UNIST LIBRARY

Academic journals are magazines that publish papers professionally written by researchers on each field of their own, and they are also recognized for their achievements by publishing and sharing their research achievements. A sound academic journal is an academic journal that reviews according to procedures and methods that can be recognized by the relevant academic community. Poor journals are journals that exploit these researchers’ pure academic interest or expectations of merit recognition to confuse authors with false peer review processes, fake impact factors, unreliable editors, and similar false journal names. Therefore, please be careful of the academic journals with the following characteristics so that researchers can conduct sound academic activities.

• Are not linked to or run by a credible scholarly, academic or technical society or association, though some pretend to be.
• Do not receive public (e.g. government) funds or grants.
• Send spam e-mails.
• Brag about the high quality of the journal, which can include false claims about journal metrics and where it is indexed.
• Features an editor-in-chief who also edits numerous other journals, from a variety of different disciplines.
• Make false claims about where the journal is indexed (e.g. PUBMED).
• Promise fast publication.
• Promise an easy peer-review and process.
• Have titles very close to those of highly respected legitimate journals, with only subtle modifications.
• May include the words, “International”, “World”, “Global” or “Universal” in the title.
• Claim to be based in major cities (e.g. London or New York), when they are really published somewhere else.
• Make it difficult to find out who manages the journal.

• Are you aware of the society or the association organizing this conference?
• Can you easily identify the venue of the conference?
• Is it clear what fees will be charged (conference fee, registration fees, etc.) and would these be waived if you are accepted as a speaker?
• Are any of the sponsors involved in the conference? Are you aware of any of them?
• Did you check the conference website? Is all the information (such as the attendance fees, submission date, conference date, editorial committee, program details, venue) presented in a proper way?
• Is there a clear information about the timeline and the agenda for the conference?
• Have you read any papers from this conference proceedings before?
• Is the Editorial Committee listed on the website? Have you heard of the Editorial Committee members before?
• Do the scope and objectives of the conference fit your field and core interest or not?
• Is the Committee clear about the editorial control over presentations and the type of peer-review it uses?

• Organizers & Sponsors
  • Are you aware of the society or the association organizing this conference?
  • Can you easily identify the venue of the conference?
  • Is it the first time that this conference is being held?
  • Have you or your colleagues attended this conference before?
  • Is it clear what fees will be charged (conference fee, registration fees, …, etc.) and would these be waived if you are accepted as a speaker?
  • Are any of the sponsors involved in the conference?
  • Are you aware of any of them, especially with industry-related fields such as Engineering & Biomedical research?
  • Did you check the conference website? Is all the information (such as the attendance fees, submission date, conference date, editorial committee, program details and venue) presented in a proper way?
  • Have you read any papers from this conference proceedings before?
• Agenda & Editorial Committee
  • Is there a clear information about the timeline and the agenda for the conference?
  • Do the scope and objectives of the conference fit your field and core interest or not?
  • Have you heard of the Keynote speakers?
  • Is the Editorial Committee listed on the website?
  • Have you heard of the Editorial Committee members before?
  • Is the Committee clear about the editorial control over presentations and the type of peer-review it uses?
• Conference Proceedings
  • Is the Organizing Committee clear about where the proceedings will be published?
  • Does the conference make it clear which indexing services it can guarantee the published proceedings and to which indexers will it submit the proceedings for evaluation?
  • Is the publisher of the proceedings a member of a recognized industry initiative such as COPE, DOAJ, OASPA?

※ For details please visit thinkcheckattend page (LINK)

• Do you or your colleagues know the journal?
• Have you read any articles in the journal before?
• Is it easy to discover the latest papers in the journal?
• Can you easily identify and contact the publisher?
• Is the publisher name clearly displayed on the journal website?
• Can you contact the publisher by telephone, email, and post?
• Is the journal clear about the type of peer review it uses?
• Are articles indexed in services that you use?
• Is it clear what fees will be charged?
• Does the journal site explain what these fees are for and when they will be charged?
• Do you recognize the editorial board?
• Have you heard of the editorial board members?
• Do the editorial board mention the journal on their own websites?
• Is the publisher a member of a recognized industry initiative?
• Do they belong to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) ?
• If the journal is open access, is it listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) ?
• If the journal is open access, does the publisher belong to the Open Access Scholarly Publishers’ Association (OASPA) ?
• Is the journal hosted on one of INASP’s Journals Online platforms (for journals published in Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Central America and Mongolia) or on African Journals Online (AJOL, for African journals)?
• Is the publisher a member of another trade association?

※ For details please visit thinkchecksubmit page (LINK)