This issue of accessing papers without a university affiliation can be a tricky one, but it seems to be getting easier.
There are plenty of established, reputable open access journals out there. The PLoS family of journals conduct quite extensive peer reviews these days, and many scientific societies are now publishing their own open-access journals (for example, the Ecological Society of America recently started “Ecosphere”). You can check on how long they have been publishing and their rankings at sites like this: http://www.scimagojr.com/index.php http://www.citefactor.org/journal-impact-factor-list-2014.html However, I tend to find it more efficient to search for articles by topic rather than by journal, and there are a lot of options for getting access to articles for free even if they were not published in open-access journals. I like using google scholar because the results often link directly to a full-text version. Sometimes the full-text isn’t available without paying unless you are on a campus or connected via VPN to a university system, but sometimes they are - the algorithm often finds papers that are freely available on a researcher’s website, through the journal itself, or in a paper archive. If this isn’t the case for the main hits page, you can click on the “all X versions” link under the name to check for other options. If nothing is available, you could check the authors’ webpages or email them to get the full text if the abstract - which usually is available - looks interesting enough (though that is obviously a lot more work). Some universities, including the University of California system, require researchers to make at least the last-prepublication-draft version of their papers public (UC uses http://escholarship.org/). I have also had good luck using ResearchGate (https://www.researchgate.net/home) to discover and access papers. It is free to sign up, and if you “follow” the work of people in your field the system will email you with publications you may be interested in. Then you can either just download it or request the full text from them by clicking a button. Emily Moran UC Merced On Sep 7, 2017, at 2:10 AM, Neahga Leonard <naturalistkni...@gmail.com<mailto:naturalistkni...@gmail.com>> wrote: If anyone has a list of respectable, legitimate, good quality Open Access Journals that would probably be of great benefit to many in this listserv. Many of us are not in the academic world, and our organizations cannot afford to criminally high cost of access to many journals, yet still need timely access to high quality publications, both for our own research and for publication of our findings. This is especially true in the conservation world, where more and more organizations have a policy of using only Open Access Journals in order to ensure that our information is accessible to others who need it or are merely interested in it. Those of you who use (publish in or read) legitimate Open Access Journals, please share your favorites with us. Neahga Leonard Project Director Cat Ba Langur Conservation Project Cat Ba National Park Cat Hai District Hai Phong Province, Vietnam neahga.leon...@catbalangur.de<mailto:neahga.leon...@catbalangur.de> [http://www.catbalangur.org/LogoCBLCP.jpg] There is not just a whole world to explore, there is a whole universe to explore, perhaps more than one. Personal Blog: http://writingfornature.wordpress.com/ On Thu, Sep 7, 2017 at 4:57 AM, David Duffy <ddu...@hawaii.edu<mailto:ddu...@hawaii.edu>> wrote: "To reduce the supply of papers flowing to predatory journals, we need to do a better job of educating trainees and faculty members about how to assess a journal's integrity. We need incentives and resources that will prevent scientists from sending real work to places that will not identify flaws or truly contribute to the scholarly literature. Several global funders have mandated open-access publishing. However, without guidance in selecting journals responsibly, this problem of irresponsible publishing is likely to increase. Science and society would be better off if we stopped the waste by cutting off the supply." http://www.nature.com/news/illegitimate-journals-scam-even-senior-scientists-1.22556?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20170907&spMailingID=54864391&spUserID=MzUwNzYwMDk5OTgS1&spJobID=1244089361&spReportId=MTI0NDA4OTM2MQS2 -- David Duffy Ph.D. Professor and Director 戴大偉 (Dài Dàwěi) Pacific Cooperative Studies Unit/Makamakaʻāinana Department of Botany University of Hawaii/Ke Kulanui o Hawaiʻi 3190 Maile Way<https://maps.google.com/?q=3190+Maile+WayHonolulu+Hawaii+96822&entry=gmail&source=g> Honolulu Hawaii 96822<https://maps.google.com/?q=3190+Maile+WayHonolulu+Hawaii+96822&entry=gmail&source=g> USA 1-808-956-8218
