Tips for getting research works published and a behind the scenes look at a successful Open Journal System journal IRRODL

1. Publication in International Journals:
Tips, traps and a look at IRRODL
Professor Emeritus Terry Anderson
May 26, 2017

2. • A Scholar’s Guide to
Getting Published in
English: Critical Choices
and Practical Strategies
• Not just how to write
academic English

3. PUBLISHING IS A SOCIAL PROCESS
• Involves the way we think, work and talk and
to who we talk to.
• Expectations are dependent on social context
• Practices are related to institutions and
structures related to power and ideologies
• Social practices are ever changing
From A Scholar’s Guide to
Getting Published in English: Critical Choices and Practical Strategies

4. Try to become a reviewer of Papers for
Journals in your Discipline
• Meet deadlines
• Don’t just check off rating boxes – add
comments and suggestions
• Good journals return (anonymously) your
review PLUS reviews from other reviewers
PLUS editor’s decision.

5. Predatory Publishers
• Cabells Journal
Blacklist
– recorded its
10,000th entry.
– challenge in
estimating how
large the problem
of predatory
publishing is, but
however large it is,
there are ways to
circumvent it.

6. How to identify a Predatory Journal -
From Cabells
• B – Behavioral Indicators: What is the track record of the journal you want to publish in?
Look at its history and appearance online. Read the articles.
• L – Look, But Don’t Touch: Use investigative skills to ‘research your research’ before
making any submission decisions.
• A – Actively Monitor: Ensure any information used in a decision to publish is up-to-date.
• C – Community Effort: Journals on the Blacklist, Whitelist or official ranking have used
their communities to validate their entries – trust in your communities to help you choose
a journal.
• K – Kickass Metrics: Use citation-based information, such as the Impact Factor, alongside
other metrics, such as altmetrics, usage and readership to ensure evidence-based decision-
making with a blended approach.
• I – Independent: Make sure your investigation of journals is based on independent,
verified sources of information.

7. Who are your writing for?
• Academics or practitioners?

8. Citing Other works
• Check Google Scholar to see the number of
previous citations to others’ work
• Make sure that at least 1/3 of your citations
are recent (<3 years old)
• Some editors in attempts to increase impact
factor REALLY like articles that cite works
published in their journal. Is this ethical??
• It is OK to cite your own works, but don’t over
do it!

9. Promoting your work
• Post works on an intuitional or repository
public web site – they will be indexed by
Google Scholar eventually
• Can lead to citations and name awareness in
the rest of the world.

10. What does “international”
in the name of a journal mean?
• It has a high number of international editors
and authors
• It has hopes of being read globally
• It is published in English
• It has a high ‘impact factor’???
• It is a ‘scam journal’ trying to get money from
desperate scholars!

11. Why do we care so much about
Thompson Reuters WOS, SSCI
• Owned by a commercial company
• Prejudiced against open access Journals
• Does not index emerging journals, conference
proceedings, articles “in press”
• Has too much power over academic interest
• Is not demonstrably better than Google
Scholar
• Only cites articles in other SSCI Journals

12. The Great debate about
Impact Factors
Curk Bonk (USA) lists
Lists 12 pros and 27 cons of the special weight
placed on SSCI in East Asia;
http://travelinedman.blogspot.ca/2013/12/whats-all-fuss-about-ssci-pros-and-cons.html

13. What’s Wrong with Scopius?

14. One author’s publications
https://coastalpathogens.wordpress.com/2014/01/08/
citation-counts-google-scholar-vs-web-of-science/

15. Check for rating tools besides SSCI
http://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php?category=3304&openaccess=true

16. Check Rating of Citations using
Harzing’s Publish or Perish – based on
Google Scholar
https://harzing.com/blog/2017/11/publish-or-perish-version-6

17. What is the Right Journal?
• Read carefully the statements about the focus of
the Journal
– Regional or international?
– Theory or practice?
– Focus on particular methodology?
– Descriptions of editor(s) and editorial board members
• Skim read last few issues of the journal. Is your
article similar to these articles but offers
something different. Determine what type of
work most interests this journal.

18. What is the Right Journal?
• Thomson Social Science Citation Impact (SSCI) factor
– 221 Education Journals
– 2 distance education journals (DE and IRRODL)
– 1 open access DE journal - IRRODL
• Check Publish or Perish (using Google Scholar) impact
factor – not just for SSCI journals
• Frequency of publication and number of articles
• Rejection Rate??
• Time from submission to publication
• Readership within your target audience
• Open Access?

