Journals with High Impact Factor

There are also Open Access journals with a high impact factor, particularly widespread in the fields of medicine and life sciences – there are currently far fewer in economics and business studies. The best known are the two journals published by the Econometric Society, Theoretical Economics and Quantitative Economics.

When Open Access Journals Have a Bad Reputation

Occasionally Open Access journals have a bad reputation, because there are also black sheep among them. So-called predatory journals are a fraudulent business model operated by certain Open Access publishers: they appear to be fully fledged scientific specialist journals, collect the publication fees that are customary in the Open Access segment from authors, but do not carry out the editorial and journalistic services one would expect from a reputable specialist journal – such as a proper Peer Review.

You can find out how to recognise and avoid predatory journals in our detailed checklist at Recognizing and Avoiding Predatory Publishing. The ZBW has also compiled a handout on the topic of predatory publishing (PDF) for further orientation.