Publishing
Identifying yourself - Managing your researcher profile
Think about the many forms a person’s name may take; is the author JK Rowling the same person as Joanne Rowling and Jo Rowling? More than 38,000 Americans have the name James Smith! Universities, funders and publishers worldwide now use ORCID (Open Researcher & Contributor ID) to differentiate between people with the same name by assigning individuals with a unique identifier. We recommend that you use researcher identifiers to link all of your publications. The following are free unique author identifier tools.
ORCID, which stands for Open Researcher and Contributor ID, is a free, unique, persistent identifier for individuals to use as they engage in research, scholarship, and innovation activities. ORCID is an author profile that connects you to your work, promotes your research output and allows others to discover you and your work.
- Ensure your work is discoverable
- Enhance discoverability of your funding history
- Automatic updates to your record as you publish.
ResearcherID (Thomson Reuters) – create and manage a professional profile, build an online publication list, measure performance with cited counts and h-index.
Google Scholar Citations – this author profile helps you keep track of who is citing your publications. Graph citations over time and calculate several citation metrics. Profiles can be made public to appear in Google Scholar results. Authors should check that publications assigned are correct.
Identify your affiliation
Remember to check our organisation name is listed correctly on all publications. We are South West Healthcare not SouthWest HealthCare, South West Health Care, South West Regional Healthcare, South West Regional Hospital, Warrnambool Hospital or just Warrnambool Base Hospital. We have seen all these used in recent years and they are just not right, it limits discoverability and does not look professional when the affiliation is incorrect.
Impact factor
Journal impact ratings measure the impact and prestige of journals. However publishing in journals with high impact factors may not guarantee the most relevant audience for a given piece of research.
Common journal ratings include:
- Journal Impact Factor (JIF) - Using Web of Science data, the JIF measures the average article citation frequency over a two-year period, and this measure is used to rank journals within subject categories.
- Eigenfactor
- Scimago Journal Rank (SJR) - Using Scopus data, the SJR is calculated with an algorithm where citations are weighted, based on the prestige of the journal they come from.
- H-Index - also used for author citation metrics. - A representation of the number of authors papers and the number of citations those papers have received. An h-index of 8 means that an author has 8 publications that have been cited at least 8 times.
Metrics Toolkit - Journal Impact Factor
Finding the right journal
When you have a journal article idea and are ready write a first draft, the first step is to identify some potential journals to publish in. Developing a publishing strategy can take a bit of time for the less seasoned researcher, but is worth the effort. Your strategy should include a shortlist of potential journals, we suggest 5 but you may need more. Finding a journal that is a good fit for your paper gives you the best chance of success when submitting for publishing. Consider journal quality, publisher reputation and the journal's acceptance rates. Target journals that are reputable, relevant to your field of research, and will reach your intended audience.
Questions to think about:- Audience - Who is your intended audience? Other clinicans, patients and consumers, general public or policy makers?
- Audience - Does your article focus on issues that are unique to Australia or should you consider an international audience?
- Where have similar studies been published? Check the references you have used in your article, this may offer some ideas. You can also use the tools below to help you identify suitable journals.
Journal finder tools:
- Elsevier Journal Finder Use the title and abstract of your paper or search by keywords to find Elsevier journals that may be suitable for your research topic.
- IEEE Publication Recommender Search by keywords to find IEEE journals or conferences that may be suitable for your research topic. You can also compare critical points such as journal quality indicators, acceptance rates, and time to review.
- JANE (Journal/Author Name Estimator) Use the title and abstract of your paper to find journals indexed by PubMed that may be suitable for your research topic. You can also search for collaborators, editors or other papers similar to yours.
- Springer Journal Suggester Search by keywords to find Springer and BMC journals that may be suitable for your research topic.
- Taylor & Francis Journal Suggester Use the abstract of your paper to find Taylor & Francis journals that may be suitable for your research topic.
- Wiley Journal Finder Beta Use the title and abstract of your paper to find Wiley journals that may be suitable for your research topic.
- Ulrich's Periodicals Directory - Ulrich's Periodicals Directory is a bibliographic database provides information on journals published throughout the world. It covers all subjects, and includes publications that are published regularly or irregularly and are circulated free of charge or by paid subscription.
