Exploring the Landscape of Open Access Journals of Education: A Study of SJR Indexed Journals

Abstract

Journals are a major source of academic scholarly communication. Over the period there has been enormous growth in the publishing industry especially with invent of ICT. Publishing houses are establishing infrastructure based on ICT technologies for publishing. The online publishing phenomenon became more popular during the early nineties. This resulted in setting up online Journals popularly referred to as e-Journal. Many print journals also started an online version of the print journals. This benefited the readers as they can now browse the older issues (archived issues) as well. This supported the 24x7 availability of journals across the globe. During early 2000, with the invention of Web 2.0 technologies, it became easier for individuals to publish their literary works also. However, sooner this situation turns out into a menace, and the new generation of paid journals popularly known as “predatory Journals” emerged. A predatory journal is a journal that charges for publishing the article. These types of journals often lack peer reviews, editorial boards, and general publishing ethics. The study is an effort to understand the publishing landscape of the OA journals through examining the various publishing parameters.The study has resulted in the identification of 184Scholarly Online Open-Access (OA)e-Journals for the faculty members and research scholars of the Education discipline.