Introduction to the Directory of Open Access

Journals (DOAJ)

Presented by

Tom Olijhoek DOAJ Editor-in-Chief tom@doaj.org

Ina Smith DOAJ Ambassador ina@doaj.org

Friday 12 August 2016

Agenda

• What is the DOAJ?

• What is Open Access? Who needs (Open) Access? Why Open Access?

• Mission of the DOAJ

• Required information for inclusion in the DOAJ

• Application & Evaluation process

What is the DOAJ?

• Directory of Open Access journals

• Launched in May 2003, Lund University, Sweden – list of 300 titles

• Centrally, publicly and internationally available community-curated database of high quality open access journal titles across all disciplines (scientific/scholarly)

• Aim: to be the starting point for all information searches for quality, peer-reviewed open access material

What is Open Access?Budapest, Bethesda, Berlin Conferences 2002-2003

http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/initiatives

Example DOAJ OA Statement

This is an Open Access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or

his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the

full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with

the BOAI definition of Open Access.

Who Needs (Open) Access?https://whoneedsaccess.org/

Who Needs (Open) Access?

• Scientists/scholars not affiliated with institutions

• Students in (high/secondary) schools

• Physicians

• Health care workers/practitioners

• Patient groups

• And MANY MANY more!

Why Open Access?

Jack Andraka- Tapping into the hidden innovator: an open access story

How Open Access Empowered a 16-Year-Old to Make Cancer Breakthrough

Why Open Access?

Why Open Access?

• (State) funded research should be available to all

• More exposure

• More citations

• More review / control post-publication

• Better quality science

• More efficiency - less double studies

• Everybody can participate in knowledge creation

• More use of innovation potential

• And more …

DOAJ Mission (1)

• Curate, maintain, develop reliable source of online open access (OA) scholarly journals

• Verify that entries comply with reasonable standards

• Increase visibility, dissemination, discoverability, attraction of OA journals

• Enable scholars, libraries, universities, research funders, others to benefit from information and sources

DOAJ Mission (2)

• Facilitate integration of OA journals into library & aggregator services

• Assist publishers & journals to meet reasonable digital publishing standards

• Support transition of scholarly communication to a model that serves science, higher education industry, innovation, societies, the people

• Collaborate with interested stakeholders

• From an unsustainable scholarly communication system to a sustainable scholarly communication system

Source: http://www.scienceeurope.org/uploads/PressReleases/270415_Open_Access_New_Principles.pdf

IndexingCopyright

Re-useSustainable

ArchivingMachineReadability

https://doaj.org/

Publisher/EditorApplies

DOAJ Main EditorAssess/ISSN

DOAJ Ambassador

Evaluates & Recommends

DOAJ Main Editor

Final Decision

Feedback to

Publisher/Editor

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1. Reject2. Approve

3. Approve & Seal

Evaluated

DOAJ Seal

DO

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Seal

Defining a High Quality OA Journal

• No access charges for readers/institutions (users)

• Users are free to “read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles published in the journal, or use them for any other lawful purpose" (See http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read)

• User cite/reference original source as always

• Peer-reviewed scholarly research articles as always

• Highly transparent, clear policies

• Licensing terms (CCL) & Copyright clear

Journals included in the DOAJ (1)

• Full Open Access (OA) (not Hybrid), peer reviewed

• One third scientific/scholarly publishing full text, original research/review papers

• All disciplines/subjects

• Sources: academic, societies, government, commercial, non-profit, private

• Level: researchers

• All languages (also where more than one applies)

Journals included in the DOAJ (2)

• No embargo, full text immediately accessible without barriers

• Print version can be made available at a fee

• Adhere to Principles of Transparency and Best Practice Guidelines as far as possibleSee https://doaj.org/bestpractice

Required information for inclusion in the DOAJ

*Basic requirement

Journal Web Site (1)*

• Dedicated web site per journal – journal specific web address - eg: http://www.samj.org.za/

• All journal content centrally available – not spread over various web sites

• Do not mimic other journal web sites

• Web site clear, concise, easy to navigate, transparent, up to date and correct content – high ethical and professional standards

• Language & grammar usage correct, spell check

Journal Web Site (2)*

• Visible links to business information

• Avoid distracting, offensive, irrelevant, moving, blinking advertisements

• Unique identifier:• Journal level (web address, Online ISSN)• Article metadata level (also DOI for each article) • Author level (eg ORCID)• Full text article level (pdf, html, xml, epub)

• ISSN (International Standard Serial Number)• Online ISSN*• Print ISSN

Journal Content *

• Clear journal structure for easier navigation, indexing, discoverability – less is more

• Publication date for each article• Publication year (also per volume/issue if applicable)• 5 articles per year• Start & end page number per article• Authors, affiliations, countries, ORCIDs• Articles arranged in Table of Contents• Search/Browse option• Links to Current, Archive/Past Issues

http://journals.assaf.org.za/ (OJS)

http://journals.assaf.org.za/ (OJS)

Journal Impact Factor (JIF)

• Thomson Reuters JIF against ethics and principles of OA• relates less and less to citation rates

• unrelated to individual article quality in a journal

• unrelated to quality of individual scientist publishing in a given journal

• Display of IF information on journal web page discouraged

• DOAJ question: download statistics on article level1. Corneliussen, S.T. (2016) ‘Bad summer for the journal impact factor’, Physics Today, . doi: 10.1063/PT.5.8183.2. Lariviere, V., Kiermer, V., MacCallum, C.J., McNutt, M., Patterson, M., Pulverer, B., Swaminathan, S., Taylor, S., Curry, S., de Montreal, U., @@, A., mmcnutt and Nature, S. (2016) ‘A simple proposal for the publication of journal citation distributions’, New Results, , p. 62109. doi: 10.1101/062109.3. The demise of the impact factor: The strength of the relationship between citation rates and IF is down to levels last seen 40 years ago (2012) Available at: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2012/06/08/demise-impact-factor-relationship-citation-1970s/ (Accessed: 11 August 2016).

