Typical questions

• • Can you advise me which journals are the best to publish in?

• • How can I make my work open access?

Starting points

• • Increasingly users are asking library staff about publishing. Some institutions are creating their own open access presses and have scholarly communications officers who can assist.

• • Common questions relate to license terms – consult the Copyright chapter – as well as where to publish. The section on Impact Measurement has advice on journal impact sources that should be consulted for advice on tracing the most highly cited titles.

• • Another key area is open access – where to deposit items, payment of article processing fees and how individual items can be made open access. Most institutions with repositories have specialist staff who can handle this. The Copyright chapter has advice on Creative Commons licenses, which may also help.

• • This chapter has some basic starting points on avoiding predatory publishers and navigating the publishing process for academic authors.

Recommended resources

Where to publish

British Conference of Undergraduate Research

www.bcur.org

An organisation which seeks to promote undergraduate research in all disciplines. Maintains a useful listing of undergraduate journals at UK universities. This is helpful for identifying titles which will accept undergraduate submissions.

Manuscript Matcher (Subscription) [Basic]

endnote.com/product-details/manuscript-matcher

A service offered to Endnote users. It provides an automated method for researchers to quickly identify potential journal titles to publish in based on their article title and abstract. Uses Web of Science and Journal Citation Reports data.

Publons [Specialist]

publons.com

An online community that aims to promote and improve the power of peer review. Researchers can browse lists of individual academic journals to get information on their peer review process and reviews of its performance including timescales. They can also register in a directory of peer reviewers and enter and track the peer reviewing work they have done.

Think Check Submit [Basic]

thinkchecksubmit.org

Site supported by a cross-sector initiative of publishers and scholarly organisations that aims to helps researchers identify trusted journals for their research. Provides useful checklists and questions to ask.

Open access

There are several ways of making articles open access. These are often referred to by a confusing number of colour codes relating to self-archiving terms and conditions. This is a fast-moving area so keep up-to-date by checking the organisational websites listed below.