Skip to main content

Faculty Publishing: A Guide for Publishing, Tenure Review, and Promotion

Faculty Publishing Guide

Contents

Home

Welcome! We designed this guide with faculty in mind and included resources that can help you at any point in the writing process. Refer to the navigation menu on the left for guidance, but here are some quick hits to get you started:

Deciding Where to Publish

The Library offers many resources to help you in deciding where to submit your work for publication. Important things to consider when selecting potential publications are the Journals' Acceptance Rates and the Impact and Immediacy Rankings.  

Writing Advice

We've been there- the ideas and concepts are all churning in your head but you can't figure out how to get them onto that digital page. We've gathered some resources that might help.

Open Access

Consider publishing your work in an Open Access repository or journal.  Go to Author's Rights,  Open Access, or DigitalCommons@Fairfield to learn more.

Determining Impact of your Scholarship

Selecting the journal(s) to send your manuscript to is an important part of the academic publishing process. Here are the main criteria to consider:

                                               

 

Circulation Statistics

The best place to find the circulation numbers for prospective journals is often on the website of the journal itself. Ask a Librarian if you need help!

You can also consult:

Journals: Acceptance Rates

Journal acceptance rates yield important statistical information about the selectivity of a journal.

Some good places to check for journal acceptance rates are:

  • The journal itself to see if the acceptance rates are published.
  • The website of the journal to see if this information is posted online.
  • Article databases specific to your discipline may include articles written on the quality of certain journals and their acceptance rates. For example, check PsycINFO for psychology, CINAHL with Full Text for nursing, or Engineering Source for engineering. For a complete list of databases, click here.

By Discipline

The resources listed below contain information on acceptance rates for scholarly journals in specific disciplines. If your discipline is not listed below, consult Cabell's or ask a librarian for more help!

Economics & Finance

  • IDEAS/RePEc Simple Impact Factors for Journals: These rankings covers journals, book series, book chapter series, working paper series, and software component series that are indexed in RePEc. The citation ranks are updated daily and cover all items according to several ways of counting citations. Also provides summary rankings that aggregate the various criteria. Allows you to download raw data for the citation rankings.

Education & Library Science

English

Nursing & Health Administration

Psychology

  • Journal Statistics and Operations Data​ from the American Psychology Association. Provides information about manuscript rejection rates, circulation data, publication lag time, and other journal statistics.

Journals: Impact and Immediacy Factors

Determining a Journal's Prestige

In considering the prestige of a journal, two common factors are considered:

  1. Impact factor 
  2. Immediacy Index.

In addition, in the sciences, the Eigenfactor may also play a part.

Finding Prestige Stats

  • Science Watch
    This open-web resource uses data from the Thomson Reuters Web of Science to periodically publish journal impact reports for disciplines.  To see a report, go to search box on website and type "journals ranked" to see a list of prepared reports.
  • Google Scholar Metrics
    Rankings display include the h5-index and the h5-median for each included publication. To learn more about Google Scholar Metrics and its use of h5-index, go to its explanatory page. To search in Google Scholar Metrics, click here and then type in the journal name on top. You can also browse by category, i.e. Social Sciences, Life Sciences & Earth Sciences, Health & Medical Sciences, etc.
  • Scimago Journal Rank
    The SCImago Journal & Country Rank is a portal that includes the journals and country scientific indicators developed from the information contained in the Scopus® database (Elsevier B.V.). These indicators can be used to assess and analyze scientific domains.This platform takes its name from the SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) indicatorpdf, developed by SCImago from the widely known algorithm Google PageRank™. This indicator shows the visibility of the journals contained in the Scopus® database from 1996.
  • CiteScore
Altmetrics
 

An increasing number of alternative metrics (altmetrics) are available to address the shortcomings of the impact factor and other established metrics.  For a good overview, see the following articles:

Cited Reference Searching

Finding Cited References Using Databases

Cited References count how many times a given work has been cited by others.

The resources listed below contain information on cited reference counts. As different sources index different titles, it is best to check all of the applicable sources and remove duplicate cited references for an accurate count.

MULTIDISCIPLINARY

BY DISCIPLINE

Art

Business

Chemistry

Communication

Computing

Environmental Studies

History

Information Systems and Technology

Music

Nursing

Psychology

Sociology

Don't see your field of study listed? Don't worry, use our database finder here.

 

Finding Cited References in Books

Finding citations inside books can be difficult. Luckily, there are plenty of digitized books or native e-books that can make it somewhat easier. Consider using:

  • Google Books - try searching title of work and/or author's name
  • Google Scholar - first find work in Google Scholar and then click on Cited By link.  Books may come up in results.

Author Rights

1. Know Your Rights as the Author

This information adapted from SPARC.

  • The author is the copyright holder. As the author of a work, you are the copyright holder unless and until you transfer the copyright to someone else in a signed agreement. 

