Publishing Plan Toolkit

A1. Who is your prospective audience (end-users)?

Consider:

• Who would be interested in reading your article, i.e., which individuals or groups from the community or industry would be interested in, or benefit from, your research?
• Where would your audience look for this information, or where do they publish, e.g., in journals, books, or conference proceedings? Tip: the reference list of your literature review can provide a lot of leads to get you started.
• Does your research need to be in an open access publishing source to reach this audience?

Seasoned researchers might consider publishing a targeted translation of their work to help expand the reach and impact of their research to international audiences. SciVal can help you find geolocations by subject, as can Altmetric Explorer. Contact the Scholarly Publishing Consultant for support with this.

WSU does not provide translation services. Contact your publisher, or investigate third-party translation services such as Ethnolink's Translation Services Australia for NAATI-certified translators to discuss translating your research into other languages. With the publisher, negotiate the author rights to your translated work. The onus of translation cost would be on the author or their school.

What is your research goal/focus/purpose?

Consider:

• Is it suitable for a wider audience and a higher-impact publishing source?
• Have you done something new? Consider choosing a research active area where there are likely to be new ideas and methods you can use and plentiful grant funding
• Is there anything challenging in your work?
• Will your results influence other researchers?
• Have you provided solutions to some difficult problems?
• Do you have a story to tell, and how can you tell it?

Talk to mentors, supervisors, colleagues and research networks for advice on key publications in your field and contact your School Librarian for assistance.

What will your research have - academic or real-world impact, e.g., on culture, the economy, health and well-being, the environment, society, or human capacity?

Why are you writing this research, e.g., what is the 'real world' change the research intends to make, and what will be the evidence of this change?

• Seek advice from your supervisor, discipline leader, or authors of highly cited papers in your field. Scopus and Web of Science databases have search options to help identify potentially useful new contacts (authors/researchers) in your field
• Review the Australian Universities Accord Fiinal Report for examples of real-world impact
• Define your proposed publishing outcomes, e.g.,
  • impact: societal, industry, policy, government
  • secure funding and grants
  • promotion, new role or recognition
  • high citation rate
  • United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) impact
• What are the research translation opportunities?
• If you will have co-authors, are they located in Australia or overseas? (in particular, whether they will be co-authors from low to lower-middle-income countries (see SDG 17 – Partnerships for the Goals (Indicator 17.1.1) - Proportion of output co-authored with low or lower-middle income countries)
• As a WSU author, whether SDG 5 - Gender Equality (Indicator 5.1.1) - Proportion for research with female authors [at WSU] applies to you.
• Consider collaborating with government departments, industry partners, or suitable organisations.

If your answer is 'yes', the Scholarly Publishing Consultant can provide guidance on:

• Using THE Impact Rankings Indicators methodology (based on the SDG) to find suitable SDG Indicators and measures that show how your research can affect social impact.

If you will be working with:

• Humans
• Animals
• Microorganisms (Risk Group 2 and above, AS/NZS 2243.3)
• Genetically modified organisms
• Biological toxins
• Security Sensitive Biological Agents (SSBA)
• Ionising radiation sources
• Radioactive materials and equipment
• Lasers above class 2
• Controlled goods and technology

Consult Research Ethics and Integrity for advice.

• Do you have a strong, attention-grabbing title? It should be concise, accurate and informative and tell the reader exactly what the article is about.
• Include one or two keywords, ideally within the first 65 characters of the title, to be visible to search engine results. Consider including SDG Keyphrases if relevant to your research

• Your abstract needs to summarise and capture the best part of your paper (it’s the selling pitch of your article).
• It should focus on what your research is about, what methods you have used, and what you have found out.
• Is it easy to understand, without any prior knowledge of the topic? Does it encourage researchers to read on?  Include keywords throughout, but make sure the writing still flows naturally. Include SDG Keyphrases in the title, abstract, and keywords.
• Check the publisher guidelines for the word count, preferably before you start writing so you don’t need to rewrite it to match the journal/publisher style.

More seasoned researchers should also consider submitting:

• A short (three-minute or less) video abstract alongside the text abstract, telling others why they should read your research. It’s another way to engage with published research and increase the visibility of your work.
• A graphical abstract as a concise, visual summary of the main conclusions of your article. It should appear in social media shares of your article and is another great way to increase engagement.

You are responsible for ensuring that your choice of publishing outlet will fulfil mandatory requirements and academic standards. Understanding these requirements and how they will affect your publishing decisions before you submit your article is best.

