Open publishing (open access) refers to the free distribution of scientific information. The scientific publication will be available openly when anybody can read it on the Internet free and freely.
The article that has been published in a scientific journal
Open access journals collect payments from the authors, not from the subscribers and not from the readers. This new way of earning has given birth to predatory journals and publishers. Merely collecting payments from the authors does not make the journal suspicious; however, predatory journals practice deception also in the composition of the editorial staff and peer reviews.
When evaluating an article, attention should be paid to the identity of the writer and to the journal. One should also evaluate the objectivity of the text and the amount and quality of references used.
More information on evaluating articles
| Received citations |
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In addition, one could evaluate an article based on the amount of citations it has received. Citing articles can be found in databases Ebsco and ProQuest as well as Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholar. |
| Evaluating journals |
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The amount of citations the journal's articles have had acts as the measure of the popularity and influence of the journal. All indicators of impact are calculated by dividing the amount of times the articles have been cited from a certain journal by the amount of articles published in the journal. The most prevalent ranking system is Journal Impact factor (IF) which is based on Web of Science data. |
| Publication Forum (Julkaisufoorumi, Jufo) |
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The Finnish Publication Forum is based on quality classification of scientific publications. The rating takes place in field specific expert panels. The rating of domestic and international scientific peer-reviewed journals has three levels: 1 = basic; 2 = leading; 3 = highest level. The purpose of the Publication Forum is not to list all existing publications, but only those academic channels that are relevant to the Finnish scientific community. Level 0 includes publications of varying quality, from professional journals and suspicious open access journals to university publication series. |
Books can be evaluated by author background information and the level of prestigiousness of the publisher. Generally books published by university presses are considered more prestigious than those published by commercial presses. Other ways of evaluating books are through book reviews.
The Finnish Publication Forum is based on quality classification of scientific publications. The rating takes place in field specific expert panels. The rating of the domestic and international scientific publications has three levels: 1 = basic; 2 = leading; 3 = highest level. The classification of the book publisher is used to rate books in cases where the publication does not come out in a series of publication,s e.g. Kalevalaseuran vuosikirja, Puheen ja kielen tutkimuksen yhdistyksen julkaisuja, Discourse approaches to politics, society and culture, or such series has not been classified.
Book reviews give insight into what other scientists think of the book. They may be brief summaries or long scholarly evaluations and are often published in journals of the same field as the book being reviewed. In databases book reviews can be searched by the book title and refining the search with Book Review or Review as the document type.