You will need to consider the aim, scope and audience of the potential journals you’ve identified. The aim and scope of a journal cover why the journal exists, what it intends to achieve and who the journal is for, and most journals will list the aim and scope on the journal website.
Types of publishing
Open Access publishing
Publishing Open Access means making research available online for anyone in the world to read for free. This benefits the public who fund research, and benefits researchers by increasing their reach and impact. Many funders now require journal articles (and often the data they’re based on) to be published Open Access. Open Access permits any user to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full text of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any lawful purpose, without financial, legal or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. – CC by Australasian Open Access Strategy Group (AOASG)
https://aoasg.org.au/what-is-open-access/
Open Access published papers offer immediate and free access to the output on publication and often - depending on publisher practice - ahead of publication. Many journals provide access on a "free-to-read/free-to-cite" basis. Beware, some open access publishers require authors to pay to publish.
Typical publishing business models:
Traditional: - This is a fee-for-access publishing model.
Green: - Allow authors to place their articles and data in publicly accessible repositories.
Hybrid: - A publishing model that allow authors to pay a fee to make articles available ‘open access’ in a normally fee for access publication.
Gold: - Indicates entirely open access dissemination model where Article Processing Charges (APC) normally comes into the play (Paid Open Access). Pure Gold open access journals are not subscription based and only charge APC as a means of recouping costs. In some cases, the option simply consists of making the published version freely available from the publisher’s own server, without any other rights or permissions being granted. In others, material is still placed under an embargo.
Article processing charges (APC) can be expensive and a barrier to getting your work published.
If you have a university affiliation you may consider publishing in one of the OA journals listed in the CAUL guide. Contact your affiliated university library for assistance.
If you are publishing a case report, we provide an institutional fellowship code for BMJ Case Reports; which enables staff at South West Healthcare to submit case reports without paying an individual fellowship fee. Contact us for more details: swhlibrary@swh.net.au
Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
DOAJ is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. DOAJ's mission is to increase the visibility, accessibility, reputation, usage and impact of quality, peer-reviewed, open access scholarly research journals globally, regardless of discipline, geography or language.
If accompanied by a Creative Commons licence then readers may be offered the ability to re-use and repurpose content, with appropriate attribution.
Creative Commons licence
Creative Commons licences provide a standardized way to give the public permission to share and use your creative work — on conditions of your choice.
How can I use CC content?
When you find a work that has been released under a Creative Commons licence, you are always free to share, copy, and redistribute it in any medium or format.
Creative Commons licences allow creators to mix-and-match restrictions that apply to their works. You should check which terms apply to the works you want to use. The four different licence terms are:
- Attribution: You must always provide credit to the original author.
- Share-Alike: If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.
- Non-Commercial: You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
- No-Derivatives: You may not distribute modified versions of the work.
http://creativecommons.org.au/ CC by CreativeCommons.org.au
How do I find a good open access journal?
Directory of Open Access Journals (DoAJ) https://doaj.org/As part of its commitment to provide OA publishing opportunities for its researchers, South West Healthcare is currently transitioning many of its current journal-related deals to agreements allowing for no-cost Article Processing Charges (APCs) for open-access articles published in associated hybrid journals.
Publish Open Access in Wiley Journals
From 2026, South West Healthcare researchers can publish open access in Wiley hybrid journals, with no-cost Article Processing Charges (APCs).
This deal operates on a first-come, first-serve basis and is limited to 110 articles for participating Victorian Health Libraries (including South West Healthcare).
Note: The article limit may be reached before the end of a year, at which point the open access publishing element of the agreement will be paused until the beginning of the following year.
How does it work?
Eligibility requirements
- Article types that are primary research and review articles, including but not limited to original articles, case studies, reviews and short communications.
- Responsible corresponding author is an South West Healthcare staff member at the point of acceptance.
- Accepted for publication in a Wiley hybrid (subscription) journal on or after 1 January 2026.
- Author must specify hybrid open access by using the order workflow on Wiley Author Services.
- This agreement cannot be used to cover additional charges (e.g. color or page charges), which individual journals administer separately.
Steps to publishing
- Submit your article to an eligible hybrid journal.
