Open-access new journals

[adel9216]

Hello, as a young graduate student, what are the pros and cons of publishing in an free, open-access and new academic journal? I found this journal, the themes are exactly what I have been working on in my master's thesis. But I am wondering about how "legit" it is, your opinion? :
https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/dignity/policies.html

[Parasaurolophus]

The first and most important question is, is it respectable? And if it's new, it's probably hard to tell where it falls. The best person to ask is your supervisor.

I don't know anything about social work, but generally speaking I'd caution young grad students against doing this, especially before they get a feel for publishing in established venues. Publishing in a new journal is a gamble: it's usually easier to get stuff in, but the journal's prestige is also low. So you're hoping that its prestige will increase enough in the coming years that your pub will look pretty good. But while that pub is waiting for its prestige boost, it's not doing a ton of work on your CV. That's fine when you have plenty of other pubs, but not so great when all your eggs are in one or two baskets. To my mind, it's usually better to use your time as a new grad student to shoot pretty high, and work your way down.

Some things to consider when it comes to publishing in new journals:

• Who is on the editorial board? Do you recognize lots of the names? Are they well-respected?
• How does the review process compare to other journals in your field? (You don't want it to be wildly different.)
• Who's published in the journal already? (You're looking for recognizable names, rather than a preponderance of nobodies like yourself.)
• Whose journal is it? If it's an outlet for a major scholarly association, that's a good thing, and you can expect that it'll pick up some prestige as it goes along. Such journals often end up being among the top in their field. If it's a top PhD-granting department, that's a good sign, although not as sure a bet as the major scholarly association. If it's someone else, then it starts to get pretty variable.

[Hibush]

With spam factories generating new predatory journals on a daily basis the worthless, exploitative offerings among new open-access journals is boundless.

The one you linked is not one of those. It looks very much like an in-house effort, though.

The critical question is who will read, and consider important, what you publish. With the journal you have linked, you can count on the editorial board being aware of your article. Likewise many of the members of the department at URI. If that is your readership target, then it seems fine.

More likely, you have a broader target.

Check with some people whom you think should read and respect your article. Ask them where they would like to see it appear for them to find it and take it seriously.

[polly_mer]

The one you linked is not one of those. It looks very much like an in-house effort, though.

This.  The editorial board (https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/dignity/editorialboard.html) seems like it has a fair portion of activists, based on affiliation, and is not primarily an academic journal.

The question I have is then: are you looking for visibility in the activist community or were you looking for academic credit for your publication?  Again, your more senior colleagues will know more how to help you position yourself based on what you want your career to look like.  Social work is interesting because some people do find great success through the activist route and some people are more academic to be professors.  However, people don't advance their careers very well by focusing hard on the activities for one path while trying to climb the professional ladder of the other path.

[Hegemony]

Yes, if you are looking for a scholarly publication, you should go with an established journal.  An article is a lot of work — you want to get maximum mileage from all that work by publishing it in an established venue with an assured reputation.  When you only have one or two publications on your CV, you want those publications to be in easily recognized journals and to do the maximum work in establishing your scholarly credentials.  Even if this publication is right in your field, there will be a number of other journals that publish your kind of work, whatever it is.  Save the lesser-known journals for when you have a long track record (if then).

[secundem_artem]

In my allied health fields, open access journals are fairly common.  Several are published by Sage or Taylor and Francis or Springer and similar traditional publishers.  Many of the most prestigious medical journals (BMJ, JAMA, and Lancet come to mind) now publish a "BMJ Open" or similarly title journal as well as their in print version.  Personally, I have found the peer review process pretty similar to hard copy journals. It's probably field dependant - a friend in business says in his college, they would not be counted for tenure at all.  Page charges can be steep - decent open access journals in my field cost ~$2000.  The garbage pay to play ones are more likely to charge $50.

[Phydeaux]

I'm invested in this topic because I'm editor-in-chief of an open access journal devoted to a niche topic. I have an international editorial board and double-blind peer review. The software runs on the same platform that powers our institutional repository, so my overhead costs are covered and I don't have to charge author fees. We're low-volume now (only a couple of articles a year), but I hope it will pick up soon.

I suspect journals like mine are in a bit of a catch-22: people don't want to publish in them until they're well established, but they can't get well established if people don't publish in them. For my most recent article, I sought out an OA journal on philosophical grounds; if I want people to submit to mine, I need to submit to theirs. I'm pre-tenure, but the journal is solid and publishing there will help my case, not hurt it.

[adel9216]

Thanks everyone for your input, very much appreciated!!!