Both open-access journals and predatory journals operate under the open-access publishing model . The listing of Open Access Journal Quality Indicators was developed by the Grand Valley State University Libraries (Grand Valley State University, 2020), and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Positive and negative Open-assess Journal Quality Indicators are here to facilitate academics to choose their legitimate open-access journals:
Positive Indicators:
- Scope of the journal is well-defined and clearly stated
- Journal's primary audience is researchers/practitioners
- Editor, editorial board are recognized experts in the field
- Journal is affiliated with or sponsored by an established scholarly or academic institution
- Articles are within the scope of the journal and meet the standards of the discipline
- Any fees or charges for publishing in the journal are easily found on the journal website and clearly explained
- Articles have DOIs (Digital Object Identifier, e.g., doi:10.1111/j.1742-9544.2011.00054.x)
- Journal clearly indicates rights for use and re-use of articles at the article level (for instance, Creative Commons license)
- Journal has ISSN (International Standard Serial Number, such as1234-5678)
- Journal is registered in Ulrichsweb.com, Global Serials Directory
- Journal is listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals
- The publisher is a member of Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association
- Journal is included in subject databases and/or indexes
Negative Indicators:
- Journal website is difficult to locate or identify
- Publisher "About" information is absent on the journal's website
- Absent publisher “About” information on the journal’s website
- Visible traits of direct marketing (i.e., spamming) or other advertising on publisher’s website
- Instructions to authors information are unavailable
- Absent or unclear information on peer review and copyright on the journal website
- Absent or extremely vague journal scope statement
- No information is provided about the publisher, or the information provided does not clearly indicate a relationship to a mission to disseminate research content
- Repeat lead authors in same issue
- Publisher has a negative reputation