  • Assigning your rights matters. Normally, the copyright holder possesses the exclusive rights of reproduction, distribution, public performance, public display, and modification of the original work. An author who has transferred copyright without retaining these rights must ask permission unless the use is one of the statutory exemptions in copyright law. 
     
  • The copyright holder controls the work. Decisions concerning use of the work, such as distribution, access, pricing, updates, and any use restrictions belong to the copyright holder. Authors who have transferred their copyright without retaining any rights may not be able to place the work on course Websites, copy it for students or colleagues, deposit the work in a public online archive, or reuse portions in a subsequent work. That’s why it is important to retain the rights you need.

2. Think about Retaining Your Rights as the Author

Retain Your Author's Rights 
This information adapted from SPARC.

 Transferring copyright doesn’t have to be all or nothing.The law allows you to transfer copyright while holding back rights for yourself and others.  Some available options:

  • Choose journals with non-exclusive agreements (more info: Open Access/SHERPA/RoMEO section)
  • Choose journals with self-archiving friendly agreements (more info: Open Access/SHERPA/RoMEO section)
  • Choose an Open Access Journal (discover at Open Access/Directories & Repositories section)
  • Negotiate with the publisher to amend existing agreement (SPARC Author Addendum)
  • Use an alternative agreement (Creative Commons License)

3. Advice on SPARC Author Addendum or Creative Commons License

What if the Publisher Rejects the Author Addendum or Creative Commons License?
This information taken from SPARC.

  • Explain to the publisher why it is important for you to retain the rights to your own work.
  • Ask the publisher to articulate why the license rights provided under the SPARC Author Addendum or Creative Commons license are insufficient to allow publication.
  • Evaluate the adequacy of the publisher’s response in light of the reasonable and growing need for authors to retain certain key rights to their works.
  • Consider publishing with an organization that will facilitate the widest dissemination of their authors’ works, to help them fulfill their personal and professional goals as scholars.

4. Submitting your Work to DigitalCommons@Fairfield Guidelines

Copyright and Submitting to the Repository - DigitalCommons@Fairfield
Adapted from the University of Connecticut's Copyright Guidelines.

Learn more about Digital Commons

Visit DigitalCommons@Fairfield

Author With Copyright: 

Any author publishing work in DigitalCommons@Fairfield must either be the copyright owner for the work or have the permission of the copyright holder to publish it in the Repository.

If the author retains copyright for their submission, no further efforts are required, and they may proceed to the submission process.

Author Without Copyright:

If the author does not maintain copyright, he/she still may be able to submit material to the repository. Many publishers will allow placement in an institutional repository of articles published in their journals or books as a form of "self archiving" in pre-print or post-print form. SHERPA-RoMEO provides information by publisher on what kind of self-archiving activity is allowed for articles in their journals, and one can search for a particular journal and its policies here. If after consulting these sources and/or the publisher, an author is unable to determine whether they retain the right to post their material in the repository, they can email digitalcommons@fairfield.edu for assistance.

Preserve Self Archiving Rights:

Remember, authors can always preserve basic self archiving rights when negotiating copyright issues in book and journal contracts. The DiMenna-Nyselius Library endorses the SPARC Author Addendum which contains language that allows for the posting of published documents in an institutional repository, and which can be attached to any publisher’s publication agreement.  We encourage authors to use this form or otherwise protect their rights when submitting documents to a publisher.

 

Definitions

Author Pre-Print version: the author copy PRIOR to any peer-review – [usually the initial submission for publication].

Author Post-Print version: the author copy POST peer review but PRIOR to any publisher formatting, copyediting, pagination, etc.

Publisher PDF version: the actual article as it appeared in the publication.  All peer-review, formatting, copyediting and pagination has been included.

 

Some Useful Links

Open Access

Understanding Open Access        

A Very Brief Introduction to Open Access by Peter Suber

What Faculty can do to Support Open Access?

 

DigitalCommons@Fairfield

A service of the Library that offers open access to the collected scholarship and creative works of Fairfield University faculty, students and staff. Learn more: http://digitalcommons.fairfield.edu

SHERPA/RoMEO

Want to find out what your favorite journal's open access policy is?  Search for the journal title in SHERPA/RoMEO to find out what you are permitted to do with your article post-publication.

Green: archive pre-print, post-print or publisher's PDF
Blue: post-print (final draft post-refereeing) or publisher's PDF
Yellow: pre-print (pre-refereeing)
White: Archiving not formally supported

Remember that you can ALWAYS ask to retain the right to self-archive your article!

 

Open Access Directories & Repositories

General

Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
Directory of peer-reviewed journals that operate with an open access model, ie articles are freely available to anyone.

Open Access Publishing in European Networks (OAPEN)
Aggregates high-quality academic research by aggregating peer-reviewed Open Access publications from across Europe.

Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR)
The aim of ROAR is to promote the development of open access by providing timely information about the growth and status of repositories throughout the world.

