Publishing your research

How do I choose a format? 

The choice of format will largely depend on your discipline. 

Journal articles tend to be more highly cited than conference papers, but there are always exceptions. Choose a journal article for formal final publication of research findings.  

Conference papers are the primary form of scholarly communication in some disciplines (e.g. Computer Science). Other factors you may wish to consider when considering submitting a conference paper include: 

• Career stage: early career researchers may benefit from attending conferences to start building their networks. They may also find the process of getting a conference paper accepted easier than getting a journal paper accepted. 

• Research stage: conferences can be an opportunity to get feedback on interim research results that influence the future direction of your research. 

• Conference publication: does the conference publish papers? If so are they published in an outlet with an ISSN? And is that outlet indexed by the major bibliographic databases, Web of Science or Scopus?  

Monographs (books) were particularly well regarded and in some cases double-weighted in Panels C and D of the Research Excellence Framework (REF).  

Research data (link to Research data management page)  should be deposited if your funder requires it, and even if not, this is good practice. There is evidence that doing so improves citation rates to the associated papers. 

Other formats may be appropriate if engaging with industry or the public - e.g., exhibitions, trade journals and press releases. 

[H3] How do I find journals to publish in? (finding, evaluating) 

Always remembering the overarching guidance around readership, rigour and reach, there are a number of journal listings that might help you in your search for the right place to publish.  These include: 

Bibliographic databases 

• Scopus (which feeds the citation benchmarking tool, SciVal). 

• Ulrichs Global Serials Directory lists over 300,000 different journals. 

Journal matching tools which identify potential journals for your work based on the title, abstract and/or reference list of your manuscript: 

• Directory of Open Access Journals Global index of diverse open access  

• Elsevier Journal Finder Only indexes Elsevier journals. 

• Wiley Journal Finder Indexes Wiley journals. 

• Springer Nature Journal Finder Indexes Springer Nature journals. 

• Taylor and Francis Journal Suggester  Indexes Taylor and Francis journals.  

• JANE Focussed on Health Science. 

Journal policy listings 

• JISC Open Policy Finder Identifies journals' Open Access & preprint policies including embargo periods. 

• Platform for Responsible Editorial Policies. Provides editorial policies for c.450 journals. 

[H3] How can I avoid predatory publishers? 

Be aware that with the advent of Open Access, there are an increasing number of 'predatory publishers' looking to cash in on authors' willingness to pay open access fees for publication. Follow the Think, Check, Submit guidelines to ensure the journal you're thinking about is trustworthy.  The following list of salient characteristics of potential predatory journals (Shamseer, et al., 2017) is also very helpful: 

• The scope of interest includes non-biomedical subjects alongside biomedical topics 

• The website contains spelling and grammar errors 

• Images are distorted/fuzzy, intended to look like something they are not, or which are unauthorized 

• The homepage language targets authors 

• The Index Copernicus Value is promoted on the website 

• Description of the manuscript handling process is lacking 

• Manuscripts are requested to be submitted via email 

• Rapid publication is promised 

• There is no retraction policy 

• Information on whether and how journal content will be digitally preserved is absent 

• The Article processing/publication charge is very low (e.g., < $150 USD) 

• Journals claiming to be open access either retain copyright of published research or fail to mention copyright 

• The contact email address is non-professional and non-journal affiliated (e.g., @gmail.com or @yahoo.com) 

[H3] Which conference (finding, reach, proceedings have ISSN/indexed in databases?) 

[H3] Research data [link to RDM/Lara’s page] 

[H3] Identifying OA outlets for your research [link to OA pages] 

There are two main routes to open access journal publishing, Green and Gold, which are described on our open access pages.  Unless your research is funded by a UK Research Council, there are no central funds for payment of Article Processing Charges (APCs) for Gold publication.  However, we do subscribe to a number of publisher Gold open access deals, some of which allow ALL Loughborough staff to publish Gold open access for no additional charge.  Please check out the publisher discounts page for further information.  Also, please remember that many Gold open access journals do not charge an APC at all.  These are listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals.  Always work within the readership, rigour and reach guidelines when choosing a journal. 

It has already been indicated that for REF 2029, the expectation is that monographs should also be made available on open access. The UK Oapen Project https://www.oapen.org/publishers  has produced a Guide to open access monograph publishing for arts, humanities and social science researchers. OAPEN has collated an Open Access Books Toolkit which aims to help book authors better understand OA book publishing and to increase trust in open access books. 

 set out benefits of open in terms of reproducibility etc. link to OR pages 

[H3] What is open peer review? 

In an effort to improve openness and transparency in journal publishing - and to provide reviewers with credit for performing peer review, the concept of open peer review is gaining traction. A great introduction to open research is available at OpenScience.eu.  There are many differing definitions of open peer review, the following list of traits is taken from Ross-Hellauer (2018).  

• Open identities: Authors and reviewers are aware of each other’s identity 

• Open reports: Review reports are published alongside the relevant article. 

• Open participation: The wider community are able to contribute to the review process. 

• Open interaction: Direct reciprocal discussion between author(s) and reviewers, and/or between reviewers, is allowed and encouraged. 

• Open pre-review manuscripts: Manuscripts are made immediately available (e.g., via pre-print servers like arXiv) in advance of any formal peer review procedures. 

• Open final-version commenting: Review or commenting on final “version of record” publications. 

• Open platforms (“decoupled review”): Review is facilitated by a different organizational entity than the venue of publication. 

Anyone can provide a post-publication peer review report on an existing paper using PubPeer. For examples of platform-based post-publication peer review, see F1000 Research, Authorea & ScienceOpen. 

[H3] What are the benefits of open research? 

Open research has clear benefits for society but there are also benefits for researchers including: 

• Making outputs more visible as they are not hidden behind paywalls 

• Your research has greater impact as more people can read, cite and apply your work 

• Transparency, credibility through data being shared throughout the research process 

• Complying with funder policy requirements around open research and open access  

There are a number of metrics that are quantitative measurements of how a journal is performing, for example, how many citations are accrued per paper. Such metrics include the Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) and SCImago Journal Rank (SJR). Details of where these are accessible can be found on our journal metrics guide (link research central). Note that journal-level metrics are not a direct measure of impact rather an indication of how a journal is performing. With this in mind Loughborough University has a clear statement on the responsible use of metrics: Responsible Research Assessment | Research Support | Loughborough University. 

[H1] Who is the author? 

As the number of multi-authored and 'hyper-authored' papers is on the increase, professional bodies are developing guidelines on what consitutes authorship of a scholarly paper.  It is important to give credit to all the contributors to an output according to the conventions of your discipline. The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) provide some useful authorship and contribution resources. See also: 

• The International Committee of Medical Journal Authors guidelines 

• The British Sociological Association guidelines 

You might also use the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT) to identify all those who were involved in the research underpinning the output, regardless of whether they constitute authors. More journals are now asking authors to clarify the roles of those involved in producing an article by means of the CRediT taxonomy.