URSP: Student Publishing Guide

These journal assessment tools are self-guided questions for authors to consider when selecting a particular journal for publication. Use your best judgment when selecting a publication.

• Think.Check.Submit Checklist

  From the organization website: "Think. Check. Submit. is a campaign to help researchers identify trusted journals for their research. It is a simple checklist researchers can use to assess the credentials of a journal or publisher."

   

  Be iNFORMEd: Checklist

  A checklist developed by Duke University Medical Library & Archives to determine legitimacy for new and unknown journals.

   

  Evaluating Journals

  Ryerson University Library and Archives provides a checklist of questions to guide authors when considering a journal for publication.

   

  Publishing Your Work: Assessing Journal Legitimacy
• Based on: Hoffecker, L., Hastings-Tolsma, M., Vincent, D., and Zuniga, H., (2015). Selecting an open access journal for nursing publication: be cautious. Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 21 (2016

   
• Open Access Journal Quality Indicators - from Grand Valley State University, these guidelines can help one evaluate open access publications as one considers appropriate publication venues, or invitations to serve as reviewers or editors. See also this article published in the Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication about the development of these guidelines.​

   

  Journal Evaluation Tool - from Loyola Marymount University, created by Shilpa Rele, Marie Kennedy, and Nataly Blas. This PDF download from the LMU institutional repository includes steps for evaluating journals, a detailed rubric of criteria, and a scoring table to accompany the rubric.

   

  JournalGuide - JournalGuide uses a “whitelist” approach, indexing known journals of quality and providing information on scope, how quickly the journal reviews and publishes papers, where the journal is indexed, open access options, page charges and more. JournalGuide also provides links directly to a journals “instructions for authors” page.

   

  Directory of Open Access Journals - a community-curated list of open access journals and a good starting point for identifying quality, peer reviewed open access material. DOAJ also provides a "Best Practices" for publishers, which can be useful when evaluating journals for quality.

   

  Harzing's Journal Quality List - this collated list of quality journals is based upon nearly 20 different rankings of more than 900 journals

   

  "Dear Esteemed Author:" Spotting a Predatory Publisher in 10 Easy Steps - blog post from the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine that describes 10 things to consider when evaluating a scholarly journal