A Method of Examining a Journal
In eight questions.
Eight questions, in the order one is best advised to put them. Each takes minutes.
- The ISSN. Look the number up in the ISSN Portal. It should give the same title, and a publisher that matches the journal’s page.
- The indexing. Do not accept a row of logos. Search the register of each service named; the Directory of Open Access Journals can be searched by title or ISSN.
- The editors. Choose two names from the board. Find each on an institutional page, and confirm that he or she knows of the appointment.
- The review. A journal should state its process and its usual time to decision, and its published articles should show received and accepted dates that are not implausibly close.
- The fees. An honest journal states any charge before submission, in figures. Set the stated fee against a source-verified list; JournalFees is a free directory of article processing charges and waivers, with a source for each figure.
- The owner. Who publishes it, from what address, and under what registration? “There is no parent company” is a statement, not an answer.
- The archive. Does the journal keep its own back issues, and is it a member of a preservation service? Try a recent article’s DOI and see that it resolves to the article.
- The address. Look the domain up in the Internet Archive. A site that once held a journal and now holds something else, as this one did, is a warning that old citations may lead nowhere.
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A single failed check is a reason to ask; three are a reason to submit elsewhere.