Quality Indicators for OA Journals
Contact the librarian for your department on specific titles. There is no single indicator or criterion to determine a journal's impact or place in the field of scholarship.
Begin by searching for the title in the Directory of Open Access Journals
View Boston College Libraries' guide to OA journal quality indicators
See Grand Valley State Open Access Journal Quality Indicators
View the editorial board.
View past issues to see who has published in them.
Open Access Journal Policies & Fees
Open access journals are those that use a funding model that does not charge readers or their institutions for access. They are peer reviewed. Funding to support peer-reviewed open access sometimes is derived from submission fees for the author.
Does a journal have an author processing cost (APC) or submission fee? Search DOAJ.
- Directory of Open Access JournalsDOAJ is an online directory that indexes and provides access to quality open access, peer-reviewed journals. It raised the bar on admission of journals over the past two years.
- "Open Access Article Processing Charges: DOAJ Survey May 2014."Results of a survey of the 2567 journals, or 26% of journals listed in DOAJ, that do have APCs based on a sample of 1432 of these journals. Results indicate a volatile sector that would make future APCs difficult to predict for budgeting purposes. DOAJ and publisher title lists often did not closely match. A number of journals were found on examination not to have APCs.
- Romeo (SHERPA)If an academic author wants to put their research articles on-line, they are faced with an increasingly complex situation. Evidence shows that citations to articles made openly accessible in this way are cited more often than research that is simply published in journals. Also some funding agencies (U.S. federal) require open access archiving for their research, to increase the use of the information generated.
However, some publishers prohibit authors from using their own articles in this way. Others allow it, but only under certain conditions. Others freely allow it. Authors can be left confused: RoMEO helps to clarify the situation. - Beall's ListAttempt to identify low quality and/or predatory open access journals is not perfect, but worthy of a starting place in investigating a journal before submitting.