A Brief Publishing Primer

Mike Nason
Open Scholarship & Publishing Librarian
UNB Libraries

For the September Booster Session, 2025

Introductions

It's me, Mike! Hello! I hope you're well, despite [gestures broadly] the roiling and profound horrors.

I'm your Open Scholarship & Publishing Librarian.  

Introductions

My job is about helping you make the results of your research as accessible to the public (or, relevant research communities) as you need them to be, whether that's due to funding mandates, personal interest, or a sort of proactive capitulation.

I am here to help you. It's, like, specifically built into the CBA (16c.02). It is what librarians are for.

research data management
tri-agency oa requirements
open access publishing
scholar profiles
repositories
digital publishing
open educational resources
open infrastructure
persistent identifiers
scholarly publishing
scholarly communications
academic integrity
bad-faith publishers

for the next ~some-ish minutes, I'm going to take a swing at introducing you to the world of scholarly publishing in a way that is, I hope, useful. The hope is that we'll emerge better equipped to understand what may become a big part of your career.

student empowerment corner

An awful lot of things in academia will be presented to you as prescriptive, rigid, and/or immutable. This is especially true for topics related to publishing. But, the field has really changed a lot over the last two decades. You have supervisors or advisors for whom the landscape has shifted tremendously.

Deep Breaths

What I want you to understand more than anything that very few things in academia are set in stone. Contrary to the specific, bad-faith mania drummed up by right wing pundits and ghouls, academia is generally a conservative place that is slow to change, but if you ask your instructors and/or advisors they will tell you that things are very different than they were even a decade ago.

broadly, researchers learn about publishing from their advisors while they're starting out with the process themselves.

researchers often learn about publishing by doing it.

You can do a whole masters degree without anyone ever talking to you about how publishing works.  

This isn't, like, bad. Not necessarily. But it does mean you're learning about publishing from one or two specific people who learned from a few specific people themselves and so on and so on. 

This is a kind of folk wisdom. 

It's also a little like how you inherit emotional baggage from your parents. 

Deep Breaths

You have [more] agency [than a lot of folks in academia might let on].

You have [more] agency [than a lot of folks in academia might let on].

Until you decide otherwise, your work is your work. What you do with it is your business.

Scholarly Communications

A mouthful of a phrase that essentially means “the process by which researchers share/publish the products of research”. You're the scholars! That's you!

That's a whole lot of material generated by researchers, hey?

Wouldn't it be a shame if no one saw any of it? ¯\_(°⊱,°)_/¯

The whole point of scholarship is for, at least, some people to see your work and for your work to make some kind of difference. right? yes?

the whole point of scholarship is for, ideally, some as many people as possible to see your work and for your work to make some kind of difference.

Publishing and sharing research is a hugely important part of an academic career.

When you think about it, it's kind of wild that we don't spend more time talking about this stuff.

Scholarly publishing & sharing work

Publishing has changed quite a bit over the last couple of decades. That sounds like a long time, but when you consider whole generations of researchers and how long people spend in the profession, it's been pretty zippy. I'd like to empower you.

It is, I think, important that you publish with intention.

I also need you to understand that every discipline has a different publishing culture, and that your approach to research isn't universal.

KINDS OF PUBLICATIONS

Some disciplines move through research and publish at a quick pace. It can take about a year between the time you submit your work to a journal and for it to be published. For some physicists, their work is already out of date by the time it's published.

We call this a short tail. Fast research where the window of relevance is more immediate and iterative within a field of study. But there's also long tails!

• Long Tail
  • Monographs
  • Edited volumes, book chapters
  • Creative works
• Short Tail
  • Journal articles
  • Conference proceedings
  • Preprints
  • Posters

try not to fall into the trap of assuming that the way you work is the way everyone else does.

publishing is about submission, rejection, peer review, rejection, and ego/prestige

The workflow

You're getting close to finishing a paper you're drafting. Either by yourself or with a few other authors. You need to start thinking about where you'll submit it. 

