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Open Access

The basics of open access publishing and open access funding at the University of Tennessee Knoxville.

Evaluate OA Publishers

Which OA journals are reputable?

Evaluating OA journals for both their quality and relevance for your work can help you avoid predatory publishers!

Journals and publishers that meet important publishing guidelines and industry standards established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) can be found in several organizations' membership lists and/or directories:

Journal Quality Indicators

The following indicators can help you determine a journal's quality and avoid predatory journals.

Positive Indicators

  • Scope of the journal is well-defined and clearly stated
  • Journal’s primary audience is researchers/practitioners
  • Editor and 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 website and clearly explained
  • Articles have Direct Object Identifiers (DOIs)
  • Journal clearly indicates rights for use and re-use of content at article level (e.g., Creative Commons CC BY license)
  • Journal has an International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
  • Publisher is a member of Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association
  • Journal is registered in Ulrichsweb.com, 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 website is difficult to locate or identify
  • Publisher “About” information is absent on the journal’s website
  • Publisher direct marketing or other advertising is obtrusive
  • More information for authors is not available
  • Information on peer review and copyright is absent or unclear on the journal website
  • 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, listservs, etc.)

Attribution: These indicators have been adapted from the list created by Grand Valley State University Libraries

Article Processing Charges

What about APCs?

Some publishers ask for fees, or article processing charges (APCs), to make your publication openly accessible. How do authors know when an APC is legitimate or predatory?

  • If the journal makes all of their publications available open access immediately, then there are no subscription fees. In this case, APCs are the publisher's only revenue stream for the journal title, making APCs reasonable.
  • If the journal makes only some of their publications OA, then the publisher receives revenue from both subscriptions to the journal and APCs.  In general, this is not considered a good practice by libraries, since we would be paying twice for the same content.

Other considerations: How committed is the publisher to Open Access?  Is OA their main publishing model, or one of several?  What do they do with their revenue?

Check "Which open access journals are reputable?" above for more information.