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Information Regarding Peer Reviewed Open Access Journals

By Stephen Bennett


Academic journals are published periodically containing review articles, original research, and book reviews. Their purpose is to have somewhere that researchers can impart what they know to others, contribute on the improvement of natural knowledge and in perfecting every Sciences and Philosophical Arts. Articles are refereed usually or peer reviewed in preventing the publication of those with fraudulent data.

These articles are done by researchers with funding from universities, institutions and government agencies and donate them to journal publications. These are then sold to universities, institutions and government agencies, even the same ones who funded the research usually through subscription. This is why peer reviewed open access journals are getting popular because it virtually costs nothing to read them.

Researchers using this method receive their funds similarly but anyone could read their works without subscription fee as long as they have internet connection. Permission and legal barriers are removed also like copyright and licensing restrictions. Article authors though pay for their articles sometimes to get it published using the funds donated to them.

Several varieties of OA journals are there such as full where every content can be accessed freely. Hybrid ones have only some contents openly accessible and delayed where access is granted after twelve or twenty four months. These works could either be solicited, where individuals were asked to submit their work or unsolicited where they just submit it without being asked to.

Traditional publications and this method are peer reviewed which means people having similar competence that the author has, will evaluate it. Publishers select them anonymously and anonymously review the works in avoiding to get influenced. The method is done to improve performance, maintain quality standards and provide credibility.

They help in deciding if the work gets accepted, rejected, or acceptable even but with revisions that has to be done. Group of experts about a specific field having qualifications and ability in being reasonably impartial in reviewing is needed. Accomplishing impartiality is difficult specially in fields having less narrow definition or inter disciplinary ones.

This makes it harder to appreciate the significance, good or bad, of an idea widely within their contemporaries. But refereeing is considered important for academic quality though preventing every invalid research to get published is impossible. Some can give their comments openly right now although it was traditionally done anonymously which allows everyone to read them and who wrote them.

Identifying if that journals was refereed or not can be done in numerous ways with one being limiting your search criteria when using databases. This option is offered readily by some search screens while others require you to click the advance or expert option. Although some databases have no option for limiting their search criteria like this.

You could also examine the published journal physically or online by looking at the masthead at its cover where all information about them which includes if they were refereed. Another way is by looking at the ways its written and includes references using footnotes and bibliography. And finding their official would help in determining this but sometimes it is inaccurate still.




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