I. Picking a Journal

• you might have an idea of where you'd like to submit the work based on journals you read or happened to go to a lot while doing your work
• your advisor might know some good submission options
• your subject librarian might also know some good submission options
• probably don't just google "good kinesiology journal", because there are thousands of them and google is going to be useless for this

The workflow

You're going to want to look for the journal first because they're going to have things like word-count limits, formatting requirements, citation style requirements, and any other number of criteria.

You start this whole process before the paper is really "finished". Think of it like a very nice draft. 

II. Submitting to a Journal

• the journal you choose will have a page on their site showing you the requirements
• the journal will probably have a software platform you'll need to register for to do the submission
• you'll be pushed through a submission form and might be asked a bunch of questions you've literally never thought about until now... take the time to think about them

The workflow

A bunch of stuff is going to happen to your paper while you wait to hear back about your submission. 

III. The Waiting Game

• an editor or section editor for the journal (ideally not some friggin' AI application) will review your paper to see if it's a good enough fit with the journal to send it to peer review
• they'll tell you if it is rejected at this step. this is called a "desk rejection".

The workflow

Peer review is a longer version of the waiting game except, at the end, you either get rejected or a list of things that you'll need to fix. 

IV. PEER REVIEW

• an editor or section editor for the journal will then try to find peer reviewers for your paper. they do this by asking a lot of people very nicely if they'd be willing to do the peer review and, if so, by which date. 
• no one does peer review on time
• no one responds to peer review requests quickly
• at least one of these reviewers will say some very mean things about your work. don't take it personally. 

The workflow

Assuming your revisions are up to snuff, an editor will decide whether or not you either have your paper sent to copyediting or you have to pass through a second round of peer review to affirm you (and the journal) have done their due diligence. 

V. PEER REVIEW / Revisions

• it is possible to pass through multiple rounds of peer review
• they do, generally, take as long every time you do them

The workflow

Once your paper is approved, you'll have to wait for it to move through the publication workflow. These vary by publisher. Copyediting and layout will happen and you'll be roped into the process as it moves along. Eventually, you'll be sent a proof for final approval. 

VI. Publication

• the work will be published, eventually
• either it'll be released prior to an issue publication or it'll be released when an issue is out. 
• by this point, a year or more might have passed since you submitted your paper, depending on the journal and and and and and.... 

This is what has happened to, more or less, every journal article you've read throughout your entire education. 

Publishing used to be relatively straightforward.

Where to publish?

• Is this a good journal?
  • Does it have a good reputation in my field?
  • Will my community of practice read it?
  • Will it be well-cited?
  • Am I in good company?
  • Is this a publisher of good repute?
• A presumption of access...
  • The people who are interested in this research will be able to see it.
  • The best journals in my field are generally available for this research community to read.

You are absolutely not going to know all of these things.

But, someone has been in your shoes and will have relevant information for you.

You can also talk to:

• librarians ( ͡◉ ͜ʖ ͡◉)

• community of practice

• your colleagues

It's ok!

Publications of repute will not come looking for you. (unless you are, like, a really big deal)

Keep your head on a swivel.

There is significant money to be made in exploiting folks who have more ambition than time/literacy.

But, sometimes it isn't!

Publishing is less and less straightforward.

academic publishing is a hugely lucrative industry.

open access

There are many wonderful things about open access. It's a very idealistic movement based on the idea that increased access to information will, in turn, provide more equality and equity in scholarship worldwide.

People should engage with open access because it is a moral good! Information wants to be free!

It was spurred through what's known as the "serials crisis" where journal subscriptions rapidly increased to such an extent that institutions struggled to keep up and research became more and more restricted to folks with deep pockets.

Open Access

• Being priced out of journals means being priced out of knowledge
• Schools with money are often in the global north
• Publicly funded research should be available to the public

The more people who can read your work, the larger an impact that work may have.

Access to knowledge is a public good.

Open Access

• Journals rely on subscriptions for revenue, and publishing is not free. copyediting and layout are labour. Distribution is labour web design/hosting... many costs!
• Publishers have a vested interest in maintaining their significant revenues.
• If a journal wants to operate with no subscription costs, it typically needs money from another source.

the apc

Author Processing Charge

But...

So then, some unscrupulous folks figured a few things out.

1. Researchers are under the gun to publish (or perish).
2. Open access appears to be trendy.
3. People don't know the OA journals as well. they're newish!
4. All of this is complicated enough that you can get someone to pay an APC for "fast peer review" you have no intention to do.

"predatory"

Though, I'd suggest, major publishers are just as predatory.

bad-faith publishers

• Before long, governments and funding bodies started to insist that publications coming from public money needed to be made public!
• You can add an APC to a funding proposal.
• Or, you can engage in open access in free ways (so-called "Green OA"), that are sometimes complicated and time-consuming!

and then, mandates

• Most publishers now put OA at the forefront via APC, for anyone under mandate.
• This means a lot of people just assume they have to pay an APC to meet OA requirements.
• They don't, usually they can share a pre-publication version.
• Publishers have successfully managed to monetize OA on top of their existing subscription fees.

which brings us back to...

the apc

Author Processing Charge

Some trends!

• Major publishers continue to raise subscription prices above the rate of inflation.
• "Article Processing Charges" (APCs).
• The ease of technology and relative lack of literacy among scholars results in an emerging "bad-faith" publisher boom.
• Pressure to publish – especially for early career researchers – coupled with increased workloads, job precarity, and a profound volume of publishing options, forces errors.

• The proliferation of the Open Access/Open Science movements.
• More organizations and tools present to help evaluate journals (DOAJ, CORE, OASPA... etc.).
• Funders and institutions mandate public access to publicly funded works.
• Ease of technology and interconnectedness of open scholarly infrastructure results in multiple versions of works available in myriad places. Everything is everywhere.

Oh right, also

• Many authors are being made increasingly aware that they don't own their own work after it's been published.
• Peer-review itself is evolving to become more open or otherwise transparent.
• AI is causing a profound volume of problems across copyright, plagiarism detection, peer review, and "authorship".

• Some folks discovered that it's possible to pretend to be a scholarly journal and sometimes make money from it.
• Publishing is about submission, rejection, review, rejection, and ego.
• Real journals don't solicit.
• There's an enormous volume of grey area with questionable publishers that may have credible, quality journals.
• Figuring this out is work.

Where to publish?

How to publish?

What to publish?

Where to publish?

• Is this a good journal?
  • Does it have a good reputation in my field?
  • Will my community of practice read it?
  • Will it be well-cited?
  • Am I in good company?
  • Is this a publisher of good repute?
• A presumption of access...
  • The people who are interested in this research will be able to see it.
  • The best journals in my field are generally available for this research community to read.

Where to publish?

• Is this a real journal?
  • How many retractions does it have? Scandals?
  • Is it "predatory"?
  • Is the journal kind of ok, but the publisher isn't?
  • Are APC fees normal or bad? (The answer is "yes".)
  • Wait, why am I paying for publishing?
• A presumption of access...
  • Is this journal published by someone a whole entire country/state/school stopped working with?
  • How accessible do I want my work to be? For whom?
  • If I share a link, who hits a paywall?

How to publish?

• Open Access?
  • Is this journal open access or not?
  • What does "hybrid OA" mean?
  • Am I under an OA mandate?
  • Why am I paying for publishing?
  • Do I actually need to pay for publishing?
• A presumption of access...
  • What works can we find where?
  • How on top of all this do I need to be?
  • If I share a link, who hits a paywall?
  • How accessible do I want my work to be? For whom?

What to publish?

• Which versions am I sharing?
  • Preprints on a preprint server like arxiv?
  • Accepted manuscripts in our institutional repo?
  • Links to publisher PDFs I paid an APC to open up?
  • Links to publisher PDFs that most people can't read?
  • Subsets of my research data?
  • All of my research data?
• A presumption of access...
  • What am I allowed to share?
  • Which versions of things are open, and which aren't?
  • How open should my data be? Does it need to be?

