Academic Publishing and Research Management
Citation Managers
Publishing Models
Digital subscriptions have changed the ways peer-reviewed research is published. Instead of charging libraries subscription fees, publishers are embracing other funding models that make research free to read, easier to reproduce, and more accessible.
| Open Access |
Content is freely available online with few copyright restrictions. Instead of readers paying subscription fees, authors pay one-time article processing fees. In many cases, the fees may be covered by the author's funder or institution. Like all journals, open access journals can vary in quality and prestige. Reputable open access journals undergo rigorous peer review, are indexed, and have impact factors. |
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Traditional Publishing |
Longstanding and prestigious academic journals maintain a subscription-based model, although they now offer both print and electronic versions. They have rigorous peer-review, are indexed, and have impact factors. |
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Hybrid Model |
Some major journals have created a hybrid model where authors can choose to pay more to make their articles open. These articles appear free online while the rest of the journal is limited to subscribers. |
Publishing Contracts and Authors Rights
The standard publication agreement transfers most or all copyrights to the publisher. After the author signs a publishing contract, the publisher makes all of the decisions about distribution, access, pricing, updates, and use restrictions. Publishers may control when and how authors use their own work.
Most faculty want to retain the rights to use and develop their own work without restriction for teaching, for future research or publications, or to archive the work. Authors can retain these rights by either negotiating a new contract with the publisher or adding an author addendum, with the aid of these helpful sites:
- The SHERPA/RoMEO Publisher Policies website contains standard publishing contracts for most journals.
- The ASU Libraries Negotiating Guide gives detailed advice on how to negotiate prior to signing any paperwork.
- Keep Your Copyrights analyzes common contract clauses, explains them in plain English, and rates them on a scale of “creator-friendly” to “incredibly overreaching.” They also provide before-and-after examples of sample contract language.
- The Scholar’s Copyright Addendum Engine and SPARC generate addendum templates that authors can attach to a signed contract that stipulates which rights the author will retain.
Predatory Publishers
Predatory publishing is an exploitive business model where authors are charged processing fees without receiving the editorial or publishing services associated with legitimate journals. These journals fail to follow accepted standards or best practices of scholarly publishing, make false claims, or do not deliver on agreements.
Legitimate open access journals may still charge a one-time author fee to cover production costs, but the work will be made permanently free for readers. These open access publishers should be transparent about business practices, have subject experts on editorial and peer-review boards, and offer copyediting and proofreading services. Before becoming involved with an unfamiliar journal, authors should check with colleagues to ensure the journal's quality and standing. The Library can also assist in evaluating publishers.
Managing Academic Profiles
With so many online platforms for research sharing, collaboration, and networking, authors may find they have presence in unexpected places. Authors can manage their online presence by using researcher identifier systems and building academic profiles. An academic profile is a way to demonstrate your authority and area of expertise, identify your research interests, and find potential collaborators. Creating and managing profiles gives you control over the information available about you and ensures that other researchers are finding correct and complete information.
There are several researcher platforms available with slightly different purposes:
- Researcher communities such as Academia.edu and ResearchGate
- Reference management tools with social functions like Mendeley
- Search engines with author profiles and citation tracking like Google Scholar, Scopus, and ResearcherID
Researchers should also register for both commercial and non-profit research identifiers. A researcher identifier is a permanent, unique identifiers attached to online publications and citations that address common issues in author ambiguity, like an author that uses multiple forms of their name (e.g., with/without middle initials), common names, name changes (e.g., marriage), or cultural differences in naming. The most popular researcher identifiers are:
- ORCID (free to create and integrates with commercial and government funding organizations, publishers, universities, and other identifier systems)
- ResearcherID (free to create, integrates with ORCID, Web of Science, and EndNote. Users can search and view author profiles and track citation metrics)
- Google Scholar (free to create, allows users to collect articles and citations into a single profile and links to open access publications)
- Scopus Author Identifier (created by Scopus for authors indexed in Scopus, integrates with ORCID)
