A novel initiative in journal selection

The rapid transition from print to online publishing in the last ten years caused unexpected rise in scientific journals and publishing in general. Most of the newbie researchers in science and academia feel daunted by the multiple options now open to them on the web. Researchers at any career stage should have questioned themselves the following: “Where exactly do I submit my paper?” Today, the answer to this query is more important than ever and we are going to discuss the answer.

Face of the predatory journal

Unfortunately, with new credible and high-grade journals, a disturbing number of fake, deceitful journals have risen. The perfect journal target should match the research subject of the paper in terms of scope, rigor, and significance of findings and cater to the aimed audience. Reckon the journal’s quality before selecting and submitting your work.

Fake journals and their publishers are altogether known as predatory because they are motivated only by greed instead of ethics. Spamming, promising swift turnaround time, and preying upon new scholars is how they function. They charge a fee for publishing their paper in an open access format that lacks rigorous peer-review process and editorial monitoring. Such fake publications have ballooned seven-times 2019—2013. Scientific integrity and knowledge is compromised and public trust is broken.

Initiative by Think. Check. Submit

While it is difficult to keep pace with all the new journals out there, authors must be vigil against fake journals. Good news is that there is a great effort to help in this movement called “Think Check Submit” (Inaugurated by leading publishers in 2015). Through a range of tools and practical resources, this international, cross-industry initiative aims to school researchers, promote integrity, and build trust in credible research and publications. The campaign has been produced with the support of a coalition from across scholarly communications in response to discussions about deceptive publishing.

The crusade of  “Think Check Submit” is to guide researchers with better info on publishing options and simplifies the journal selection phases through a handy toolkit on their website.

Free accessibility and easy to navigate.  First, think through the target journal; and second, link to an author criteria checklist. Apt questions such as these: 1) Are you or your peers aware of the journal? 2) Are you aware of the editorial board? Filter down predatory journals from the selection stages. Move to the final stage and submit the paper after answering yes to all checklist queries.

Note that the firm does not suggest any specific journals; objective is to guide researchers as to where to showcase their work and thereby increase their impact. With this guidance, researchers advance their careers.

Who merits from this initiative?

TBI Communications manages the campaign which benefits many parties such as researchers and those in the nascent stage of their careers, and those with English as second language at institutions that lack access to scientific literature through plethora of information available in one place. Therefore, researchers are less exposed to predatory journals.                As researchers become more vigilant, the progress of various scholarly disciplines benefits too.

What’s in store for the future?

A number of publishing organizations have synced up with the coalition to support the Think.Check.Submit initiative. As academic journals competing for scholarship increase, ensuring quality research in an expanding open-access publishing will continue, and it’s in for the long-haul. Tighter regulations are mandatory to support “Think.Check.Submit” campaign and researchers may check ROAD (Directory of Open Access Scholarly Resources) and QOAM (Quality Open Access Market).

To conclude, it’s imperative that researchers steer clear of unethical publishing. In the crusade against predatory journals, the “Think Check Submit” initiative is certainly noteworthy.