Assignment Title:
Open Access Assignment


Course:
GRAD 5124 - Research Skills for Graduate Students


Target Audience:
Graduate students at a college or research university


Last Updated:
2018


License for Reuse:
  

Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/


Suggested Attribution Statement:
“Open Access Assignment.” 2018. Course Assignment. Reused / adapted from an openly licensed (Attribution 4.0 International, CC BY 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) document created for the GRAD 5124 - Library Research Skills course, University Libraries, Virginia Tech. In Supplementary Materials for "Sustaining Graduate Information Literacy Instruction: A Case Study of Best Practices" Book Chapter. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/89332  


Assignment Description and Implementation Notes:


This assignment is a discussion assignment from the general Grad 5124 course shell. It is implemented as an ‘Assignment’ (in the Canvas learning management system). It is part of Week 11 - Authorship and Related Issues where students are engaged in thinking about their rights and options as an author. This assignment asks students to use the content and tools from the module to identify and review two open access journals in their field that they might target for article submissions, and select the one they would target first for submission of a manuscript. 


Be sure to enable upload capabilities for this assignment for many file types (.txt, .doc, .pdf, etc.), and/or provide an open text field for students to paste in their submission.


*Ulrichs Periodicals Directory is a recommended and linked tool in the assignment instructions, however this is a subscription resource so you will need to modify this portion of the assignment to use the link used at your institution or to remove it if you do not subscribe.
Assignment Title: 


Open Access Assignment




Assignment Text:


Instructions
Imagine this scenario: you have been hard at work on your thesis or dissertation, and some buzz has started to build around your work. After attending a conference where your ideas are getting some attention, you are encouraged by colleagues and mentors to publish your findings. You are considering doing so in an open access journal in your field. Identify two open access journals that cover your general topic area by searching in:
* The Directory of Open Access Journals (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
* Ulrich's Periodical Directory (be sure to filter your results for Open Access) 
You can only publish in one of the journals, and want to make sure that you select a high-quality journal with a good reputation. Based on what you found about each one, which journal did you decide to publish in an why? Remember to discuss the journal quality check indicators that we discussed in this module.
Assignment Directions - Write your response below. Include:
1) the titles of the two journals you selected to evaluate.
2) your choice of which journal you would submit your manuscript to for publication
3) an explanation of the factors that lead to your decision.