On Publishing, Copyright, and Authors' Rights

Researchers have a lot of concerns when it comes to the publication of the products of their research. They might be thinking about which journal offers the best possible venue for their work. Or, maybe they're concerned about which publications their tenure and promotion board will find the most impressive. It's also possible they believe strongly in the idea of open access, but have heard colleagues mention predatory publishing and are worried about where to send their work.

There are certainly a lot of factors to consider when it comes to publishing. A few of these factors might include:

• Does the journal have strong readership?
• Does the journal have a good impact factor?
• Does their institution have an open access mandate?
• Does the agency who funded their research have an open access mandate?
• Does a certain publisher allow for self-archiving in an institutional or discipline-based repository?
• Does a publisher allow an author to keep copyright of their work?
• Is a journal trustworthy?
• Does a journal have an author processing charge?

These are just a few of the questions researchers might be asking. This section of the toolbox is intended to help answer some of these questions.