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. 

Each year, professorships register their publications on the Sharepoint page Onderzoek Lectoraten. If you do not have access to the Sharepoint environment, you can request access via [email protected]. 

The registered publications are assessed for copyright by the Library staff and, if permitted, included in the institutional repository, to be shared via the HBO Knowledge Base and Publinova.

When an article or chapter is published in Open Access by the publisher with the Creative Commons license, you don't need to do anything else. A librarian finds the full text of your publication based on metadata provided in SharePoint. If the publication is not published as Open Access, the post-print version (accepted manuscript) of your article or chapter may probably be shared. A librarian will sort this out for you, but they need you to provide us with the post-print version. You can upload this version to the SharePoint page during registration of your publications. If you haven't done so, you can still send it to the Library afterward. The post-print version will be included in our institutional repository, and usually, after a certain embargo period, the publication becomes available in the HBO Knowledge Base and Publinova. The publication is counted as Open Access.

Typically, magazines are not published in Open Access, and publishers do not have policies for the Green OA. Generally, many publishers have no objection to sharing your article through the institutional repository after a certain embargo period, but you must always get permission from them. You can always ask for permission when publishing your article in a magazine or other popular media. If permission is granted, mention it in the SharePoint registration form under the Open Access field with: "yes, with permission of the publisher."

When you give a presentation at a conference, you do not normally transfer copyrights to the organizers unless explicitly stated when your contribution is included in the proceedings. The Hague University of Applied Sciences thus remains the copyright holder. If you have a paper, presentation, or poster that you would like to share via the HBO Knowledge Base and Publinova, please upload it to SharePoint or send it to the Library afterward.

The Library would also like to receive research reports published with the logo of The Hague University of Applied Sciences. Conference contributions and reports may be shared publicly via the HBO Knowledge Base and Publinova and thus also count as Open Access publications. 

You can also provide conference contributions and research reports with a Creative Commons license. This not only makes your work publicly shared but also allows it to be better reused by others.

In addition to Gold and Green Open Access, there is a third option: Diamond Open Access. Diamond Open Access refers to community-driven journals run by foundations, universities, or faculties. In these journals, you publish Open Access under a Creative Commons license, but you don’t have to pay anything. The journals are therefore free for both authors and readers.  

The quality of these journals is usually very good. You can assess the reliability of these journals in the same way as journals with other OA models. While there is often doubt about the prestige of such journals, Open Access is increasingly valued over impact factor. That is why it is wise to consider the Diamond Open Access option, when you do not have a budget for Open Access fee. However, articles published in Diamond OA journals are still less discoverable than those published in journals released by major publishers. Therefore, it is important to check where the journal is indexed when choosing a journal. 

A preprint is the first version of an article that you submit to the publisher. It is therefore the version before the peer review process, for which you retain all copyright. Most journals have no objections to sharing the preprint version, but it is always a good idea to check the policy. You can do this on the SherpaRomeo website. 

There are several reasons to publish a preprint version. The results of your research are more quickly and easily discoverable because many preprints are indexed, for example, by Google Scholar and Dimensions. Preprints are also often discussed on social media. Sharing a preprint can enhance the quality of the final version of your article. Some researchers choose to share a preprint when research results are difficult to get accepted in scientific journals, for example in the case of negative results. 

• There are several platforms where you can share a pre-print version, including: 
• Preprints.org  
•  SocArXiv  
• PeerJ PrePrints 
• Zenodo 

You can read more about sharing preprints in this practical guide (2021).