Read and Publish: Publish
You can find some useful information about open access publishing in general in this section and tools to help you find a suitable publishing destination. Do not forget that BCU encourages all staff and research students to archive your research outputs in the BCU Open Access Repository (the green open access route) and that Sherpa Lookup Tool is useful to find journal eligibility (the gold open access publishing route) and that the publisher's journal website is the ultimate authoritative place to find whether your journal article processing charges (APC) are covered by the Read and Publish Deals (R&P deals). Always read the journal's aims and scope to ensure the journal's relevance and to know its audience and reach. It also helps to talk to your academic peers in your fields and use the Think.Check.Submit to help identify trusted journals.
Check the publisher's journal website
You should check the Author's Submission Guidance on the publisher's website in order to find the information about open access APCs and also their agreement with Jisc. Generally speaking, a journal may be covered by our deals, if you have found it on the list of journals in the publisher's deals section of this guide and when you have gone to the journal homepage and double-checked it has not recently gone fully-gold, ceased publication, or been sold to another publisher.
Check Sherpa Lookup Tool
You can use some tools to have a quick idea of whether the journal that you are interested in is covered by the R&P deals that BCU has signed up to. Try the Sherpa Lookup Tool and search Birmingham City University and the title of the journal that you are interested in. Remember that if you are funded by UKRI and intend to use UKRI open access funds for an article processing charge in a transformative journal, you need to ensure that the journal is listed as Jisc-approved on Sherpa.
Check Journal Finder Tools
If you are not sure in which journals you should publish your paper, talk to your academic peers and read about the relevant journals. Some publishers have their own journal suggestion tools and there are other similar tools were available.
Journal Suggestion Tools
Some tools can be used to help you find suitable journals for your manuscript. For example, EndNote Match is a feature that EndNote has developed to help match your manuscript title and abstract with a list of suitable journals. ScienceGate Journal Finder and WoS Master Journal List Match Manuscript can help the author to search journals among thousands of journals across the world.
If your research is funded, use the Journal Checker Tool to find out whether a journal is a transformative journal or compliant via another route.
The GAJET List (Good Academic Journal in Ethical Terms) has claimed to present a "good" (in terms of ethical, free to read and publish) journal list, for your consideration of publication destinations.
Check the Predatory Publishing section of the Guidance for Researchers library guide, for more information and help with avoiding predatory publishers.
Publisher's Journal Suggestion Tools
Some publishers have developed journal suggestion tools to encourage researchers to publish in their journals. You can use them (i.e. copying and pasting manuscript abstracts) to get a list of suggested journals matching your research paper. Some examples are listed below.
Additional useful tools
- Jisc Quick GuidePublishing in transformative journals to make your research openly available.
- Think, Check, SubmitThrough a range of tools and practical resources, this international, cross-sector initiative aims to educate researchers, promote integrity, and build trust in credible research and publications.