For example, do you need to:

• publish open access within 12 months (e.g., ARC requirement)?
• publish immediate open access (e.g., NHMRC requirement)?
• publish in high-quality journals (SCImago or JIF Q1 or Q2 ranking)?
• meet 2023 ERA submission criteria?
• use a Creative Commons licence?
• retain authorship of your work so you can readily build upon and promote your research?

Contact your School Librarian for assistance.

For example, publishing in a journal with SCImago or JCR rank of Q1 or Q2. If you're not sure, contact your supervisor to discuss.

C5. Do you have funds to cover the cost of publishing, e.g., access to grant funding, school or institutional fees?

When choosing between open access and traditional journal publishing route, it's important to consider factors such as journal visibility, quality and impact, any costs to publish, whether you have the funds to publish your work, the speed of publication, and your timeframe for publishing.

Use this open access publishing flowchart as a guide to selecting the most appropriate journal publishing route for your work. If you don’t have funding, and depending on the availability of funds, consider applying for WSU Open Access Publishing Fee Support.

Contact your School Librarian for assistance.

C6. Will you be using third-party content in your work?

Have you obtained permission from the copyright holder to use that third-party copyright content?

If it's not licensed under Creative Commons, contact the University Copyright Officer to seek written permission on your behalf from the copyright owner.

Download and use this free Record of Permissions template for documenting your third-party copyright permissions.

Preprints are usually shared on dedicated preprint servers, and the best option might be a discipline-specific preprint server.

It's recommended that you look for a preprint server that lets you retain the rights to your work and which can assign a DOI to your work for traceability. Also, check with the publisher if you can publish content if it's stored on a preprint server.

C8. What are your publishing timelines?

Do you have a timeframe for submitting your work? How many papers, or how quickly, do you need to publish this year? Are you open to transfers?

Check the publishing outlet's website, 'Information for Authors' and check the journal Speed metrics*. For more information on journal Speed metrics, see How to get your research published… and then noticed [pdf] (Elsevier). Use this information to help you find suitable sources that meet your publishing timeframe.

C9. Will you be publishing research data?

If you intend to create research data, you must complete a Research Data Management Plan (RDMP) before starting your research to inform your ethics application and provide the basis for maximising data value.

Use the WesternNow form to request support for research data management planning.

Don't forget to:

• include the DOI link to your stored research data in the article you submit for publishing
• cite your research data and code in your article and reference them in your work.

Consider also publishing a brief, peer-reviewed research elements article and citing it.

For more information, visit the Library Research Data Management page. Contact the Research Data Consultant for advice.

For assistance with the long-term storage of research data files, visit this page on Research Data Storage Options.

For citable, reproducible protocols, consider using the free version of Protocols.io.

Consider using the free version of Code Ocean for citable, reproducible, computational research. With the free instance, users have 10 hours per month for testing and making their capsule.

• Review finding the right conference to attend.
• Consider creating a visual representation of your research for the conference, e.g., a research poster.

Early Career Researchers (ECR) can benefit from attending and presenting at conferences.

Note: The peer-reviewed papers produced count towards ERA reporting (abstracts and posters do not count towards ERA reporting).

Each publishing source, e.g., journal, conference, publisher, will have information about its aims and scope available on the source website. These may be found in sections such as 'Instructions for authors', 'About the journal, or 'Aims and scope'.

• Evaluate your research against the publishing source's aims and scope to ensure that your article fits the publishing source's subject area and will appeal to the readers.
• Look at whether the source has published articles similar to yours. For journals, check indexing and subscription information on the journal website (free) or Ulrichsweb (sub).

F1. Peer review

Have you checked whether the publishing source (e.g., journal, monograph series, report) has been peer-reviewed?

• For journals, monograph series and reports, check Ulrichsweb (institutional login required).
• For other publishing sources, check the publisher’s website.

F2. Indexing/archiving

Has your article been indexed/archived in major databases such as Scopus, Web of Science, DOAJ, or other discipline-based lists such as PubMed?

Is it a service that your colleagues use?

• For journals and monograph series, check Ulrichsweb.
• For open access journals, check whether it's been indexed in DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals)
• Check discipline-specific indexing databases such as PubMed to ensure it is widely indexed. For example, for the School of Business, a relevant discipline-based list would be the ABDC Journal Quality List

F3. Metrics and Impact

For example, where is this journal ranked in its research field? e.g., SCImago SJR or JIF impact factors

What are its journal metrics (e.g., CiteScore metrics or Journal Citation Report metrics)?

The research allocation for your research profile will have been negotiated beforehand with your supervisor.

