Publish in Open Access journals

Why publish in an Open Access journal?

Different models of Open Access journals

Find a quality Open Access journal

Why publish in an Open Access Journal? 

These recent years, with Internet and the electronic journals' development, the scientific publishing landscape has become more complex. 

Possibilities to publish your work have multiplied, giving rise to numerous questions about how to choose a journal. And this questioning should take into account the business models of the journals you are likely to publish in. 

Indeed, the aim of the scientific community should be to produice and share quality knowledge as quickly and widely as possible, not to enrich big publishers who, moreover, limit the dissemination of this knowledge.

By being attentive to the journals' business models, and by choosing to publish in Open Access journals, you are helping to regain control over the process of scholarly publication! 

Publishing in Open Access is a way to improve the dissemination and visibility of your publications.

Differents models of Open Access journals

There are differents possibilities to publish in an OA journal, but not all are equal: 

Hybrid journals: should be avoided! The business model of these journals is more of a traditional publishers' scam: they are journals accessible by traditional subscription, but in which authors can choose to publish their articles in Open Access against payment of APC. As a result, universities subscribe to these journals to access published content, and researchers at these same universities pay to have their articles available in Open Access within these journals. In the end, universities thus offer a double source of income to these hybrid journals: subscription fees and APCs!

Fee-based OA journals: Open Access with publication costs (APC, Article Processing Charges). These APCs are financial contributions requested from authors by certain publishers to cover the costs of editorial work carried out.

However, some big publishers are happily benefiting from this model: initially, the amount of APC requested was reasonable but it has continued to increase over the years... it is now a new source of profit for these publishers. The amounts requested (up to more than 4000$) often far exceed the editorial costs generated by the publication of an article. Moreover, editors of highly questionable scientific ethics have diverted this model to create poor quality journals for the sole purpose of enriching themselves: see here how to recognize and avoid these predatory journals.

Of course, some journals charge APCs that remain reasonable!

Open Access without publication fees: 70% of Open Access journals do not require APC from authors to publish their articles.  Contrary to popular belief, the author-payer model is far from being the only one possible: there are at least 8 different business models for OA publication.

How to find a qualty OA journal to publish in?  

Some Open Access journals have gained as much notoriety as traditional subscription journals. Be aware that it is also up to you, as the author, to change practices and shape tomorrow's world of scientific publishing!

   You'll fin here differents elements to consider when choosing a journal 

   Consult the databases that select journals according to scientific and editorial quality criteria :

DOAJ : This is an online directory that indexes and provides access to high-quality Open Access journals. A journal that is listed in DOAJ respects ethical and professional standards, and has a quality peer-review process.

Quality Open Access Market (QOAM) :This service is primarily intended for researchers wishing to publish in an Open Access journal of high quality but also at a reasonable cost. Each journal receives a JCS (Journal Score Cards), assigned by the scientific community after analysis of 4 main criteria: Editorial information, peer-reviewed, governance and finally the editorial process. A fifth criterion is also taken into account in parallel with the first 4: valuation. This valuation is judged on the sharing of experiences by authors who have already published in the journal in question. The online tool allows filtering by disciplines so as not to discredit less requested journals related to very specific fields for which the research community is smaller. Financial items related to publication costs are also provided for information purposes.

Eigenfactor Index of Open Access Fees: You will find a list of Open Access journals, for all fields, with or without publication fees.

Open Access Spectrum Evaluation Tool :  This tool allows you to assess how "open" a journal is. The analysis of the OAS tool focuses mainly on the various scholarly journal publishing policies. You can then check whether a magazine that presents itself as "open" is really open, but also and above all its degree of openness.

    Finally, check out the few journals available on OJS-UCLouvain, the scholarly journals publishing platform of the UCL!  More about OJS-UCLouvain