Atlantic Provinces Library Association 2021 Conference

Academic researchers are painfully aware of the impetus to “publish or perish,” but knowing how and where to publish may be more elusive. Impact Factors, citation counts, knowledge translation, open access, funder requirements, job applications, tenure and promotion deadlines – determining the best outlet for research in order to maximize impact involves a host of considerations.
Early career researchers or those researching in niche areas may not have obvious outlets accessible to them and may be uncertain how to share their outputs to best advantage. Researchers, and the librarians who support them, need a to maintain a high level of scholarly publishing literacy in order to identify and assess options. This is decidedly true in the age of open access publishing; while “predatory publishers” of the misspelled spam emails are generally easy to spot and avoid, established journals with poor, deceptive, or inconsistent peer-review and quality control practices can be far more challenging to spot. While supporting open access is important, researchers and librarians alike much be sophisticated in avoiding the pitfalls the open access model has inadvertently created. Checklists sometimes are simply not enough.
This session will consider how to guide researchers to make informed decisions about where and how they choose to share their work. This includes considering the purposes and ultimate audiences for research outputs, choosing an appropriate journal, navigating issues surrounding open access, understanding how to evaluate a potential journal’s legitimacy and quality, and upholding the integrity of the scholarly record.