Publishing 2025

Catherine Gracey, UNB Libraries

Who has published a research output before?

From your perspective, what is the point of publishing research?

What does the library have to do with research and publishing?

"RISD Library, Providence, RI" by stephanie.lafayette is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

• Monographs (books)
• Journal articles (research article, review, editorial)
• Conference outputs (poster, abstract, proceeding)
• Research report

Types of Publications

• Method of publishing or dissemination depends on the discipline 
• Speed, and long-term relevance also depends on discipline

Researchers write research outputs

These are published

Library pays for subscription

Affiliates get access

Government provides research funding

Workflow

Where do I publish?

• At this point in time, your supervisor's experiences are critical, they will understand respected venues in your field

What are the implications of publishing here?

• Talk to your librarian re: funder requirements, APC savings, copyright considerations, AI policies

I'll explain more in a second what the above considerations mean, but what I'm trying to emphasize is that you should look into requirements & policies BEFORE you submit, and especially before you sign anything

• The process of actually uploading a document to the publisher/journal website
• There will likely be specific requirements (document types, formatting, reference style), again, review these early on
• Will need to spend a good amount of time entering in metadata

• An editor of the journal will read your submission, and then decide whether it fits the scope of the journal, and whether they'd like to pass it along to to peer-review
• If they decide not to, this is called a desk rejection 
• Desk rejection is most likely to happen if your work is not aligned with the scope of the journal, doesn't mean there isn't something worthwhile there, but may have to look for a different venue

• The editorial team will solicit experts in your field to give feedback on your manuscript
• This can (and generally should) take a while
• You are expected to address comments made by making changes in your work, or explaining why they aren't appropriate/feasible 

• The famous 'reviewer 2' is a joke in academia
• Avoid taking any of this personally!

• Congrats! You are now a published author
• Now, you want people to see and utilize your work
• Update any scholar profiles (Google Scholar, Scopus, etc.)
• Update CV
• Metrics start to come into play

Subscription-based publishing

• Journals are available to subscribers only (individuals or institutions like UNB)
• Publishers make their money from these subscription fees, so they keep articles closely guarded

• Copyright is: "the exclusive legal right to reproduce, publish, sell, or distribute the matter and form of something (such as a literary, musical, or artistic work)"
• Applies automatically to original works (you don't have to do anything to 'get' copyright for manuscripts, it already belongs to you)

Copyright

• When subscription based journals publish your works, they typically ask you to sign your copyright over to them
• This ensures financial viability, as they have the exclusive right to sell access to your work

Subscription Journals & Copyright

• You are still credited for the work and can generally share it with a small number of people for educational purposes*
• But you give up autonomy over how readers can use your work, and will not make any money from your work, even if I publisher does

*specifics vary from publisher to publisher

What happens when I sign over copyright?

• Subscription costs kept rising
• Increasing number of journals in the digital age (no longer need a literal press)
• Library budgets stagnant or even decreasing

The Serials Crisis

• Open Access means readers can access works for free!
• This improves equity and ensures people from all backgrounds can access research

Pros

• Publishers can't make money from readers anymore... 

Does anyone know how publishers make money in an Open Access model?

Article Processing Charge (APC)

Authors pay a fee to make work open access (anywhere from $200 USD to $10,000 USD)

• In the APC model, publishers make money from authors rather than readers
• Therefore, they (generally!) allow authors to maintain copyright
• However, they will still ask authors to sign over some rights, or add licenses to their work, which specify how works can be used

OA & Copyright

• Entire journal is open access 

Gold

• Journal has both open access articles and 'closed' or subscription content

Whether a journal is gold or hybrid does not hugely affect you as the author, you would pay an APC either way

It does affect you as a reader, as something may appear to be published in an open access journal, but is not actually open access itself

Bad-faith or predatory publishers

• Understand researchers must 'publish or perish'
• Know there is lots of money to be made from APCs
• Don't necessarily conduct peer-review and/or indiscriminately publish everything submitted 

Bad-faith or predatory publishers

• Lists exist, but aren't all encompassing 
• Instead, look out for red flags
  • Solicitation
  • Promise to publish
  • Very short peer-review
  • Lack of clear information on website
  • Lots of previous retractions

• PubPeer

• Retraction Watch

• It aligns with your values!
• You're not sure your target audience will have access to your work otherwise
• You are under mandate (ex: NSERC)

What incentivizes you to publish OA?

Other methods:

Version of Record

Author Accepted Manuscript

Submitted Version

Pre-print

Version of Record

Author Accepted Manuscript

Submitted Version

Pre-print

Institutional Repository

Pre-print server (bioarxiv)

Your publications are important, not just for the greater research community but also as a proven record of your research experience and ability. 

Some impact metrics*

• Author/Article-based
  • h-index
  • total citation count
  • downloads
  • altmetrics
• Journal-based
  • impact factor 
  • h-index
  • SCImago Journal Rank (SJR)

*Note: these will vary depending on the source

• Bogus papers that are entirely fabricated and authorship is sold
• Downloads — Tricky Goose Training
• You don't want to cite papermill generated papers, and you want to avoid 'hijacked' journals
• More prevalent than ever due to GenAI

Research Paper Mills

[a]

[a]

[b]

[b]

[a]

[a]

[a]

• Can't be listed as an author
• Should not be cited as an information source (cite the original source)
• Use should be acknowledged in a statement 
• Should not be used for peer-review (major! privacy issues)

Best Practices

[b]

Resources

Connect with me:

catherine.gracey@unb.ca

Copyright Support:

copyright@unb.ca

Special shoutout to PubPeer and Retraction Watch!!

Thank You!

catherine.gracey@unb.ca