Your research output can be published in different output types depending on the purpose, the result and the audience of your research output.

Many funders require applicants to publish outputs, e.g. a report, journal articles, a book etc. Check the requirements before you choose your output type.

Learn more about how to register different output types in Pure ( the system behind VBN - Aalborg University's Research Portal).

Keep the questions below in mind whenever you are about to choose a journal or publisher:

• Does your research fit the scope of the journal or publisher?
• Does the journal or publisher reach your target audience?
• Does the journal or publisher have a regional, national or international profile?
• Does the journal or publisher have a proper peer review process?
• What type of peer reviewing does the journal or publisher offer (single blind, double blind or open)?
• What is the rejection rate?
• How long is the publication process?

The five directories or lists below can be helpful in locating a relevant journal or publisher:

• The Norwegian register for scientific journals, series and publishers. This list is quality checked and form the basis of the AAU Indicator.
• Ulrichsweb (Global Serials Directory) is a source of more than 300.000 journals or serials, and covers more than 900 subject categories. There is information about peer review, Open Access, language, subject, indexing coverage etc.
• DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) is a 100% independent, non-profit source to Open Access journals that has been through a review process before being added to the directory.
• Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association has a list of members (small and large publishers, as well as scholarly publishers) that publish Open Access and have been through a rigorous application review process.
• ChronosHub Journal Finder filters on research subject, Open Access status, publisher and Scopus indexation.

In order to generate publication points in the AAU Research Indicator your publication channel must be on the Norwegian Register of approved journals and publishers. 

If it is not, you are welcome to sign up and suggest new titles to the register.

Predatory journals and publishers are characterized by:

• Aggressive marketing methods and ways of approaching individual researchers.
• Do not meet the standards of good research practice.
• Are established for the sole purpose of making money without offering the traditional services of academic publishers (e.g. proper peer review).
• Have titles that are deceptively similar to those of existing and highly estimated journals.
• They use praise, quote your earlier work, highlight their peer reviewers, promise speedy review processes, and encourage you to publish your next article in their journal.

Therefore, it can be quite tempting to submit your article to them. However, once you have signed the contract, it may prove very difficult to withdraw your article.

Tools to avoid predatory journals and publishers

• Cabell's Predatory Reports
• Think-Check-Submit for Journals 
• Think-Check-Submit for Books and Chapters
• Think-Check-Attend for Conferences

If you are in doubt whether a journal, a publisher or conference is predatory, please contact the VBN Team: vbn@aub.aau.dk

Your publications strategy should take into account whether you plan to collaborate with others.rs.

• Strategic collaboration can be an advantage and yield more citations.
• International collaboration seems to yield more citations (Schneider, J.W. & Norn, M.T. (2023). The scientific impact of Danish research 1980–2020)
• In some research areas, corporate collaboration can be an advantage.

You should always aim at being read, cited, and published in places that are generally frequented by your fellow researchers. Journals and conference proceedings indexed by Scopus or Web of Science are quality-controlled publication channels where researchers usually search for and read publications. Moreover, publications in these journals and proceedings are in general the only ones included in bibliometric analyses.

• Check whether the journal or publisher is indexed in the major databases:
  • Scopus (citation database)
  • Web of Science (citation database)
  • PubMed (medical database)
  • The Norwegian register for scientific journals, series and publishers 
  • Directory of Open Access Journals

However, you should always think about your intended reader. If they are practitioners, politicians, or a broader audience, you may consider writing a popular science article to communicate your work.

Learn more about how to make your research visible in VBN - Aalborg University's Research Portal

• A DOI is a persistent digital identifier of an object, and makes it possible to keep track of for instance research output. A DOI ensures that it is uniquely identified and reliably accessed.
• A DOI makes it easier to cite your work correctly and therefore also count your citations more accurately.
• Check whether the journal or publisher provide a DOI link to your research output.
  If your publication does not have a DOI link, the VBN Team can help you create one. Contact the us at: vbn@aub.aau.dk

• An ORCID provides a persistent digital identifier of you as a researcher that you own and control. It distinguishes you from other researchers (e.g. with the same name). It ensures that you get recognition for all your research outputs.
• Check whether the journal or publisher use ORCID as identifier

See our guide on how to create or add an ORCID in Pure to connect the two systems.

You can make your publications Open Access in the following ways:

1. Through parallel archiving/self-archiving of an earlier version of a publication in VBN, Aalborg University's repository (Green Open Access).
2. Through publishing via dedicated Open Access publishing channels that match other channels in the particular scientific field in terms of academic excellence. Some charge an Article Processing Charge (Gold Open Access), others do not (Diamond Open Access).
3. Make use of the Danish Open Access agreements where the fee is waived for a number of journals.

Check if there are any requirements on behalf of your funder regarding Open Access.

In order to comply with these requirements, you need to: ​

• Have a publication plan as part of your grant application that caters to both openness as well as quality.​
• Decide whether to apply for funding for APCs (Gold Open Access) or to parallel publish (Green open access)*​
  ​
  * check embargo periods for green open access to make sure that these comply with the rules of the funder. 

Learn more about how to make your publications Open Access.

The prestige of a journal is traditionally measured by its impact factor. Impact factor is commonly used to evaluate the relative importance of a journal within its field and to measure the frequency with which the “average article” in a journal has been cited during a particular time period.

NB: The impact factor has been subject to criticism with regards to its statistical validity and its implications for research practice and publication.

Impact factors can be divided into:

• Non-normalized
  • Citescore is based on Scopus data
  • Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is based on Web of Science data
• Normalized
  
  • Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) is based on Scopus data

Normalized Impact Factors account for field-specific differences in citation practices. It does so by comparing each journal's citations per publication with the citation potential of its field, defined as the set of publications citing that journal.

How to find journal impact factors:

• CiteScore, Scimago Journal Rank (SJR) and Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP)
  1. Go to Scopus
  2. Go to Sources in the upper right corner
  3. Search for the journal
• Journal Impact Factor (JIF)
  1. Go to Web of Science Core Collection
  2. Go to Products in the upper right corner
  3. Go to Journal Citation Reports
  4. Search for the journal

Be aware of copyright: Do you retain the rights to your work or transfer them to the publisher?

Aalborg University recommends that researchers at AAU should maintain, at minimum, the right to parallel archiving of research publications in VBN, provided they transfer their publishing rights to the publisher. 

How can your work be shared? Use a Creative Commons-license to describe what others (and you) can do with it.

Learn more about copyright.

Questions about copyright? Contact the Copyright Team copyright@aub.aau.dk 

Once your research has been published, you can promote and share the publication in order to maximize the impact.

• It is a good idea to draw up a plan early on for promoting and sharing your research
• Consider which digital platforms you plan to use to promote your research (Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook etc.) - use the DOI link 
• Share your publication as Open Access (archiving articles in Pure). Learn more about Open Access.
• Share your research data and make it as open as possible and as closed as necessary Learn more about research data
• Have a by-line in your emails that tells people about your latest publication
• Write and blog prior to publication (Notice: You should always check your publisher’s policy on this matter in advance!)
• Keep your VBN profile up to date

TOOLS:
How Can I Share It?