Strategic publishing involves taking a systematic approach to ensure you publish in the most effective place and maximise success in your publishing endeavours. Your publishing record will have a crucial impact on your career if you pursue academia or research and can be a valuable addition to your CV if you choose to work in industry or government.
Planning your publishing strategy will help you to:
In this section of the Research Toolkit you will find tools to help you select quality sources to publish in, avoid predatory publishers, publish in open access and maximise your visibility and publishing impact.
Read:
Tress Academy Why you need a publishing strategy
Anne-Wil Harzing The four P’s of Publishing
Anne-Wil Harzing The four C’s of getting Cited
There is often a balance to be drawn between your obligations as a Curtin author with University reporting requirements and a need to promote your work for maximum impact. Where you publish your research findings can have both professional and institutional implications. Faculties and schools will have their own views on quality practices in relevant disciplines, and it is important that you consider these requirements when deciding how and where to publish.
The Australian Research Council (ARC) administers Australia’s national research assessment - Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA). The ARC is in the process of developing a new data driven approach for ERA and will not hold ERA evaluation rounds in 2023 or 2024. However, many of the resources developed to support the ERA evaluation are still available and provide valuable information for academics on where to publish. They can be sourced on the ERA website.
The ARC and ERA
Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) provides a national stocktake, by research discipline, against international benchmarks and identifies and promotes excellence across the full range of research in Australia’s higher education institutions. Considerations of ERA recommendations and procedures may need to be factored in when developing a publishing strategy. Resources such as the ERA 2023 Submission Journal List can provide guidance when deciding where to publish.
The ARC also administers the Engagement and Impact assessment (EI) which evaluates how well researchers are engaging with end-users of research, and how universities are translating their research into economic, social, environmental, cultural and other impacts. It has opened the gates to a whole new range of publication options, including blogs, social media posts and writing for The Conversation. These non-traditional forms of publication can now be tracked and counted using platform such as Altmetric Explorer and PlumX and can be an important part of your publishing profile.