Research Support and Open Access

It is helpful to consider the following points when searching for a place to publish:

• Who is your intended audience? There are different types of journals, for example: academic, professional, trade
• Relevance. Is it a good fit for your research?
• Peer review. Does the journal have a well-documented, peer review process?
• Editorial policies.
• Is it indexed, and where is it indexed? This is often available on the journal's homepage.
• Funded research. If your funder has an Open Access policy then you must check that your publication venue has a compliant route to open access.

With Article Processing Charges (APC's) becoming the dominant method of making research Open Access, a number of disreputable publishers have emerged which seek to make money from researchers and are unconcerned with the academic quality of the work. These publishers are sometimes referred to as predatory publishers.

Be on the lookout for the following practices:

• Speculative or flattering e-mails
• Lack of peer review
• Promises of a quick turnaround for publishing
• Cheap APCs (too good to be true)
• Spelling mistakes in communications or on the website
• Lack of transparency on the website, for example no physical address, or a generic e-mail
• Unusual payment methods
• Editors whose personal or work profile pages do not list the journal or publication they are affiliated with

We recommend following the Think.Check.Submit tool to help identify a suitable publisher.

If you are not sure if a publisher is legitimate, then get in touch by emailing openaccess@newman.ac.uk.