19. Fit for Purpose: Using a Distance Education Approach to Support
Underperforming Schools in South Africa Veronica Irene McKay
PDF Restricted Access
Perceptions of Namibian College of Open Learning learners' self-regulated skills

20. Open Access
• Attracts more readers in developing countries
• Can lead to higher citation rates
• Can be expensive (around $2,000) – can be free
• “Open Access papers were between 26% and
64% more cited on average for any given years
than all papers combined, whereas non-OA
received between 17% and 33% fewer citations.”
– Archambault, É., Amyot, D., Deschamps, P., Nicol, A., Provencher, F., Rebout, L.,
& Roberge, G. (2014). Proportion of open access papers published in peer-
reviewed journals at the European and world levels—1996–2013.

21. Classifying Open Access

22. Technical Components of
a Good Article
• Essential pieces:
• Good English
• Appropriate audience
• Great abstract
• Sound theoretical base (I like concept maps)
• LIMITED literature review - up to date and tells a story
• Clear methodology
• Clear and concise results- usually with tables/diagrams
• Meaningful results
• Less than 7,000 words
• CLOSELY follows journals formatting rules (likely APA)

23. Components of a Good Article (cont.)
• Essential pieces:
• Not published elsewhere
• Some Journals allow articles expanded from conference
proceedings
• Implications for practice
• Implications for further research

24. Abstract
1 Context
2 Questions/problem
3 Methods
4 Results
5 Interpretations
6 Application/implications
– See Noah Grey http://www.huffingtonpost.com/noah-gray/abstract-
science_b_1923214.html
One -Two
Sentences
Each!!!!

25. Format
• Appropriate referencing (use a reference
manager)
• Read directions for authors 3 times
before pressing submit button!!!
• Have draft proof read by at least one
friend/peer

26. Finding Good English Academic Phrases
http://www.phrasebank.manchester.ac.uk/

27. Can I publish a Literature Review?
• IF it is a systematic literature review of an important
issue and shows evidence that you have
methodologically searched for, read and reviewed ALL
relevant literature. No general overviews.
• IF it contains original empirical data
• You are an undiscovered genius or a well established
name in the field and have theoretical insights that are
new, unique and important.

28. Persistence
• A “revisions required” or “re-submit for review” is NOT
a rejection!!
• You do not need to follow every one of the reviewers’
recommendations, but you do need to explain why you
are not following each one.
• resubmit:
– Thank the editor for reviewers’ comments
– A summary of the reviewers’ comments and how they
were addressed (best in table format with page number of
revisions)
– Copy with tracked changes
– Clean copy

29. • If possible, do a plagiarism check on TURNITIN
or other detector
– Likely the managing editor will!!
• NEVER submit the article for review to two
journals at the same time

30. Gaming the system-
Advice from Jay Lemke
• “Mention in your review of the literature at
least two members of the journal’s editorial
board.
• Submit your manuscript to a journal which has
recently published similar work
• Work and cite at least two things recently
published in that journal, preferably by
people you know or who are likely to approve
of the approach used in your research.

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journals.
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3. We can accept and publish your papers in international conferences.
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SCI Group
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Now we have some options to you:
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32. Join One of the major research social
networks
• Through exploration, referral, awareness from
academic social networks:
• Strongly recommended to join one
• ResearchGate or Academia.edu adds
– Likes,
– followers,
– pushes notes on similar articles added
– and other social media features
• Some evidence that papers added to these social networks
increase citations
● Adds followers
● Adds tagging
● Pushes out notifications of ‘similar articles’
● Pushes citations or mentions to authors
● Some alt-metrics

33. My Academia.edu News Feed

34. Which of my papers are most read?
Academia.edu

36. A look at one Open Access SSCI Journal
IRRODL.ORG
• Most widely read and most cited Distance
Education Journal in the world
• Translations for all articles (Google Translate)

37. Published using Open Journal System
Open source system from Canada!

38. Behind the Scenes of an Open Journal
System (OJS) Journal
Manages:
• Submissions
• Reviewing
• Copy Editing
• Publication
• Distribution

39. IRRODL Readership

40. Behind the Scenes – Editors view of a
paper in review

41. Why it is getting harder to publish in IRRODL
(and other SSCI open access journals)

42. Register to be a reviewer
Name 1
Name 2
Name 3
Name 4

43. Reviewers’ Criteria for Recommendation

44. terrya@athabascau.ca
Blog: virtualcanuck.ca
Your comments and questions
most welcomed!
Terry Anderson, Ph.D.
Editor Emeritus
International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning
Professor, Athabasca University
Athabasca University

45. Reviewer’s form Cont.

46. Questions for Discussion
• Why is Thomson Reuters SSCI so important?
• What is wrong with Scopius? – larger - 28,000
journals.
• Do you have additional suggestions or
personal experiences that will be of use to all
of us?