Dear Author,You may want to check the impact factor of American Journal of Optics and Photonics. The impact factor indicates the number of times an average paper in a journal is cited during a year. Therefore, the higher the impact factor, better is the journal ranking. You can find more details about impact factor here: https://www.editage.com/insights/categories/understanding-the-impact-factor & https://scientific-publishing.webshop.elsevier.com/research-process/what-journal-impact-factor/ .Regardless of whether your journal shows up on DOAJ, the impact factor can help you determine whether to Accept the journal’s invitation. 

Dear Author,Thank you for your query. You can check the following to determine whether the journal is predatory:-Are there spelling or grammatical mistakes or other questionable characteristics on their website or in the solicitation email?-Is the peer review process clearly stated on the website?-Does the website clearly state the publishing fees?-Is the journal indexed in databases that you use?-Can you easily contact the publisher?-Are the time-stamps of incoming emails consistent with the working hours of the reported country of origin?-Does the phone number have the correct country code?-Is the journal a member of the Committee on Publication and Ethics (COPE) or Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA) or listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)? The following free subscriptions may also help you identify whether the journal is predatory:-ThinkCheckSubmit.org-The Directory of Open Access Journals-The Committee on Publication Ethics-SCImago Journal Rank-Stop Predatory Journals

Thank you for your question. Open access (OA) refers to freely available, digital, online information. As OA scholarly literature is free of charge, you can view such literature on relevant platforms that host OA scholarly literature. R Discovery is an AI-powered mobile app that allows you to access the scholarly literature including a host of OA research. To answer your second question, OA research, like any other research, can be quoted in your article; however, you need to appropriately cite the article. Citing will allow you as the author to acknowledge the contribution of other writers and researchers in your current work.We hope this helped. Click on any of the articles below for more information on OA publishing:Why are researchers increasingly choosing open access journals?INFOGRAPHIC: The basics of open access publishingA young researcher's guide to open access publishing

Transformative journals (TJs) are journals that were previously only subscription-based but now offer an option for publishing open access (OA), with the aim to eventually becoming fully OA. For such journals, the author is given the option to choose “OA” or “subscription” at the time of submission.You may also come across instances where “transformative” and “hybrid” have been used interchangeably. However, there’s a slight difference between the two--- a TJ seeks to eventually go fully OA, whereas a hybrid journal offers both subscription and OA options for publishing and may not later become fully OA, choosing instead to remain a hybrid. For more information about these differences, you may refer to this infographic. On a separate note, we are not entirely sure what you mean by “What do I have to do if the author has an idea of submitting to such journals?” We are guessing what you’re trying to ask is how to determine if a TJ is the right journal for your publication. If that is what you intend, then I suggest that you first decide if an OA publication is what you are aiming for. The following resources may help you take an informed decision.A guide to open access...

What you have described is the typical modus operandi of predatory journals. They will make all kinds of threats just to extract money. We suggest that you do not pay even to have the paper withdrawn (or taken down, if published). Even if one can afford it, it is best not to spend a penny toward such fraud enterprises. Here are some options for you:Check if the fraud publisher has any grounds for threatening legal action. If you have not signed a copyright agreement, paid the journal to publish the article, or done anything against what is mentioned on their website, send a final email to them stating that you will take legal action if you do not receive a response regarding withdrawal within a time frame (say, a week). Confidently and firmly refuse to pay to withdraw, because payment for withdrawal is not mentioned on the journal website. The journal may or may not go ahead with publication, irrespective of your requests. Occasionally, you may even find your paper disappearing and reappearing in the journal’s issues. Duplicate publication is unethical, so you cannot publish the same article in a reputed journal unless it is taken down by the first...

It is a general practice for journals to collect publication fees before publishing research articles. If the invitation you had received had no specific clauses about any monetary bindings, there was no such agreement between both the parties, and no communication regarding the same within these 5 years, then demanding a fee after 5 years of publication of the research article can be considered unethical. However, we would suggest that you revisit any clauses that were laid down in the contract or documentation that was sent at the time of article writing before deciding next steps.  

Thank you very much for your question and for your endorsement of the assistance we provide! We are honoured by your trust.With regard to your question, one reason behind the feeling that ‘hybrid open access’ journals prefer authors to select the open access option, via the payment of an article processing charge or APC, is the possibility that journals receive compensation for these articles both via the APC and via the subscription that institutions also pay to access other, non-open access articles from the same journal. Thus, it’s possible that an author from a particular institution pays the APC for his article (possibly from an institutional grant), while his institution simultaneously pays the same journal a subscription fee to enable access to the subscription-only articles, leading to higher revenue for the journal from such articles. This is the reasoning that has prompted some debate around the hybrid publishing model.That said, efforts are being made to balance this so-called ‘double dipping’ by ensuring the two revenue streams are kept separate. It is an unfortunate fact that both transparency and complete information in this regard are not what they could be. Thus, the reasonable way forward is, as you have suggested, to...

Whether a journal is indexed in PubMed or not is not the only indicator of the legitimacy of a journal. The definition of “predatory” is no longer strictly delineated because of varying degrees of predatory or illegitimate practices in publishing.There are a number of indexing databases, but the fact that a journal on surgery is not indexed in PubMed is a bit surprising. Further, Remedy Publications, the publisher of World Journal of Surgery and Surgical Research, appeared on the archived version of Beall’s list of potential predatory journals (https://beallslist.net/). If your institution has access to Cabell’s white list and blacklist of journals, you could cross-check this there. According to the free Think.Check.Submit checklist, we could determine the following:Is the publisher name clearly displayed on the journal website? YESIs the journal clear about the type of peer review it uses? YES Are articles indexed in services that you use? NOIs it clear what fees will be charged? YESDoes the journal site explain what these fees are for and when they will be charged? YESDo they belong to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)? NOIf the journal is open access, is it listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)? NOIf the...

The first step in such situations is to request the editor of the dubious journal to remove your name. However, it is not very likely they will respond, as has happened in your case. Have you threatened legal action in your emails to them? In a strongly worded email, you could warn them that you are going to take legal action against them for misusing your name. You could add that you will also spread word about the situation on social media. If they still do not reply, you might have to go ahead and act on those threats!State this on your online profile: To protect your reputation and raise awareness among other researchers, it might be a good idea to state the misuse of your name by the journal on your personal website or online professional profile page. It could be in the form of a disclaimer that your name is being misused by XYZ journal, advising readers to not acknowledge your association with that journal.Harness the power of social media: You can post about this situation on your blog (if you have one), Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.Get legal help: Association with a predatory journal can tarnish not just...

The first step in such situations is to request the editor of the dubious journal to remove your name. However, it is not very likely they will respond, as has happened in your case. Have you threatened legal action in your emails to them? In a strongly worded email, you could warn them that you are going to take legal action against them for misusing your name. You could add that you will also spread word about the situation on social media. If they still do not reply, you might have to go ahead and act on those threats!State this on your online profile: To protect your reputation and raise awareness among other researchers, it might be a good idea to state the misuse of your name by the journal on your personal website or online professional profile page. It could be in the form of a disclaimer that your name is being misused by XYZ journal, advising readers to not acknowledge your association with that journal.Harness the power of social media: You can post about this situation on your blog (if you have one), Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.Get legal help: Association with a predatory journal can tarnish not just...