Indicators of Journal Quality: Journal Quality

Positive Indicators

• Scope of the journal is well-defined and clearly stated
• Editor, editorial board are recognized experts in the field
• Journal is affiliated with or sponsored by an established scholarly society or academic institution
• Articles are within the scope of the journal and meet the standards of the discipline
• Any fees or charges for publishing in the journal are easily found on the journal web site and clearly explained
• Articles have DOIs (Digital Object Identifier, e.g., doi:10.1111/j.1742-9544.2011.00054.x)
• Journal clearly indicates rights for use and re-use of content at article level (e.g., Creative Commons CC BY license)
• Journal has an ISSN (International Standard Serial Number, e.g., 1234-5678)
• Publisher is a member of Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association
• Journal is registered in UlrichsWeb, Global Serials Directory
• Journal is listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals
• Journal is included in subject databases and/or indexes

Negative Indicators

• Journal web site is difficult to locate or identify
• Publisher “About” information is absent on the journal’s web site
• Publisher direct marketing (i.e., spamming) or other advertising is obtrusive
• Instructions to authors information is not available
• Information on peer review and copyright is absent or unclear on the journal web site
• Journal scope statement is absent or extremely vague
• No information is provided about the publisher, or the information provided does not clearly indicate a relationship to a mission to disseminate research content
• Repeat lead authors in same issue
• Publisher has a negative reputation (e.g., documented examples in Chronicle of Higher Education, list-servs, etc.)

All information provided in this box was made available by Grand Valley State University Libraries, and the methods for determining these indicators are described in this article published in 2014.

The study describes both positive and negative indicators. Positive indicators aid researchers in determining what to look for when deciding to publish in a journal. Negative indicators help the researcher determine whether a journal may be unethical in its practices: they are warning signs.

To get an idea of how much a journal subscription costs, journalprices.com has collected pricing information on over 10,000 journals in the sciences, social sciences, and a few in the humanities. The database is searchable by title, publisher and ISSN. Based on their methods, they have determined whether the value of each journal is "good," "bad," or "medium." The database is available here. 

Available through Scholarly Open Access is a list of questionable or predatory publishers/journals. This list is not complete, and authors should determine for themselves based on other factors (including the indicators to the left, as well as advice from your subject librarian) whether to publish in a journal. The criteria the site used for determining questionable journals is here, and the list is here.