Think. Check. Submit.

A new tool was released earlier this month to help researchers better understand who they can trust with publishing their work.

thinkchecksubmit

The “Think. Check. Submit.” checklist is a response to concerns surrounding the practices of “predatory” publishers. “Predatory” publishers are characterized by spamming researchers and non existent quality control.

These publishers “seem to be in the scholarly publishing business only in order to collect APCs and provide rapid publishing without proper peer review for authors who need publications in their CVs“.(1)

The checklist will particularly aid early career researchers submitting their research to publishers for the first time.  By working through questions like “Can you easily identify and contact the publisher?” and “Is the journal clear about the type of peer review it uses?” researchers will be able determine whether a publisher can be trusted with their research publication.

(1) Cenyu Shen and Bo-Christer Björk, (2015) ‘Predatory’ open access: a longitudinal study of article volumes and market characteristics, BMC Medicine, 13:230 doi:10.1186/s12916-015-0469-2)

 

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