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Turku University Library

Open Access Publishing

How to Select a Scientific Journal for Your Article

According to the publication policy of the University of Turku, the researcher selects the journal to publish in based on what they consider to be the best in quality. When choosing the publication, the researcher should pay attention to the following three matters:

  • How open is the journal?
  • Who holds the rights to the publication?
  • What are the possibilities for the reuse of the publication?

You can also check the Library's guide on Evaluating Scholarly Publications.

In addition, you may also consider using the following tools:

  • Think.Check.Submit A campaign to help researchers identify trusted journals for their research. It is a simple checklist researchers can use to assess the credentials of a journal or publisher. More about the participating research organizations.
  • The Journal Checker Tool allows you to determine whether a journal meets the funder's requirements for open access publishing.
  • From the JUFO Portal, you can find information about publication forum levels, as well as whether a journal is eligible for any FinELib benefits for open access publishing. If such benefits exist, please check the University of Turku's negotiated open access discount agreements and the lists of journals included in those agreements. Please note that the University of Turku may have some discount agreements that are not visible through the JUFO Portal. When checking eligibility for an APC (Article Processing Charge) discount, please verify the publisher information on the journal's website.
  • Once you find a suitable journal, please refer to the University of Turku's guidelines page for information on the possibilities of APC (Article Processing Charge) discounts.
  • Edanz Journal Selector A tool for finding a suitable journal for your article. Covers a wide selection of journals from multiple publishers. Find a suitable journal by entering your abstract or article title.
  • JANE - Journal Article Name Estimator Jane is a tool for finding a suitable publication in the field of biomedicine. The search is limited to the publications included in the Medline database.
  • Elsevier Journal Finder You can use the journal finder of the Elsevier publishing house to find a suitable journal for your topic from amongst over 2,000 top journals. It also provides information on the acceptance percentages and editorial times.

Journal lists based on expert evaluations

Reliability of Open Access Publications - Predatory Journals

As open access publishing has increased, so have scam attempts. These so-called questionable/predatory OA publishers are only in it for the money, and may collect large author fees or their peer review process does not fulfil the generally accepted requirements. In addition, information about the publishing fee (APC or similar) may be only be given after the article has been accepted for publication. There may also be a very short time limit to pay the fee, for example only 24 hours.

To assess the reliability of a publisher, you can use this checklist:

  • Does the publisher disclose full contact information, including an address on their website?
  • Is there information on who owns the publisher and which country the publisher operates in?
  • Who are members of the journal's editorial board and is the full information of their institutional affiliation provided?
  • Is there information on author / article processing (APCs) fees?
  • Does the APC payment have to be paid in a rush, for example inside a day?
  • Are the previous articles written by well-known scholars from real institutions and do they seem high-quality to you?
  • What does the peer-review process entail and is there information on it?
  • Is the publication listed in ROAD (Directory of Open Access Scholarly Journals) or DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals)?
  • Is the publisher a member of OASPA?
  • Are the terms of the publishing agreement and copyright reasonable?

You can ask members of the editorial board or authors of previous articles for an opinion on the journal. If the journal has an impact factor, check that it is correct from Clarivate's Journal Citations Reports or from Web of Science.
 

More information on predatory OA journals:

Searching for Open Access Journals?

You can also search for open access journals with JUFO rating through the  Publication Forum or choose Open access as the search criteria on large journal databases like Scopus and WebofScience. 

Open Access Button enables to search for the article for example by title or DOI (digital object identifier) number.

Unpaywall.org offers a free browser extension that tells you if there is an open access version available of the paywalled article you are interested in.