Ownership & Management*

• Journal title unique – not confusing/misleading; alternative/former titles; abbreviated titles

• Avoid using misleading information

• Each journal unique, journal specific policies

• All business information about journal available from central web site for journal - not generic web site for publisher

Ownership & Management*

• Journal Management System/platform/host/aggregator eg: OJS, HighWirePress, EBSCO, ScholarOne, SciELO SA, Sabinet, AJOL

• Publisher

• Country of publication

• Society or institution owning journal

Editorial Office & Editorial Team *

• Editor/Editor-in-Chief/Associate Editor/Co-Editor

• Full names, Affiliations, Countries, Emails, ORCIDs

• Postal address of office, country

• Contact information: name/email/telephone

Governing Body*

• Editorial Board/Editorial Advisory Board

• Arts & Humanities allowed editorial review, 2 editors, no editorial board

• Members to be experts in field/journal scope

• Full names, Affiliations, Countries, Emails, ORCIDs

Aims & Scope*

• Emphasis

• Discipline/s

• Kind of papers

• Kind of studies

• What does journal want to achieve

• Keywords to describe journal

Author Fees

• Article Processing Charges (APCs)?

• Article Submission Charges (ASCs)?

• Manuscript Handling Fees?

• Galley fees, page charges, colour charges, etc.?

• Per article (incl. any taxes if applicable) – not per page

• Waiver policy eg for developing country authors

• Clearly visible for prospective authors – also if no charges apply*

Peer Review Process*

• Advice on individual manuscripts from reviewers/ experts in the field who are not part of the journal's editorial staff

• Quality control rigorous

• Process & policies clearly described on journal's web site

• Editorial/Peer - Blind/Double blind/Open

Instructions for Authors*

• Detailed style guide

• Description of quality control process (review)

• Copyright information

• Licensing information

• Plagiarism policy

• Instructions on how to submit an article

• Contact email address

Access & Usage

• Full text of all content available as Open Access, no delay/embargo*

• How accessible is journal & metadata to the rest of the world, harvesters/spiders (text mining), DOAJ

• Open Access for all articles, Choice Open Access (author), Pay per View (reader)

• Journal specific OA statement/policy*

• Differentiate between OA statement – Copyright -Licensing

Rights

• Recommend: author retains copyright without restrictions

• Recommend: author retains publishing rights without restrictions

• Recommend: no transfer of commercial rights to publisher

Content Licensing

• Conditions for use

• Creative Commons License or other

• Clearly described on web site

• Licensing terms on all articles, all versions (html, pdf, xml etc.)

• Embedded in article level metadata and machine-readable

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/

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Deposit Policy

• Journal policy registered with deposit policy directory

• Describes policy of journal on how different versions of articles published in journal can be shared online egto Mendley, repositories, personal web page and more

• Deposit Policy Directories: Dulcinea, OAKlist, Heloise, Diadorim, SHERPA/RoMEO

http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/index.php

Ethics & Malpractice

• Indicate steps to identify & prevent papers where research misconduct occurred• Unethical• Plagiarism (statement & similarity check tool)• Citation manipulation• Data falsification/fabrication

• See COPE Guidelines in dealing with allegations

• Plagiarism policy

Conflict of Interest

• Situation that has potential to undermine impartiality of a reviewer because of possibility of clash between reviewer’s self-interest and author’s interest (http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/conflict-of-interest.html)

• Policy

Transparency with regards to costs

• Revenue sources (eg author fees, subscriptions, advertising, reprints, institutional support, organizational support, sponsors)

• Advertising policy, types of ads, decision making on ads, ads linked to content or reader behavior/displayed at random

• Marketing: appropriate, well targeted, unobtrusive

Publishing Schedule

• Clearly indicate periodicity

• Annually, bi-annually, monthly, bi-monthly, continuous, etc.

• Average number of weeks between submission & publication

• At least 5 articles per year

• First calendar year in which journal available as OA full text

• No interruptions

Digital Archiving & Preservation

• Electronic backup• Cloud, disk, server, tapes, etc

• Preservation – Keepers’ Registry & PubMed Central• Portico• CLOCKSS• LOCKSS• PMC/PMC Europe/PMC Canada• National library• Open Journal Systems (OJS) – PKP Private LOCKSS network

• Not institutional archives or online publisher archive

Information on the DOAJ

• Home: https://doaj.org/

• About: https://doaj.org/about

• Publisher information: https://doaj.org/publishers

• Apply: https://doaj.org/application/new

• FAQs: https://doaj.org/faq

• Best Practice: https://doaj.org/bestpractice

Thank you for assisting withdeveloping

and building a database of

quality, peer-reviewed

Open Access journals!