getting published

Stages of Rejection:

1. Disbelief - 'but I am brilliant'

2. They don't understand me

3. Tantrum

4. The eye (of the emotional storm)

5. The reflection/contemplation: I am an imposter

Advice

1. Publishing is about joining a conversation: are you joining the right conversation

2. Mistakability: learn from this

3. Find a mentor: co-publish

4. Keep a list of your rjections

5. Never give up

If  you feel comofortable, you are not learning

Predatory publishing continues to be a trap for young players with more and more early  career researchers falling victim.  When this happens, not only do they effectively lose ownership and copyright of their hard work (with that the ability to publish it elsewhere), they often lose confidence, they can lose standing in their field, and they most certainly lose the potential for their research to be cited and shared with other researchers and future collaborators.

Looking for a publisher for your research should be a more of an experience like buying a new laptop or a car.  Hopefully you don’t buy the first shiny thing you see.  Hopefully you rely on people whose opinion you respect.  Hopefully you check out the product reviews and comparison websites to see what your options are.   Hopefully you don’t send a cash deposit after receiving a spam email from a car dealer.

Your diligence when looking for a potential publisher should likewise be seen as an investment in your future.  Look to the journals the experts in your field are publishing in.  Look to the journals your peers are publishing in.  As an early career researcher, reputable journals will not send you email invitations to publish with them so don’t be tempted by vanity publishers.  Don’t let your desperation for publication override your common sense.

Follow the Think Check Submit protocols.  If you are still not certain, ask your faculty or liaison librarian to help you.

Predatory conferences, like predatory journals can also be difficult to spot, and without due diligence you can end up at a dodgy hotel, in a scary part of town, signing your authorship rights away and delivering a paper to six people, who will likely be the only people who ever hear about your research.  You can check the Pivot database on the QUT Library’s databases page for legitimate calls for submissions for conference papers.

• Involves major discoveries
• Has an impact on society
• Features recommendations for change in practice
• Ties to a timely topic or event

If you are not sure of the publisher's credentials I would check before you agree to publish with them - there are many so-called predatory publishers out there. We recommend ThinkCheckSubmit http://www.thinkchecksubmit.org/ which is a website that helps you to choose trusted publishers for your research.

At Imperial College London we recommend our researchers also check the following, particularly if it is an open access publisher.

• If it publishes a journal - it has an entry in the Directory of Open Access Journals(DOAJ) – which provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals – inclusion has a strict criteria. Some journal websites state that the journal is in DOAJ when it is not. Often, the home page carries the DOAJ logo along with logos from other indexing services. ALWAYS check at www.doaj.org that a journal is indexed.
• Publisher’s membership of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association(OASPA). Members of OASPA are expected to adhere to the OASPA Membership Criteria of transparency and best practice.
• Publisher’s membership of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) – membership demonstrates commitment to widely accepted publishing practices.
• Publisher’s membership of the International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers (STM) – membership demonstrates commitment to widely accepted publishing practices.
• Named editor and editorial board – recognised experts in their field who include their editorial commitment on their own research profiles. But be aware that some predatory publishers list editors on their board without their knowledge.
• Look at the editor’s profile on their university website, links to their online profiles (for example, on ResearchGate, Google Scholar or LinkedIn) for evidence that they are actual editors. Further indicators are membership of organisations such as the Council of Science Editors (CSE), European Association of Science Editors (EASE) and World Association of Medical Editors (WAME).

Six videos in the Publishing Tips series are now available via the carousel on the Getting Published page. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to view the videos. The series captures a several researchers from the Faculties of Science and Engineering sharing their tips on getting published.  Some of the topics include ”Targeting a journal and suggestions for submitting” and “Dealing with rejection and responding to peer review”.

Have you recently been approached by Research Features?  Research Outreach? Or Science Animated perhaps?  These are just some of the latest author services which are cold-calling researchers, offering to “craft a message for the world” or “bring your science to life” - often for a substantial fee.  

This is an example of one of the growing list of ‘author services’ that have sprung up to help authors improve their chances of getting published (by proofreading manuscripts or polishing the expression in the text) or help with magnifying impact of a published paper by scaffolding the drafting of a plain language summary

Research Futures and Research Outreach, although purporting to be separate entities, have virtually the same address [next door to each other] and their websites and service catalogues appear to be clones.

That aside, these two do appear to offer bonafide services, however they are expensive.  For example Research Futures will charge between £792 - £1716 to create promotional materials for your research and while you could post to their “Researcher Blog” for free, it is questionable who will see it.

Check to see if these particular services are worth the time (free option) or the money (fee-based options) for your project. 