 

Humanities

 

Open Humanities Press
Open Access Press that publishes peer-reviewed monographs and journals in the humanities.
Perseus Digital Library
Covers the history, literature, and culture of the Greco-Roman world.

 

Sciences

 

arXiv.org
Access to 791,125 e-prints in Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Quantitative Biology, Quantitative Finance, and Statistics.
Public Library of Science (PLOS)
Publishes seven peer-reviewed open-access journals in a variety of scientific disciplines.
Aquatic Commons
The Aquatic Commons is a thematic digital repository covering the natural marine, estuarine /brackish and freshwater environments. 

 

Social Sciences

 

Social Science Research Network
Contains an abstract database (448,000 working papers) and an electronic paper collection (362,000 full text pdfs).
IDEAS: Economics and Finance Research
Contains 1,200,000 items, part of a large volunteer effort to enhance the free dissemination of research in Economics, RePEc.
Research in Agricultural and Applied Economics (AgEcon)
Contains working papers, conference papers and journal articles in applied economics, including the subtopics of agricultural, consumer, energy, environmental, and resource economics.

 

Author's Rights Resources from Scholarly Publishing and Resources Coalition (SPARC)

SPARC Author Rights Inititiative:  Great starting place to explore author's rights issues.

Author Addendum- legal instrument: The SPARC Author Addendum is a legal instrument that authors may use to modify their publisher agreements, enabling them to keep selected key rights to their articles, such as:

Community Engaged Scholarship

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Journals (SoTL)

The Kennesaw State University Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) has developed an extensive list of SoTL journals. The searchable directory is on the right-hand side of the page.

Kennesaw State University CETL Teaching Journals Directory

Journals - Calls for Articles and Editors

Community Engagement | Community Engagement - Editors

Service Learning | Service Learning - Editors

Campus Community Partnership for Health

CES4Health was launched by Community-Campus Partnerships for Health (CCPH) in November 2009 as a free online source of peer-reviewed products of community-engaged scholarship. CES4Health peer-reviews, publishes, and disseminates products of community-engaged scholarship that are not journal articles - videos, curricula, policy reports, digital stories and online toolkits, for example.

Campus Community Partnership for Health

CES Journals - Partial List

Collaborations: A Journal of Community-Based Research and Practice

Engaged Scholar Journal: Community-Engaged Research, Teaching, and Learning

EPiCHE Journal Engaging Pedagogies in Catholic Higher Education

Gateways: International Journal of Community Research and Engagement

International Journal for Service Learning in Engineering, Humanitarian Engineering and Social Entrepreneurship

International Journal of Civic Engagement and Social Change

International Journal of Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement

International Journal of Research on Service-Learning in Teacher Education

Journal for Civic Commitment (no longer publishing - archive only)

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

Journal of Community Engagement and Scholarship

Journal of Experiential Education

Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement

Journal of Service Learning in Higher Education

Metropolitan Universities Journal

Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning

Partnership Perspectives

Partnerships: A Journal of Service-Learning and Civic Engagement

Reflections

Undergraduate Journal of Service Learning and Community-Based Research

Journals Often Publishing Community Engaged Scholarship:

Social Media to Build Your Online Scholarly Identity

You've published your work, now what? How can you maximize its reach?

Social Media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and even Instagram can be incredibly useful tools to share your research with your colleagues, other researchers, your students, and the general public! How can you do it? Consider the following Tips for Using Social Media to Promote Your Research from Nature Publishing Group or these 5 Tips for Promoting Your Research using Social Media from the Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering. 

Feel free to contact your liaison to personally discuss ways you can use your existing social media platforms to promote your research.

Additional Resources to Consider 

Citing Your Sources

The links below point to brief informational guides for creating accurate citations. For more complete information, consult the original books at the library (see call numbers below) or contact a librarian.

 

 

APA

lib_apa
Ref. BF 76.7 .P83 2010

 

 

Chicago:

Author-Date 17th ed

Notes-Bibliography 17th ed

Ref. Z 253.U69 2017

Online Manual

 

 

 

 

MLA 

Ref.  LB2369.G53 2016

 

 

IEEE

lib_ieee

 Full IEEE Manual

Questions about Citations? Save time, ask a Librarian!

Citation Managers

Refworks logo

RefWorks is an online citation management tool that allows you to organize your citations and quickly create bibliographies without having to type a word. Click the logo for more info!

the Zotero logo

Zotero (pronounced "zoh-TAIR-oh") is a standalone application that uses browser connectors to save full text, organize sources, and create citations. Click the logo to see more info!

Writing Advice

Writing Process

Writing Style

Ask a Librarian

Still not finding what you need? A Librarian is available to help!

Schedule a Research Appointment Chat with a librarian 24/7 Research Services Hours

If you are replicating any of our guides as a template on your own site for use by your library's LibGuide authors, we would appreciate a brief attribution, e.g "Portions of this guide were built using suggestions from DiMenna-Nyselius Library, Fairfield University.”