Remember: Sham journals, predatory publishers, and journals with little impact exist in both the Closed Access arena and the Open Access arena. Before publishing in any journal, authors should take time to investigate both the journal and the editorial board. If you are new to Open Access publishing, or publishing in general, please consider contacting your subject librarian.
For more information, visit the Scholarly Communication: Evaluating Open Access Journals page
Some criteria to consider...
ThinkCheckSubmit - This tool, produced with the support of a coalition from across scholarly communications in response to discussions about deceptive publishing, walks you through the process of evaluating journals.
Adapted from Paul Blobaum's Predatory Publishing and Spamferences LibGuide, Governor's State University
Supposed scientific articles published in questionable academic journals can easily dupe researchers - and seriously erode the body of science.
Use the guide below to help you identify this type of article and avoid publishing in questionable journals.
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In open access publishing, printing barriers are removed and the compilation and dissemination of information needs little more than Internet access. Unfortunately, this has led to a growth in open access publishers with little or no subject expertise and of questionable repute. Scholars and researchers may receive email solicitations for fee-based paper submissions to journals that make false or misleading claims about the stringency of their peer-review process, members of their editorial board or indexing status.
Adapted from Gail Steinhart's Open Access Publishing LibGuide, Cornell University