May 2015 Site Updates

A new column has been added to the main and OAJ-Only tables: “OP2P,” which stands for “Open Pay to Publish.” This column is being populated with data as it is discovered. An indication of “Yes” means that one has to pay in order to publish in the open journal, or at least to make one’s article “open” even if the journal is typically subscription-based.

The reason for adding the “OP2P” column is due to the goal of this site to make known all journals related to Ed Tech, even including journals that have a “Pay to Publish” option.  It is important to understand that a pay option is sometimes indicative of a “predatory journal,” but in other cases, the pay option comes from a journal trying to balance the quite real costs of journal administration, marketing, etc.

An additional revision is to the “Type” entries. Previously, there had been three designations: “Sub.” (Subscription-based journal), “Open,” and “z” (Discontinued). Some journals will now be designated as S/O, which indicates a blend of subscription-only and open journals. One such example are journals by Springer, such as ETR&D, which has an “Open Publish” option for authors. The cost of open publishing is exorbitant, but it is an option if authors happen to be awash in funds.

There have been minor aesthetic changes to the site, including the change of the appearance of “Light Box” link for the journals (now light gray and dotted) rather than blue. The “Light Box” link, which is connected to a journal name, is a pop-up window that appears with all column data for a given journal. This is handy if one toggles off multiple columns (except journal name) and one still wishes to see some information about the journal.

A new journal has been added to the site, Journal of Education and e-Learning Research (JEELR). It is added in the spirit of inclusiveness, but prospective authors should take caution. For the moment it will not be designated as a “predatory” journal, but there are a number of factors besides the “pay to publish” option (listed at $50 US) that make it somewhat suspect. If any here feel that the practices of the journal violate professional ethics, please contact us and we will remove the journal from the list.

 

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