as Sage, Springer or Elsevier, there is no reason to worry. When choosing for a lesser known publisher or a journal published by a university or some (seemingly) independent organization, it is advised to carefully scan the quality and reputation. In order to judge whether the journal is sufficiently good, you can use the questions mentioned below, when reading the website.   

1. Does the website offer a clear description of the peer review process?   
2. How easy is it to find the information about the editorial board? Often the website gives an outline of the members including their academic affiliation, plus contact details.   
3. What are the publication costs? Any fees should be clearly stated, so that authors can easily get to that information. If you’re asked to pay very high fees for publishing with this journal, there is reason to question its reputation.  
4. Are all articles accompanied with copyrights and licensing conditions?   
5. What about the name of the journal? Is it suspiciously similar to the name of a more prestigious journal? Then be extra critical when answering the other questions mentioned here.    
6. Does the website clearly indicate that there is a procedure for academic misconduct including plagiarism, manipulation of citations and falsification of data?  
7. Can you find any statement about how the editors handle potential conflicts of interest between authors, editors and reviewers?   
8. Is the journal published regularly? There should be information about the publication schedule, and to what extent the editors stick to it.   
9. How is the archive of the journal organized? A good journal has a good archive and offer information on where the journal articles will be indexed and through what channels or databases, other than the publisher's website, they will be available.  

How to recognize OA predatory journals?  

Unfortunately, predatory journals often present themselves as OA and because of this they have given a bad name to the OA journal of good quality. How can you be sure about the quality of OA journal? The openaccess.nl platform provides good advice on this. They list the following questions to ask when you consider publishing in an OA journal:   

1. Does the journal have a well-defined subject area that is clearly stated on the website?   
2. Are researchers and science teachers the primary target group? Are they also named that way on the website?   
3. Who is on the editorial board? Are they renowned and well-known researchers from the field?   
4. Is the journal affiliated with or sponsored by a renowned scientific institute or scientific society?   
5. Does the content of the articles correspond to the subject area of ​​the journal and does the content meet the standards of the field?   
6. Are all OA fees clearly and unambiguously stated on the journal's website?   
7. Do all articles in the journal have a DOI (Digital Object Identifier)?   
8. Does the journal clearly state (per article) the (re) use rights (eg Creative Commons CC BY licenses)?   
9. Does the journal have an ISSN (International Standard Serial Number)?   
10. Is the publisher a member of the Open Access Scholarly Publisher Association?   
11. Is the journal included in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)?   

Directory of Open Access Journals  (DOAJ) – Have you found an OA journal and do you consider to send them your mansucript, then it is wise to check whether this journal is registered in the DOAJ. Journals registered in DOAJ went through the same quality control procedures and need to meet several criteria.    

May a journal not have been registered in DOAJ, you can do a check yourself too. Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing, is a criteria list that helps you to judge the quality of an OA journal. The judgment will be based on exactly the same criteria as those that apply to journals under subscription.   

The better OA journals have a membership of the Open Access Scholarly Publisher's Association  (OASPA). You may want to check whether this is the case for the journal of your choice.    

This interactive tool Think, check & submit will help you to verify your choice of the journal.   

What is the impact factor (IF) of a journal?    

The impact factor (IF) is a measure of the frequency with which the average article in a journal is cited in a given year. It is used to measure the importance of a journal by calculating how often the articles are cited.   

How is the impact factor calculated?    

The calculation is based on a period of two years and means that the number of times articles are cited is divided by the number of articles that can be cited. The calculation of a journal’s 2020 IF would look like this: A = the number of times that articles published in 2018 and 2019 were cited by indexed journals in 2020. B = the total number of "citable items" published in 2018 and 2019. A / B = impact factor 2020.   

Tools available to determine the rank of a journal 

The impact factor is reported by Clarivate, that is behind the Web of Science, and it is to be found in Journal Citation Reports (JCR). This is a ranking of 12,000 journals. You search for a journal by entering its title. Since impact factors mean little in and of themselves, it is best to view the journal that interests you compared to the other journals in the same category.   

Sourced Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) is a portal developed by CWTS (Center for Science and Technology Studies) of Leiden University.  

SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) is a portal with scientific indicators for journals and countries of publication developed by Elsevier.   

Do I have to take the impact factor into account when choosing a journal?    

This remains your own choice, but it is good to realize what impact factor is and what it is not. There is much criticism on the impact factor. A high impact factor is no longer seen as proof of the quality of a journal. One of the reasons mentioned is that some articles published by a journal can generate large amounts of citations, while many others articles in the same journal can be of lower quality. Publishing in a journal with a high IF is seen by many researchers as prestige because IF says whether a journal is relatively important and influential within their field.   

The HHs policy is to publish Open Access (OA) as much as possible. When you publish Open Access, you ensure better access and valorisation of knowledge. That is why it is important to consider the Open Access policy when choosing a journal. When you received funding for your research, you can opt for ‘paid Open Access’ (this is called gold open access). Otherwise, you can make your articles public via the green route (this is the name for the practice of sharing the post-print version via institutional repositories). Moreover, you can publish your articles in free Open Access journals that do not require OA fees. 

There are many prejudices about Open Access journals, such as that their quality is less than journals under subscription. However, this is one of the myths about Open Access journals. Open Access journals with or without OA fees often use the same peer-review procedures and ask the same experts to review articles as subscription journals. OA journals are usually younger than subscription journals because the Open Access movement is relatively new. That's why OA journals need time to build their own reputation. 

