Publishing
- Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA)
- Finding a journal in which to publish
- Selection
- Instructions to Authors
- Training
Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA)
Before identifying where to publish you should refer to the Australian Research Council ERA 2012 page which includes the ERA 2012 Journal list. This list is unranked, unlike the 2010 Journal and Conference lists. Alternatively you can check UniSA's Excellence in Research for Australia pages.
You can still view the ARC's 2010 Ranked Outlets lists (opens in new window). Or consult the UniSA's Publication Plus - Journal and Conference Finder (staff access only) (opens in new window).
Finding a journal in which to publish
Terms used to describe quality are often used interchangeably, for example refereed, scholarly, peer reviewed, academic. The term peer reviewed will be used on this website to imply all these terms.
What is a peer reviewed journal?
There are different levels of peer review. For example some journals use editorial peer review (editorial board), peer review by experts in the field, or blind peer review by experts in the field.
One definition of peer review is
A scholarly or research publication in which the articles submitted for publication are evaluated by a group of individuals who are expert in the subject area. (Keenan, S & Johnston, C 2002, 2nd edn, Concise dictionary of library and information science, Bowker Saur, London)
How do you find peer reviewed journals in your area of research?
Ulrichsweb Global Serials Directory
- Enter title, keyword or subject, e.g. civil engineering
To see if the journal is peer reviewed, either:
- check the results list to see if a symbol appears to indicate peer reviewed status OR
- select the journal title to see if Refereed: Yes appears in the Basic Description
- select any relevant databases e.g. Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition
- enter terms, e.g. nursing leadership
- limit by checking box for peer reviewed
- select search
- select articles of interest and note journal title
Journal Citation Reports is a unique database that provides impact factors for journals which can also be used as an indication of quality.
- select a JCR edition and year. For example: JCR Social Sciences Edition and 2010 (note: You can not search both editions at the same time. The default is the Science Edition and the latest year)
- select search for a specific journal and submit
- type in Journal name and select search
OR
- select View a group of journals by Subject Category and submit
- select one or more categories and submit
- view the journals (note: you can sort by impact factor)
Look for a specific title ISI Master Journal List (opens in new window) or conduct a search using Web of Science as all journals indexed by ISI are peer reviewed (see The Thomson Scientific Journal Selection Process) (opens in new window)
The Journal Analyzer feature in Scopus allows a comparison of the performance of selected journals. The journals can be compared by looking at a range of parameters including total number of citations (Citations), articles published (Docs) and Percent Not Cited. Up to 10 journals can be selected, from 1996 onwards, and the data is updated every 2 months.
Other metrics used by Scopus include: SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) and Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP). For more information see snip and sjr - new perspectives in journal metrics (opens in new window).
Using the Journal Analyzer tool in Scopus
- Select Analytics
- Enter the name of a journal in the search box, e.g. Research in higher education
Note: You can specify what you want to search (from the drop down menu: journal title, ISSN, publisher)
- Specify the journal subject area to restrict your search (optional)
- Select Search to retrieve a list of journal titles
- Select the title of the journal you want to analyse
- Double click on the title or drag the title across to the right hand side of the screen
- Add more titles if you want to compare journals. You can add up to 10 journals
Results
The Citations chart shows the number of times documents from the journals were cited in other documents during a specific year
The Documents chart shows the number of documents published in the journals during a specific year
The Percent Not Cited is the percentage of articles published in that year that have never been cited to date
The Percent Reviews is the percentage of articles published in that year that are review articles
- Select Table to look at this information in a table format
- The titles of the journals which appear in the chart are listed in the key below the chart
- Select Show Info to display the journal publication information
- Select Hide info to collapse journal publication information
- Select X to remove a journal from the chart
For further information about publishing and peer reviewed journals see the University of South Australia's Research Publications Collection or the Australian Commonwealth Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research Higher Education Research Data Collection (opens in new window)
Selection
Once you have identified a list of potential journals, you should check the aims and scope of each to determine whether your work is appropriate for that journal.
- Does the journal focus on applied or theoretical research?
- Does your article match the scope of the journal?
Instructions to Authors
Instructions to authors (also called advice to authors or authors' guide) are the fine details of what is and is not acceptable to a particular publisher. You can find instructions to authors in the printed format of most journals or you can find them on the journal home page on the internet. You can find the journal home page by
- using a search engine e.g. if using Google (opens in new window) enter: journal of the electrochemical society "instructions to authors"
Training
The Academic Library Services teams provide a suite of on campus and online workshops for UniSA staff and postgraduate students to assist in the development and updating of information skills necessary to undertake research.
An online workshop called Where could I publish? is available.A list of the workshops, booking information and availability of sessions at each campus is provided at Strategies for Successful Research: finding and managing information.
