Presentation by Dr Tom Olijhoek, Editor-in-Chief, at NEICON/ASEP Conference, May 17, 2016, Moscow, on the status of DOAJ post the shut-down of the reapplication project

1. DOAJ as a Gatekeeper
for Quality
Open Access Journals
Presentation at NEICON/ASEP Conference
May 17, 2016, Moscow
tom@doaj.org
Editor-in-Chief DOAJ

2. •DOAJ was founded at Lund University – launched
May 2003 with 300 journals
Basic demand then: A list of Open Access Journals
•And has been developing into:
The authoritative go-to point for finding peer-
reviewed scholarly journals not based on the
subscription model

3. THE MISSION…
Changing an unsustainable scholarly communication system in ways
that it can serve science,
our societies
and the people
on a global scale

5. Actual Status of DOAJ
• DOAJ currently lists 8,820 journals
• 6,113 journals are searchable at article level
• 3,300 journals have been removed after having failed to reapply for inclusion
• 4,400 journals have submitted a reapplication
• About 50 % of new applications get rejected

6. Journals removed from DOAJ

7. Actual Status of DOAJ
• DOAJ currently lists 177 journals from the Russian Federation
• 42 journals have failed to reapply before the deadline
• 42 have reapplications submitted
• More than half of reapplications employ non-CC licenses
• often they are contradictory in terms of copyright and usage conditions
The situation in the Russian Federation

8. Given reasons for being listed in DOAJ!
• Increased visibility : 97%
• Increased traffic : 85%
• Prestige : 86%
• Certification : 87%
• Eligibility for support from OA-publication funds: 64%
• Better promotion : 80%
• Increased submissions : 72%

9. Are open access journals more linked to
bad publishing than supscription journals
• Not all subscription journals are in Scopus only 10-20,000 of
100.000
• Not all open access journals are in DOAJ only 8 -10,000 of 35,000
• No scientific evidence for the thesis
• But open access has more exposure
• Elsevier, Wiley and others are publishing new OA journals every
week

10. October 2013
February 201
We need Quality
control

11. Ways of Quality Control
Impact assessment ImpactStory
Article quality peer-review
Journal Quality DOAJ
User Feedback Beall’s List

12. More and tighter criteria for…
• Openness
• Scientific quality
• The Delivery of Technical Quality

13. Basic DOAJ Criteria
• Basic Journal Information
• Quality and Transparency of the Editorial Process
• Openness of the journal
• Content Licensing
• Copyright issues

14. The DOAJ SEAL
The best you can get!
To qualify for the Seal the journal must:
1. have an archival arrangement in place with an external party (Question 25). 'No policy in
place' does not qualify for the Seal.
2. provide permanent identifiers in the papers published (Question 28). 'None' does not
qualify for the Seal.
3.provide article level metadata to DOAJ (Question 29). 'No' or failure to provide metadata
within 3 months do not qualify for the Seal.
4. embed machine-readable CC licensing information in article level metadata (Question 45).
'No' does not qualify for the Seal.
5. allow reuse and remixing of content in accordance with a CC BY, CC BY-SA or CC BY-NC
license (Question 47). If CC BY-ND, CC BY-NC-ND, 'No' or 'Other' is selected the journal will
not qualify for the Seal.
6. have a deposit policy registered in a deposit policy directory. (Question 51) 'No' does not
qualify for the Seal.
7. allow the author to hold the copyright without restrictions. (Question 52) 'No' does not
qualify for the Seal.
One cannot apply for the Seal. The Seal is awarded based on the information provided in the
application. If you have any questions about any of the qualifiers, contact us.

15. • In current scholarly publishing there are no market
mechanisms, no competition
• This allows publishers to steadily increase prices way above
inflation
• The high profits attract questionable publishers
• It prevents reseachers access to knowledge
• It leaves major parts of the world out of the loop
The Main Problem...

16. To change the publishing landscape we need to
…
• Foster competition in scholarly publishing
• Develop new publishing channels
• And make those attractive by offering excellent infrastructure
services
• Have a change in scientist mentality with regards to open
access and open science
• Have better ways to pinpoint questionable publishers

17. • Researchers will be rewarded based on What they publish
• the actual content
• Researchers will be evaluated based on How they publish
• whether it is open and reuseable or not
• Researchers will be credited for societal impact of their work as
measured by new metrics
This can only happen when…

18. • More and much stronger funder and institutional mandates
• Radical changes in the research evaluation system and
incentives for researchers to publish in the open!
• Professional infrastructure services for Open Access
• Criteria for discovery of questionable publishers
In Summary we need …

19. Infrastructure Needs
• Authors (and their advisors): want tools to choose reputable (open access)
publishing channels
• Funders and institutions: determine which publishing channels comply with
their requirements
• Managers of OA-publication funds: wants guidance for selecting eligible
publishing channels for supporting APC-payments
• Scholarly Communication Researchers want access to data to support their
research

20. Infrastructure Needs
•Publishers want (and appreciate)
Certification / Prestige
Eligibility for support from OA-publication funds
Increased visibility
Increased traffic
More submissions
Better promotion

21. Overview of services for Open Access
(Knowledge Exchange Report jan 2016)
http://repository.jisc.ac.uk/6269/10/final-KE-
Report-V5.1-20JAN2016.pdf .

22. Examples of Services
• Journal Indexing services: PMC, DOAJ
• Policy indexing: SHERPA, ROARMAP
• Archiving services: LOCKSS
• Repository indexing: OpenDOAR,ROAR
• Identification: ISSN, DOI, ORCID
• License conditions: OAS, HowOpenIsIt, QOAM
• APC information:OpenAPC-de
• Implementation OpenAccess: EIFL
• Publishing Platforms: OJS, OLH, AJOL, SCIELO
• User curated Services: Beall’s List
Open Access Button
Think Check Submit
Open Access Spectrum

23. Support services
offered by DOAJ
• DOAJ offers support for choosing journals with approved and checked
open access policies
• DOAJ only lists journals with good publishing practices
• DOAJ offers insight in publishing licenses used
• DOAJ offers data on copyright conditions
• DOAJ offers data on APC use in journals
For Authors’/ Funders

24. Support services
offered by DOAJ
• Access to full text articles in many disciplines
• Web search interface
• API search
• API search widget
• DOAJ offers API for metadata uploading to publishers
For Readers/ publishers

25. Problems with Services
addressed by Dutch Presidency Conference on
open science Amsterdam april 4-5, 2016
• Different organizations
• Little coordination
• Funding depending on charity
• Lack of integration
Need for sustainable funding for essential services (DOAJ,SHERPA
Proposal to install coordinating body:
Organizing funding, integration of services,quality monitoring
Ideas from the conference

26. Future possible services by
DOAJ
• Integration of Open Access Spectrum tool
How Open Is It detailed insight in open access licensing and copyright
conditions
• Online Help for funders in checking which journals comply with Funder
policies
• Meta data harvester will allow access to more full text articles from a larger
number of journals
• Active help for authors to choose where to publish
• Help for authors on how to avoid questionable publishers
• Access to more journals from the global south

27. Thank you for your attention!
tom@doaj.org
lars
lars@doaj.org