These decisions are non-trivial 
and, probably, overwhelming!

But, remember! you have agency.

Where and how you share your research affects the "impact" your work has on your research community and the public.

publish with intention.

It is absolutely worth asking yourself if you want to support a specific publisher or journal.

Often we hear the phrase, "there's no ethical consumption under capitalism". But there is, i think, a case to be made for ethical publishing in academia.

You also need to think about who gets your copyright and whether or not you're ok with that.

Finding Publisher Policies

Publishers don't love to be up front with their open access options. Sometimes you have to dig. Open Policy Finder is a tool that lets you search for publisher policies to learn what rights for a specific journal will be.

If you don't have time for this or maybe want to check a handful of publications, you can contact us with this handy publishing support form, and we'll get back to you after evaluating.

Open Policy Finder
A database of collected publisher policies, most easily searched by using a journal's ISSN.

Publishing Support Form
Tell us a little about your funding situation and the journals you're considering, and we can tell you if there's APC discounts available and/or what your options are for OA.

If your rights are ever ambiguous or if a journal’s policy is missing from open policy finder, we can help! Please contact me (mnason@unb.ca) or the copyright office at UNB Libraries (copyright@unb.ca) for assistance.

If you choose to house your preprints or accepted manuscripts in UNB Scholar, you can send them directly to me (mnason@unb.ca) or contact the liaison librarian assigned to your department/faculty.

We can absolutely help with

• Unpacking your options.
• Avoiding APCs.
• Interpreting publisher policies.
• Self-archiving with UNB Scholar.
• Self-archiving in other repositories.
• Evaluating past publications for oa compliance and potential self-archiving opportunities.
• Providing RDM advice.
• Sessions/workshops/literacy.

Again, I will happily refer to the CBA. I am contractually here to help you. It's, like, specifically built into the job (16c.02). It is what librarians are for.

I am always happy to discuss...

research data management
tri-agency oa requirements
open access publishing
scholar profiles
repositories
digital publishing
open educational resources
open infrastructure
persistent identifiers
scholarly publishing
scholarly communications
toppling capitalism

dataverse
open journal systems
navigating apcs
orcid support
evaluating journals
publishing literacy
metadata literacy
data management plans
"predatory publishers"
student journals
open science/scholarship
taking back scholarship from publishers

Bookmarkables and contacts (Publishing)

UNB Libraries Supporting OA
Documentation and general support.

UNB Libraries APC Discounts
Guides to APC Discounts for UNB.
 

UNB Scholar Research Repository
Deposit your work! Self-archive!
 

UNB Scholar Deposit Form
Send us your publications.

UNB Libraries Publishing Support Form
We can help sort out policies/options.

Open Policy Finder
Check publisher policies.

Meeting Tri-Agency Requirements
My deck for ORS grant workshops.

Think, Check, Submit 
A resource for evaluating publishers.

Bookmarkables and Contacts (Research Data)

Publishing Support Folks
Mike Nason
Cat Gracey
Joanne Smyth
Julie Morris
James MacKenzie

UNB Libraries RDM Services 
Research Data Management help.

Data Management Planning
DMP support and documentation.

Contact Me Directly
mnason@unb.ca

UNB Scholar Inquiries
unb.scholar@unb.ca

Bookmarkables and Contacts (Research Data)

RDM Support Folks

Tatiana Zaraiskaya
Siobhan Hanratty
James MacKenzie
Mike Nason

UNB Libraries RDM Services 
Research Data Management help.

Data Management Planning
DMP support and documentation.

Contact Me Directly
mnason@unb.ca

RDM Services Contact
rdm.services@unb.ca

Please don't hesitate to contact me if you want to talk about publishing stuff.

Librarians love nothing more than the acknowledgement of their existence.

Thanks. Questions?

mnason@unb.ca
lib.unb.ca/openaccess