mediaTUM is the media and publication repository of the Technical University of Munich. It offers you the opportunity to publish your Bachelor's, Master's, doctoral, postdoctoral, or habilitation thesis as well as articles and open access publications. You can also use the server to manage image and video collections as well as research data.

We support you in:

• Publishing your bachelor's or master's thesis [4]
• Publishing your doctoral thesis [5]
• Publishing your habilitation thesis [6]
• Open Access publishing [3]
• Research data management [7]
• Managing image and video collections [8]

Access to mediaTUM [8]
Help Pages & Documentation of mediaTUM [9]

Contributions to renowned conferences and publications in recognized scientific journals are the currency of science. For you as a researcher, it is crucial to make your research visible and to publish your findings. Unfortunately, this is what dubious organizers and publishers attempt to exploit through fraudulent publication and conference offers.

What are Predatory Journals?

Dubious journals, also known as predatory journals, pursue a business model in which you are offered to publish your scientific work for a fee, without a quality assurance process and editorial oversight expected from legitimate academic journals. Papers in such journals are often not indexed in key scientific databases, making them not visible to the scholarly community. Increasingly, predatory publishers approach (especially early-career) researchers directly by email, inviting them to submit papers. Such solicitations should be treated with caution!

Checklists and Criteria for Credibility

Identifying these black sheep of the publishing industry isn't always easy. If you are considering submitting to a journal that is unfamiliar within your professional circles, you should examine it carefully. Evaluation tools and checklists like Think.Check.Submit. [11] offer helpful guidance.

Directories and Evaluation Tools

If the journal in question is Open Access, check whether it is listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) [12]. Only quality-checked titles from trusted publishers can be found here.

Potentially dubious journals, on the other hand, are included in the blacklist Beall's List [13]. Before submitting articles to journals listed there, we strongly advise you to check your journal selection with utmost care.

Predatory Conferences

With the emergence of fraudulent practices in the publishing industry, many rogue publishers have expanded their business models to include predatory conferences. At first glance, such conferences may appear to be legitimate, scholarly events. However, they offer no real scientific value. These conferences are organized by companies whose sole goal is to make money with registration fees – exploiting both speakers and participants.

A checklist to help you identify questionable conferences is available at Think.Check.Attend. [14]

Consulting and Training Offers

If you would like to explore this topic in more depth, consider attending our course:

• Predatory Publishing Deep Dive – Identifying Predatory Journals and Conferences [15]

The Open Access Team [16] at the University Library is also available for individual consultations. If you’re unsure about a publication offer, we’re happy to conduct further background research on your behalf.

ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) [18] is a non-profit organisation, which provides unique identifiers (ORCID iDs) for authors. The ID allows to distinguish you from every other researcher – regardless of possible name variants or name changes due to marriage.

As a founding member of the German ORCID consortium [19], the TUM promotes the use of the ORCID iD and offers you the option to link your ORCID iD to your TUMonline account.

For more information on ORCID and the implementation of the ORCID iD at TUM please visit our ORCID webpages [20].