If you want to browse papers, book chapters, conference papers, and e-theses produced by Swansea's research community this is the place to go! Further information about the Research Information System (RIS) and the repository (Cronfa).
How do I choose a journal to publish in?
Use the comprehensive checklists provided by Think, Check, Submit.
You can also consider 'Readership, Rigour and Reach':
The Journal Impact Factor is a measure reflecting the annual average (mean) number of citations to recent articles published in that journal. However, it cannot be used as an indicator of the quality of individual articles or authors. In most journal volumes, one or two articles accrue a large proportion of citations, and the other articles in the volume pick up one or two each, so a high impact factor is no guarantee that your paper will get citations.
The journal impact factor and similar calculations are misleading in their claims and do not necessarily translate into more citations for your work. The best route for 'impact' i.e. getting your paper read and cited is for your paper to be solid, good science, and accessible to a wide audience.
The Quick Review Checklist is aimed at helping you to quickly review the terms and conditions (licence) of an AI tool that you are considering on registering to use. It takes you through ten key points to consider before registering with an AI tool and is aimed at keeping you and your organisation safe from problematic licence terms. Following recent advances in Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen AI) researchers are increasingly exploring how AI tools might be leveraged within the research cycle. The University provides approved access to the Microsoft 365 Co-Pilot which you can access via your University account.
Provide the name of the AI tool under review.
Describe the tool’s primary purpose and key functionalities. Indicate whether it is web-based or requires installation. If installation is required, consult your IT department, as there may be security implications.
You will normally need to prompt an AI tool which may be a mix of your own words and may also include the work of others. Some tools allow a user to upload their own items, detail here any information about how they store those prompts, files or use the data from them. Some tools discard the prompts and inputs, but others will retain this data and may also use it to further train the AI model. If they are retaining the prompts or inputs why are they doing this? If they are you need to consider carefully if that is okay. You are more likely to encounter intellectual property and data protection issues if they are retaining the prompts, files or data.
Specify any IP warranties you are required to provide. For example, if you (or your users) warrant that only content with appropriate IP rights will be uploaded, and this is breached, the vendor may seek damages.
Does the tool state that you (or your users) need to be the owner of the copyright/intellectual property of any content that is loaded into it or used as an input? If yes, this would restrict what you could input to the tool to content where you are the copyright holder or have permissions from the copyright holder for this use. Take a look at our Copyright guide for information about copyright.
Does it state that you provide them with a licence to use any content that you put into the tool? If yes, what type of licence is that? What purpose do they want the licence for? Do you (or your users) have the right to give someone else a licence for the content that you are loading into the service? Normally you would only have the rights to provide a licence to material where you are the copyright owner. You would not need to be concerned about this is the material was no longer in copyright. You also need to consider data protection issues. Consider how inputting and providing a licence may impact on commercialisation of the research or the ability to publish in your (or the users) preferred places of publication e.g. by prior disclosure which could prevent a patent application.
Does the tool give any restrictions on how any outputs that are generated can be shared or used? Detail that information here. Will you be able to use the tool for the purposes that you want to use it for with these restrictions?
Confirm whether the tool complies with the current UK Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Standard (WCAG 2.2 AA). This is a legal requirement for web services provided by universities. Do not assume that users will not require accessible services, as many individuals do not disclose disabilities.
Avoid licences that require you, as the licensee, to indemnify (protect) the licensor. Such clauses may expose you or your institution to uncapped legal liabilities e.g. an uncapped financial penalty. Typically, university e-resource licences involve the licensor indemnifying the institution. Licences where you indemnify the provider of the resource can normally only be agreed to and signed by a limited number of senior ranking staff in an organisation. Contact your IT procurement teams before agreeing to licence terms where you indemnify the licensor.
Does the licence comply with GDPR and UK Data Protection legislation? If not, or if it permits sharing, reuse, or resale of user data without consent, seek advice from your Data Protection Officer.
Summarise key findings from your review. If issues arise—such as non-compliance with accessibility or data protection standards, indemnification requirements, or copyright concerns—seek further guidance from your local IT procurement teams before registering for the service.
Reproduced under the terms of a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 licence.
Lisa Bird and James Barnett, Copyright & Licensing Team, University of Birmingham, 2025.
What are they?
Pre-prints are versions of your paper before it has been submitted to peer-review. The use of pre-print servers varies significantly between disciplines, being a well known practice in areas like Physical Sciences, and unheard of in others.
Posting a pre-print on a specific pre-print server or repository means your work has the potential to reach other researchers in your discipline and citations can accumulate, earlier. It is also useful to gather early feedback on the paper from your peers, before the official peer-review process of the journal you submit to.
Will my paper be scooped?
Pre-prints can actually help protect your work from being ‘scooped’. Most servers register papers on receipt enabling you to establish provenance should another similar paper be published after yours. Many pre-print servers enable you to add a DOI allowing you to keep track of your paper and its citations.
Author's accepted manuscript version (AAM): normally the final peer-reviewed article that has been accepted for publication but has not been formatted with the publisher’s copyediting, typesetting or final layout. The 2023 Research Publications Policy enables self-archiving of the AAM with a Creative Commons CC BY licence and a zero embargo period.
Published version of record (VoR) incorporating the layout and typographical arrangement of the publisher. You are not usually able to upload the publisher created PDF version unless:
Contact the corresponding author or your co-authors so that you can upload a copy within three months of acceptance. If you cannot obtain your final manuscript then we can apply a REF exception to your paper.
Non-UK authors may need an explanation about the UK HEFCE/HEFCW requirement that UK authors are required to deposit the final accepted manuscript (AAM) in their institutional repository. The AAM is the version of the article that was peer reviewed but is without the publisher's typesetting, volume number etc.
You need to be aware that many research funders and the Swansea University Research Publications Policy require immediate open access with a Creative Commons CC-BY attribution licence applied to the accepted manuscript (AAM).
Publish With Us
We are an institutional online publisher of Open Access electronic journals and scholarly digital editions. Our catalogue of titles allow readers to access and use the content free of charge under a Creative Commons licence. We are growing this service and welcome enquiries from Swansea University researchers considering starting an academic journal.
Contact: digitalhumanities@swansea.ac.uk for further information.
Discover how the DOAJ Open Access Journals Toolkit can provide guidance for new and established open access journals in the scholarly publishing landscape. The toolkit is also available to download as a PDF from DOI 10.5281/zenodo.8017032
Discover how the OASPA OA Journals Toolkit supports those wishing to set up an open access journal. Resource sections include 'Running an OA Journal' and 'Indexing'.
Our Titles
