Research Guides: Open Access Publishing: Vetting OA Journals

Ethics in OA Publishing - Beware of Predatory Publishers

With the advent of open access publishing, printing barriers are removed and the assembly and dissemination of information requires little more than Internet access. Unfortunately, this has led to a proliferation of open access publishers with little or no subject expertise and of questionable repute. Scholars and researchers may receive email solicitations for fee-based paper submissions to journals that make false or misleading claims about the stringency of their peer-review process, members of their editorial board or indexing status. The following sites are a good place to start when investigating the legitimacy of a journal or publisher.

Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association
A forum for open access publishers. Membership is vetted and can be an indication of publisher quality.
Committee on Publication Ethics
"A forum for editors and publishers of peer reviewed journals to discuss all aspects of publication ethics."
Beall's List of Predatory Journals
This is an archived version of a list of suspect journals compiled by Jeffrey Beall, an academic librarian who was threatened with lawsuits and the possible termination of his job for maintaining the list. To learn more about this case, read this Chronicle of Higher Ed article: Why Beall’s List Died — and What It Left Unresolved About Open Access

Criteria to consider

Before deciding to publish in any journal, consider the following criteria:

The journal is indexed in an established and reputable database such as Web of Knowledge, Ulrich's, or Sociological Abstracts.
Examine the journal's website for such information as affiliation with a university or professional organization, editorial board credentials, or acceptance rates. If you have doubts, contact members of the editorial board or article authors.
Publishing fees and copyright ownership are clearly indicated.
The publisher is a member of a reputable industry organization such as Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association or the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Here are some resources that can help you vet an OA journal:

Directory of Open Access Journals - The largest list of OA journals. Titles indexed in DOAJ after March 2014 (noted with a green check mark or "DOAJ Seal"), underwent a more stringent review process than those indexed prior to that date.
ThinkCheckSubmit - This tool, produced with the support of a coalition from across scholarly communications in response to discussions about deceptive publishing, walks you through the process of evaluating journals.
Quality Open Access Market - QUAM uses academic crowd sourcing to provide ratings on journals.

Adapted from Paul Blobaum's Checklist for Review of Journal Quality, Governor's State University