LibGuides: Scholarly Communication: Academic Publishing

Standard Disclaimer

The materials and information presented here do not constitute legal advice and are presented for informational purposes only. For legal guidance, please consult with a licensed attorney.

Choosing a Journal

Think, Check, Submit
Think. Check. Submit. helps researchers identify trusted journals for their research.
Through a range of tools and practical resources, this international, cross-sector initiative aims to educate researchers, promote integrity, and build trust in credible research and publications.

Tools for Measuring Impact

Google Scholar Metrics
Google Scholar Metrics provide an easy way for authors to quickly gauge the visibility and influence of recent articles in scholarly publications. Scholar Metrics summarize recent citations to many publications, to help authors as they consider where to publish their new research.
Scimago Journal and Country Rank
The SCImago Journal & Country Rank is a publicly available portal that includes the journals and country scientific indicators developed from the information contained in the Scopus® database (Elsevier B.V.). These indicators can be used to assess and analyze scientific domains. Journals can be compared or analysed separately. Country rankings may also be compared or analysed separately. Journals can be grouped by subject area (27 major thematic areas), subject category (313 specific subject categories) or by country. Citation data is drawn from over 34,100 titles from more than 5,000 international publishers and country performance metrics from 239 countries worldwide. The SJCR allows you also to embed significative journal metrics into your web as a clickable image widget

This platform takes its name from the SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) indicator (PDF), developed by SCImago from the widely known algorithm Google PageRank™. This indicator shows the visibility of the journals contained in the Scopus® database from 1996.
EIGENFACTOR Journal Metrics Search
We [The Eigenfactor Project] aim to use recent advances in network analysis to develop novel methods for evaluating the influence of scholarly periodicals, for mapping the structure of academic research, and for helping researchers navigate the scholarly literature. We are committed to broadly disseminating our research findings and technological developments, while respecting the confidentiality of the data sources we use.
Publish or Perish Tool
Publish or Perish is a software program that retrieves and analyzes academic citations.
Google Scholar Citations
Google Scholar Citations provide a simple way for authors to keep track of citations to their articles. You can check who is citing your publications, graph citations over time, and compute several citation metrics. You can also make your profile public, so that it may appear in Google Scholar results when people search for your name, e.g., richard feynman.

All descriptions are duplicated directly from vendor websites to ensure the accuracy of description.

Predatory Publishing

What is predatory publishing?

Predatory publishing is the unethical exploitation of academic publishing for the benefit of the publisher with no discernible benefit for the author. These predatory publishers are often (though not always) characterized by an expedited (or non-existent) peer-review process, poorly-developed websites, and requirements of payment.

No one list or resource is the absolute authority on which journals are reliable and non-predatory. However, several resources have emerged as trusted sources for identifying predatory publishers. The sources below can provide helpful guidelines and suggestions. However, the responsibility of evaluating a journal for suitability relies solely on the researcher(s) submitting their work.

"Understanding Predatory Publishers," Iowa State University Libraries.
This guide is a simple and robust guide on predatory publishing. The "Advice for Dealing with a Predatory Publisher" contains some resources specific to faculty at Iowa State University.
Beall's List of Predatory Journals and Publishers
Beall's List is a useful resource on predatory publishing, emerging as an early identifier of publishers that met the list's criteria for predatory publishing. Please keep in mind that this is an archived source and that it is no longer updated.