Refer to the latest School Work Plan Policy to determine the criteria you need to meet (i.e., research activity and outputs) associated with your research profile.

Note:

• Look for high-quality publishing sources that will maximise your research impact.
• You might also consider publishing sources such as Trade Publications if they are expected to generate high engagement.

F4. ERA submission guidelines

Have you reviewed the latest 2023 ERA Submission Guidelines for the submission criteria required for researchers and research sources?

In the 2023 ERA Submission Guidelines (pdf), see sections:

• 4.3.1 Eligible researcher criteria (see section 4.3, ERA Submission Data: Researchers)
• 4.3.2 Eligible researcher outputs (see section 4.4, ERA Submission Data: Research Outputs)

The Submission Guidelines classify research outputs into the following types:

Traditional Research Outputs

• Books - authored research
• Chapters in research books
• Journal articles - refereed, scholarly journals as per the ERA Journal List
• Conference publications - full paper refereed.

Non-traditional research outputs (NTROs)

• Applicable to some FoRs (as per the ERA 2023 Discipline Matrix).

• To identify trusted publishers for your research, use the Think. Check. Submit. checklist for journals, or the checklist for books and chapters.
• To identify trusted conferences, use the Think. Check. Attend. checklist.

Leonard, M., Stapleton, S., Collins, P., Selfe, T. K., & Cataldo, T. (2021). Ten simple rules for avoiding predatory publishing scams. PLOS Computational Biology, 17(9). doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009377

Xia, J. (2021). Predatory Publishing (1st ed.). Routledge. doi.org/10.4324/9781003029335

Is the publisher a member of:

• Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)
• Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA)
• World Association of Medical Editors (WAME)

What evidence do you have to trust the publishing outlet?

• Check the quality of the publishing source in major databases such as Scopus Sources, InCites: Benchmarking & Analytics, or Journal Citation Reports (JCR).
• Ask your supervisor and WSU authors.
• Look at the publisher's website. What else does it publish?

• Check the Library FAQs on What is a predatory publisher and How to avoid predatory publishers.
• Think. Check. Submit. provides further information about predatory publishing.

Contact your School Librarian for assistance.

If you select an open access journal from the Library Read & Publish Agreements, do the journal publisher's terms and conditions in the CAUL Read & Publish Agreement LibGuide align with your publishing needs?

In particular, check the publishing outlet's Terms and Conditions for:

• Eligible article types
• Acceptance date
• Other charges
• Whether Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be used
• Information for authors, including:
  • Author rights: Can you retain author rights? Can you choose a Creative Commons (CC) licence?
  • How to submit your article for open access publishing
  • Author identification: Authors will be identified as eligible for open access publishing by using Institutional email address, institutional affiliation, and IP address range. It’s highly recommended that you also provide your ORCID.

Review the 'information for authors' on the publisher's website, which explains the submission guidelines.

Use this information to find suitable sources that meet your publishing timeframe.

Does the publishing outlet meet your timeframe for submission? Note: The journal acceptance rate is a useful signal to prospective authors of the probability of acceptance of their manuscript.

This information should be freely available on the journal/publisher's website. Look for the ‘information for authors’.

For journals, look for Article Processing Charges (APC) and information about APC and operating costs which may apply to open access journals.

Does the publisher allow a particular version of your work to be made open access, e.g., postprint (AAM - Author Accepted Manuscript) or publisher version (VoR - Version of Record)? This information about sharing versions of journal articles provides a good introduction to 'Gold' and 'Green' open access, copyright, and what you can share.

If yes, this can mean more citations for your paper.

Note: Tools such as Jisc's open policy finder allow you to find publisher open access policies, publisher copyright and open access archiving policies on a journal-by-journal basis. However, it is always best to check the journal/publisher sites for accurate, up-to-date information.

The exposure of your research will depend on the outlet being easy to discover and access. Choose a publisher with a good track record of author support with regard to providing opportunities and resources to ensure dissemination of your work.

Consider these questions to determine how the publisher will provide support for the accessibility and visibility of your article:

• Does this publisher offer an option to make your work open access, and which models do they support?
• Does this option include a charge for publication, e.g., Article Processing Charges (APCs)?
• What is the expected turnaround time for publication? Is timeliness to publish important for your research?
• Will you receive an electronic link to share your published work with colleagues upon publication? (limited number of downloads permitted)
• Does the publisher offer alternatives to publish in languages other than English - if this is important?
• To what extent will the publisher provide promotional support for your work - if at all?
• Is there support for optimising the visibility of your work through recognised persistent identifiers (ISSN, DOI, ORCID)?