With increasing digitalisation, new ways of sharing research are possible. In the university world in particular, this has led to a reconsideration of the role of scientific publishing. All Dutch universities of applied sciences (and many foreign universities) have now signed the Berlin Declaration. A declaration endorsing the basic principle of Open Access (OA):

Scientific publications, especially those financed with public funds, must be accessible free of charge to anyone with an internet connection. This free accessibility ensures a wider public reach and strengthens knowledge circulation.

Many researchers understand the value of open access. But they do not know exactly what to do. The first step in making research results accessible is to carefully manage your rights as an author. Make sure, for example, that you have the right to use your publication within your own institution or to publish the post-print on your own website or to have it included in a repository. 

There are various ways of making publications openly accessible.

• Publishing in open access repositories (the so-called green route)
• Publishing in open access journals (the so-called golden route)

Place your publication in a digital open access archive ('repository') managed by your institution. You can ask your repository administrator at the library how that works. With the publisher's permission, you can place the post-print of your publication in the repository and otherwise the preprint. Sometimes there can be a period of embargo. Educational institutions can work with an institutional repository (access restricted to their own institution) and/or a national repository (access public). The national repository for the universities of applied sciences is the HBO Knowledge Base: http://hbo-kennisbank.nl. The national repository for research university education (WO) is Netherlands Research Portal: https://netherlands.openaire.eu/ 

For researchers, it is important to publish with a (scientifically recognised) reputable publisher. It is possible to publish a publication both through a publisher and to make it freely available through an open access repository. As a copyright owner, you can decide which rights to give. You can agree with your publisher on a licence that gives the publisher all rights necessary for publication. In this licence it can be agreed that the publication will also be made public through an open access repository (immediately or after an embargo period). More and more publishers are agreeing to this. Even if a publisher insists on transferring copyright, it is often permitted to make the publication (sometimes only the preprint) available via repository. The number of publishers agreeing to this is also increasing. 

Submit your publication to an open access journal. The Directory of Open Access Journals (www.doaj.org) provides an overview of more than 6000 peer-reviewed journals. New journals  appear online every month. The number of digital open access journals is increasing and so is the opportunity to publish in them. 

Hybrid models are also being experimented with more frequently: digital journals in which open access articles are included alongside the 'regular closed' articles. More and more publishers are offering this option: BioMed Central, Springer Open, Wiley Open Access, etc. 

The SHERPA RoMEO website provides information on copyright and open access policies of a large number of publishers.  

The HBO Knowledge Base is the showcase of approx.29 major universities of applied sciences in the Netherlands, including The Hague University of Applied Sciences. Student theses and research papers are available for everyone to view free of charge: more than 50,000 in total. Different CC licences may apply, but the aim is to ensure that all of them are compatible. The requirement from 2020 onwards is more  CC BY licences and open access.  

SURF, The Netherlands Association of Universities of Applied Sciences, the KB, DANS, SIA, the HON, and the SHB are among the collaborative partners contributing to the HBO Knowledge Base. The HBO Knowledge Base has the designation of institutional "Trusted Repository" (often a requirement for subsidy providers) and is recognized as an archive by publishers for green open access compliance.A variety of publication types can be registered on the HBO Knowledge Base: from conference contributions and videos to articles and books (book chapters). 

There are no restrictions in limits for the number of registered publications or storage period. This means even when a THUAS research group is discontinued the publications are still stored and can be viewed in the HBO Knowledge Base.   

If a publication by a staff member can be seen in the HBO Knowledge Base, it will be visible in Google Scholar, Netherland Research Portal and Publinova.    

The library has developed a great tool to help you find out: the "Open Access Roadmap". Please contact the library.

If a publication is to be included in the HBO Knowledge Base, the preferred method of submission via the Researcher Group Sharepoint. When there is no access to the Sharepoint page contact research@hhs.nl. This form may seem extensive, but it is specifically intended to enable the publication to be placed in the HBO Knowledge Base with the correct metadata as quickly as possible. By providing as much metadata as possible (such as e.g. keywords, a legend summary and the CC licence) the publication can be found and used more easily. Also make sure that the correct version is sent (preprint/author's version, post-print or the publisher's version), including any obligatory publisher's notes and references. 

If there are many publications, please contact the library. 

Under certain conditions, publishers of journals where research publications are published may provide authors with the option to archive a particular version of their research publication in a repository (green route). At The Hague University of Applied Sciences, this means that research publications can be placed in the HBO Knowledge Base. Learn more about different versions of research publications, the most common conditions and where to find publishers policies. 

Publishers often distinguish between these primary versions of a publication: 

• Preprint version: the version of the publication as submitted to the publisher (prior to the (peer) review process), also referred to as the author's version. 
• Postprint version: the version of the publication as accepted for publication (this version may include any changes suggested as a result of the (peer) review process). 
• Publisher's version: the version of the publication as published, with the publisher's logo and/or layout. 

Publishers can impose conditions on this open access route, such as an embargo period. The publication can only be deposited in the repository after a specific period following its publication date in the journal.This embargo period usually depends on which version is used: the preprint version may be placed in the repository immediately, but the postprint version only after x months. Other conditions may include, for example, a link to the publisher's site.