Open Access

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:

• Membership list of the Committee for Publication Ethics (COPE)
• Journals listed in the the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
• Membership list of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA)

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.