There are a number of reputable resources that can help you identify open access publications within your field. As a rule of thumb, these publications are vetted by the resources, however you should always check multiple sources and use the recommendations and tools found on the "Evaluating OA Journals" Tab and "Predatory Journals" tab to make the best choice. If you have questions, you can reach out to Jill Krefft to talk through finding an OA journal.
Whether you have received a solicitation for an article from a journal or found an Open Access Journal you are interested in publishing here are some questions to ask yourself:
Use this tool to identify trusted publishers for your research. thinkchecksubmit.org
Predatory journals take advantage of authors by asking them to publish for a fee without providing peer-review or editing services.
Predatory journals and predatory publishers are not new and not exclusive to open access.
There are resources available that can help you identify reputable OA journals and publishers.
In many cases, researchers know which journals they want to publish in already because they are well established in their respective fields. In these cases, you can review what OA options are available from the publisher for that journal.
Checking the journals homepage is a great way to start to understand what options are available to publish Open Access.
Use this tool to search for journals or publisher policies and includes links to the publisher's policies. You can review the policies by version (published, accepted, submitted etc).
Green Open Access is the term used for sharing a pre-publication version of your journal article in an online repository. The repository can be discipline specific such as arXiv.org (physics) or it can be interdisciplinary like Open Science Framework (OSF). Using a tool like the Open Policy Finder can help you understand where you can share your article and which version you can share.
Here are some resources to find an open access repository for your research:
