Scholarly Publishing and Open Access

Think. Check. Submit. is a campaign to help researchers identify trusted journals for their research. It has developed a simple checklist to assess journal/publisher credentials.

Reference this list for your chosen journal to check if it is trusted.

• Do you or your colleagues know the journal?
  – Have you read any articles in the journal before?
  – Is it easy to discover the latest papers in the journal?
• Can you easily identify and contact the publisher?
  – Is the publisher name clearly displayed on the journal website?
  – Can you contact the publisher by telephone, email, and post?
• Is the journal clear about the type of peer review it uses?
• Are articles indexed in services that you use?
• Is it clear what fees will be charged?
  – Does the journal site explain what these fees are for and when they will be
  charged?
• Do you recognise the editorial board?
  – Have you heard of the editorial board members?
  – Do the editorial board mention the journal on their own websites?
• Is the publisher a member of a recognized industry initiative?
  – Do they belong to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) ?
  – If the journal is open access, is it listed in the Directory of Open Access
  Journals (DOAJ) ?
  – If the journal is open access, does the publisher belong to the Open Access
  Scholarly Publishers’ Association (OASPA) ?
  – Is the journal hosted on one of INASP’s Journals Online platforms (for journals published in Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Central America and Mongolia) or on African Journals Online (AJOL, for African journals)?
  – Is the publisher a member of another trade association?

Source: Think. Check. Submit

Think. Check. Attend. is an initiative to help researchers assess the legitimacy of academic conferences.

It offers a simple checklist that guides you through a series of questions regarding a conference's organizers/sponsors, agenda, editorial committee, proceedings, etc.