Get on the Case

The Case of the Questionable Content

Before you try a real case for yourself, let's walk through an example of detection process for an online journal ...

We are going to use the criteria from the previous section to evaluate the Journal of Chemical Education - is it what it seems?

The Investigative Process

There is a lot of information available from the Home Page so we need to focus our attention on some of the main elements.

1. Looking at the "About JCE" information

The contact details under "About JCE" provide a long list of names and addresses of the people involved in the publication of the journal, a good sign that it isn't just the output of an enthusiastic individual.

However the first contact address for subscription details is a PO Box in the US and the email is from a .com address, which doesn't give away many clues as to the authority of the publishers.

Further down the page though we can see that the Editorial Offices are all based in US Universities and the Publisher is based at the University of Illinois in Chicago. This is a positive sign that the information is being quality-assured by academics.

2. Checking out the URL

The address of the journal is http://jchemed.chem.wisc.edu/

.edu shows that it is based at an educational site which corresponds with the information in the About JCE section - another good sign.

3. Looking at the Content

This is where you find out what the resource is really about - is the academic level of the site appropriate for your needs, for example?

Looking through the menus of information the journal appears to offer a great deal of additional information and services. However unless your institution subscribes to the journal you will not be able to see the articles in the current or previous issues as this is a subscription-only journal.

4. Looking at the Subscriptions Information

This is where you can find the costs for individual or institutional subscriptions to the monthly print journal and additional online content.