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Bad faith publishers are a part of the academic publishing ecosystem. While many researchers feel confident that they can distinguish between a legitimate and illegitimate publisher, increasing sophistication and a continued presence in the marketplace suggests that these publishers are an ongoing issue.
For this activity, you are tasked with comparing two open access journals, one that you presume may be of low quality and another that has been vetted by the Directory of Open Access Journals and deemed legitimate.
Step 1
Identify a journal in your field that you have concerns over the quality of and conduct a review of the journal using the checklist provided at thinkchecksubmit.org.
Step 2
Select a journal in your field from the Directory of Open Access Journals and conduct a second review based again on the checklist provided at thinkchecksubmit.org
DOAJ is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals.
Think. Check. Submit. helps researchers identify trusted journals and publishers for their research.
Complete this challenge
Having compared the two journals using the checklist, in the comments below write a brief insight outlining the main differences and similarities between. Reflect on your assumptions prior to investigating the journals and whether or not any of these assumptions were challenged. Also consider the audience for the two journals. Do you feel confident that readers and potential authors would easily be able to assess the quality of the journals and their publications? Why or why not?
Challenge Image Credit: Open Story Telling by Marco Verch Professional Photographer licensed under CC BY 2.0