Publishing strategy

The VBN Team offers guidance and courses in some of the tools that you can use prior to publishing your research. We can assist you with some important strategic considerations before you submit your article or manuscript to a journal, publishing house, or conference.

The VBN Team has prepared the checklist below that you can use as a starting point when planning a publishing strategy. Each heading contains tools that may be helpful in assessing the visibility of a journal, considerations regarding Open Access, as well as the prestige and credibility of the individual publishers.

The VBN Team has prepared a template including all items from the checklist, as well as a form in which you can fill in your publishing strategy.

STRATEGY FRAMEWORK

The process begins with a set of general considerations regarding:

What
Where
Profiling
Collaboration

WHAT?

Strategy perspective – what is the publishing strategy a part of?
Is your strategy long-term or short-term (timescale)?
Consider the type of publication: Journal articles, books, anthology contributions, report, Conference article.

WHERE?

Consider where you want to publish or present your work - i.e. which journal, publisher or conference.
Are there any requirements that must be met in advance - e.g. funding (publication/data set must be Open Access)?

PROmotion

Draw up a plan for promoting your research
Which digital platforms are you planning to use to promote your research (Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook etc.)
Researcher ID (ORCID, Scopus Author ID, Research ID)
Researcher profiles (VBN-profile, Google Scholar profile, other profiles)
Sharing of articles via Open Access (archiving articles in Pure).
Sharing research data (CLAUUDIA)
Write and blog prior to publication (Notice: You should always check your publisher’s policy on this matter in advance!)

Tools:

Collaboration/network

Consider whether you should collaborate with others
Strategic collaboration
Internal/external collaboration
Collaboration with companies
In a BFI context, collaboration is an advantage!
Is there any advantage in writing alone?

PUBLISHING STRATEGY CHECKLIST

Once the strategies are clarified, you should make more detailed considerations regarding the individual publication and how to address your target audience:

AIMS/SCOPE

The academic profile, target audience and contents of the journal/publishing house/conference
Consider how to best reach your target audience
Does the journal have a general or specialized profile?
Geographical scope (regional, national, international)
Enrichment (design, layout, indexing in databases, marketing)
Peer reviewing
- Is the journal peer reviewed?
- Does the publisher offer peer reviewing on the entire manuscript (a BFI requirement), or only on parts of the manuscript?
- What type of peer reviewing does it involve? Single blind (anonymous reviewer), double blind (both author and reviewer are anonymous) or open (the whole process is transparent)

What is the journal's rejection rate?
How long is the publication process?

TOOLS:

Cabell's Journalytics
Ulrich's (contains information on more than 300,000 journals e.g. indexing, accessibility, publishing frequency etc.)

retrieval/visibility

Is the journal indexed in the major databases?

TOOLS:

Ulrich's (contains information on more than 300,000 journals, e.g. indexing, accessibility, publishing frequency)
Scopus (citation database)
Web of Science (citation database)
PubMed (medical database)
Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)

OPEN ACCESS

Check if there are any requirements on behalf of your funder regarding Open Access
Is Open Access publishing an option?
Understand the way to Open Access:
- Green Open Access – self-archiving of peer reviewed, accepted manuscript in VBN (free of charge)
- Golden Open Access – publishing in complete Open Access Journals (costs in the form of Article Processing Charges)
Price: Cost/benefit. Make sure that any Golden Open Access publishing costs can be financed (e.g. by funders)
Check out Aalborg University’s Open Access agreements

TOOLS: