Think. Check. Submit is a checklist developed by scholarly publishers to help you evaluate journals. It can help guide you, but the checklist on its own will not protect you, you will still need to use your critical evaluation skills to analyze the journal or publisher. The Think Check Submit, framework also has a bias towards more established and traditional journals and publishers.
Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) is a curated online directory of high quality Open Access journals that uses rigorous but not exclusionary indexing criteria. DOAJ is the best place to find OA journals that do not charge authors for publishing and all DOAJ data if freely available.
Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing These Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing by COPE, DOAJ, OASPA and WAME.
You can verify indexing and metrics by researching looking at the indexing lists provided by Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed, Medline and PubMed Central.
Two other periodical directors WVU subscribes to are Ulrichsweb which provides detailed information on periodicals published throughout the world, covering all subjects and including publications that are published regularly or irregularly and Ebsco Serials Directory a directory of 150,000 periodicals with publisher information.
You can also verify that publishers are members of Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA) and other publisher associations, such as Association of University Presses and the Library Publishing Coalition
Professional connections and recommendations are always the safest way to assess an opportunity.