QUT already offers support to researchers to enhance their profile and disseminate their research, and partners with respected platforms such as The Conversation which offers free editor services and author support, a detailed analytics dashboard, and has a global reach. And as their tagline says, “Academic rigour, journalistic flair.”

QUT Library is currently investigating an artificial intelligence-based tool designed to extract a plain language summary from a research article. 

Particularly focusing on Predatory Publishing - exploitative publishing model.

Concerns

Experts from QUT Library’s Office for Scholarly Communication, the Office for Research Ethics and Integrity, and GRE+D recently delivered a two-part online seminar series which helped break down some of these barriers. Aimed at researchers, HDR students and research staff, the sessions covered hot topics such as authorship, publishing strategies, the submission process, copyright, as well as responding to peer review and promoting one’s research.

The innovative format of the program provided participants with the concepts, tools and resources to navigate the options, traverse the stages, and manage the aspects of the manuscript subscription process, followed by an opportunity to ask questions of the presenters.  

Missed the session? You can find the find the presentation recordings, and resources from the Authorship, Peer Review and Publication sessions here:

• Presentation website (Information module)
• Session recording: Presubmission (YouTube video)
• Session recording: Postsubmission (YouTube video)

The resources can also be accessed from the QUT website anytime from here.

Subject: Selecting journal for publication publish tools find journal ms manuscript match

JANE: https://jane.biosemantics.org/

Springer Journal Suggester: https://journalsuggester.springer.com/

JournalGuide: https://www.journalguide.com/

Web of Science WoS Manuscript Matcher https://mjl.clarivate.com/mjl-beta/home

This presentation by a Canadian Librarian looks at the offers of services by professional writers to create high-quality articles on the academic's  research in accessible language for a general audience. 

Faculty encountering these publishers are understandably wary. There has been extensive concern and discussion in academia about so-called “predatory” publishers for the last decade, so much so that any unfamiliar publishing model is treated as suspect - especially those sending unsolicited emails and asking for publishing fees. However, the entities I have investigated appear to be offering a legitimate service with transparent costs. But what needs the service is fulfilling, and what the motivations of their clients are, is debatable. Is it for knowledge translation or mobilization purposes (increasingly required by funding agencies)? Is it for increasing the reach or impact of a researcher’s work? Or is it driven by vanity or ego?

The library can provide an ISBN (International Standard Book Number) for QUT staff and higher degree research (HDR) students who are independently publishing a monograph or report.

Application Criteria
Applications for an ISBN must meet the following eligibility criteria:

• The work must be solely published by QUT.
• The person requesting the ISBN must be a QUT staff member or HDR student.
• You are encouraged to make the work available as Open Access.
• You are encouraged to make the work available under a Creative Commons Licence.
• The publication must be published via QUT ePrints, QUT Digital Collections or a QUT web page

University academic staff can apply for a Digital Object Identifier (DOI). A DOI is a unique alphanumeric string to identify content and provide a persistent link to its location on the internet.

Application criteria
Applications for a DOI must meet the following eligibility criteria:

• The person requesting the DOI must be a QUT staff member.
• The item-type must be a book, report or conference proceedings.
• The work must have an ePrint ID or Digital Collections ID.
• The work must be open access (or will be after a temporary embargo).
• The work must be made available under a Creative Commons Licence.
• The work must be solely published by QUT or jointly published by QUT and one or more other entities.
• Any co-publisher must agree not to mint an additional DOI for the same work.
• While the work may be disseminated via multiple sources and in multiple formats, the persistent source (where the DOI will point to) must be either QUT ePrints or QUT Digital Collections.

Scholarly Communications Community of Practice

An open forum for HDR students, experts and practitioners to share, ask questions, listen, discuss and investigate challenges, concerns, trends and issues related to areas of academic publishing and scholarly communications.

Learn about trends in publishing, as specific and generic scholarly communication challenges are discussed and resolved by experts at QUT. Upskill in the research activities to support writing, publishing and enhancing your profile and visibility.

Facilitated by the Office for Scholarly Communication (OSC) and Dr Sameera Jayan Senanayake, Early Career Researcher representative of the OSC Advisory Group.

An initiative sponsored by major publishers from across a wide range of research areas, including Springer Nature, Sage Publishing, the Royal Society of Chemistry and the American Society of Civil Engineers is showcasing a collection of plain language summaries (from the KUDOS platform) of articles related to one or more of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals. The Showcase is designed to provide interested parties with a ready-made collection of easy-read research summaries to inform discussion and decision-making. The Sustainable Development Knowledge Showcase can be accessed free at: https://www.growkudos.com/showcase/collections/sdg-knowledge-cooperative