Open Access

When choosing a publisher for their research work, authors must ensure that certain requirements are met to avoid so-called predatory publishers. Predatory publishers are fraudulent entities that, taking advantage of the Open Access concept, promise authors to be published in Open Access journals with a high impact factor and fast peer review.

Think, check, submit is a helpful tool which can help authors identify the characteristics that assess a publisher's reliability. The only thing to do is to answer a few questions, which change depending on whether the publication refers to an article or a book.

Some of the most important issues the questions focus on are:

• Publisher's transparency regarding the peer review process, the Article Processing Charges and, generally, the publication guidelines
• Publisher's participation in accredited institutional organizations or initiatives.
• Indexing of content within reliable databases and platforms.

Here are some indicators that, on a scale from ‘high risk’ to ‘quality’, show fraudulent to suitable behaviours:

Source: Combatting Predatory Academic Journals and Conferences, IAP, March 2022, CC-BY.