Professional Experience Placement

An editorial in the Journal of Advanced Nursing (2014)  by Clark and Thompson discussed making good choices about quality, quantity and visibility of publications. While this editorial focuses on academics publishing in appropriate journals and the issues associated with academic outputs.  It raises issues for those who seek information, want to keep abreast of contemporary practice and use the Internet to find the information they are need for continuing professional development or work purposes. This article outlines factors that authors may consider before they submit manuscripts for publication, which impact on potential readership and visibility. Academic researchers need to see scholarship and its outputs as a means of expressing ideals and values and readers need to be aware of the competing elements that create organisational norms of ‘slow scholarship’ (few high impact publications not to be confused with ‘little’ scholarship); quantity or productive output.  The authors discuss scholars’ effective use of mass media and social media to promote visibility and the issue of open access and predatory journals and the ability of academic and readers to be able to discern quality publications that use blind peer-review. A method frequently used is Beall’s list updated annually by Jeffrey Beall. Overtime this librarian has developed criteria for inclusion or exclusion of journals on the list. There are now a range of categories to assist researchers with finding out about open-access changes; unethical practices or misleading metrics. If you are a researcher you can use this list to check which journals are classed as predatory and if you are a reader or seeker of information you can use this list as a method to assist in discerning quality of articles.

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