Measure Your Research Impact: Where to Publish

There is no single criterion that indicates whether a journal is legitimate and reputable. The Grand Valley State University Libraries developed positive and negative indicators to help assess journal quality. While they were developed to evaluate open access journals, they can be used to assess any journal. An article was published by Sarah Beaubien and Max Eckard in 2014 in the Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication that describes the development. Available:  https://doi.org/10.7710/2162-3309.1133

Positive Indicators

• Scope of the journal is well-defined and clearly stated
• Journal’s primary audience is researchers/practitioners
• 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)
• An open access journal's publisher is a member of Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association
• Journal is registered in UlrichsWeb, Global Serials Directory
• If the journal is open access, it is listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals
• Journal is included in subject databases and/or indexes like PubMed, Web of Science or Scopus.

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.)

Sharing research results with the world is key to the progress of your discipline and career. But with so many publications, how can you be sure you can trust a particular journal? Use this checklist to determine if the journal is a trusted publication