- Once your article is accepted, register or log in to Wiley Author Services. Under My Articles, look for your article and click Manage Article. Look for "Article is eligible for Open Access coverage through your institution" message and click the "Select Open Access at no additional charge link".
- Confirm the funder you entered during submission, or select “I did not receive funding for this article.” Enter any grant details, if applicable.
- Confirm the affiliation(s) you entered during submission. Note: Affiliations are confirmed in one of two (2) ways. An automatic match - at which point an automatic prompt will display declaring that the "Article is eligible for Open Access coverage through your institution" - or through the manual adding of your affiliations on the Affiliations screen of the submission.
- When prompted, select “Yes, make my article open access.” SWH will be notified of your request.
- If your request is approved, you will receive a confirmation email. Your accepted article is then published open access under a Creative Commons license (of your choosing) on Wiley Online Library. If your request is denied, you will receive an email asking you to pay for open access.
Predatory journals
What are predatory journals?
A scam. Predatory journals are low quality or fraudulent journals which take authors submission fees but offer little, no, or even negative value in return. They typically do not peer review, proof read or provide feedback on articles. They are generally not indexed in databases, have no significant readership and very low impact factors.
How do I recognize predatory journals and publishers?
While open access has allowed more transparent access to research, it has also lead to an industry of fake or pseudo journals that exist for the purpose of generating revenue rather than further scholarship.
The best defense against being duped by a predatory publisher is a strong understanding of the publishing landscape in your own field. Be exceedingly wary of unsolicited calls for proposals sent to you via email. Reputable journals and conferences don’t make cold calls.
Avoid predatory journals by using the checklists from http://thinkchecksubmit.org/
For more information see our Predatory Journals guide. List of known predatory journals can be found here: https://predatoryjournals.org
Copyright
How can I retain my copyrights, and does that affect my choice of publishers?
In general, if your work is the result of your scholarly output, then you are granted automatic copyright. As the copyright owner of your work, you have the right to reproduce your work, publish it in print or electronically, make it available online, perform it in public, adapt it and broadcast it.
You also have the choice to assign or licence some or all of these rights to a publisher. Each publisher is different.
If you transfer your right to copyright means that you assign copyright to the publisher. If you wanted to do anything with your work (make it available on your website, provide copies to colleague, etc.) you will need to ask permission from the publisher. The publisher in turn may return some of the rights back to you to give you permission to use your work in different ways.
With an exclusive licence, you retain copyright, but grant certain rights to your publisher, and only this publisher, that state the exact conditions under which they can publish and use your work.
Example: The publisher Elsevier may have authors transfer copyright to the publisher as part of a journal publishing agreement and will publish as subscription articles. Alternatively authors can sign an exclusive license agreement, where authors have copyright but license exclusive rights in their article to the publisher and they choose to release the article as open access. Journals that have both open access and subscription models of access are known as hybrid journals.
With a non-exclusive licence, you give the publisher permission to publish the item on your behalf, while you retain the copyright. You can grant this permission to multiple parties. This means that you do not need to seek the permission of the publisher if you want to use your work in different ways, i.e. make copies, post on a website, deposit in a repository etc...
Start Writing
The website of your selected journal(s) will have instructions for authors…read and then re-read the instructions! Carefully format the paper exactly as required. Reading some articles published in the target journal can also help with working out the required format. An incorrectly formatted paper is likely to be rejected without review or sent back to be fixed.
Start with your study protocol from your ethics application. This becomes the bones of your paper: Intro, Background, Methods and part of the References. Ensure methods are changed to past tense.
Then write the Results – this is easy and mechanical. Then write the Discussion – this is the most difficult section. Do another literature search for new references.
Finally write the Abstract - if you have previously presented your work at a conference you can use this abstract as a starting point.
Select your keywords carefully - keywords help search engines and databases find your paper. Sometimes journals ask that you use MeSH terms as keywords. MeSH on Demand can help with this process.
Optimise your title, abstract and keywords - use keywords and phrases that colleagues in your field would use to search the literature, ensure that your title is clear and concise and includes your study design.
How long will the journal take to process my submitted manuscript?
SciRev reviews of the scientific review process for a given journal
American Psychological Association. (2010). The Publishing Process. In Publication Manual of the American Psychology Association. Washington, DC: American Psychology Association.
Copyright Act 1968 http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ca1968133/