The document summarizes the results of the DOAJ Ambassadors Project and plans for expanding it in the future. Key points: - The project recruited 11 ambassadors across Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East to promote DOAJ, evaluate journal applications, and advocate for best publishing practices. - Ambassadors reached hundreds of publishers, contributed to thousands of application evaluations, and represented DOAJ at various conferences. - Based on the success of the project, DOAJ plans to recruit more ambassadors in countries like Indonesia, Korea, and Japan to continue educating publishers.

1. The DOAJ Ambassadors Project –
Results and Plans for the Future
Presentation at the WCSTM & ACSE Annual
Conference, August 12-14, 2017, Dubai
lars@doaj.org
Thanks to Leena Shah, DOAJ Ambassador in India
for some of the slides

2. We are busy!! - Numbers (since March 2014 – 40 months)
New applications:
Accepted: 5315 – 40%
Rejected: 8104 – 60%
Applications handled per month: 335
Reapplications:
Accepted: 4246
Rejected: 2026
No reapplication provided (Journals removed): 2850

3. Current staff
• Managing Director (part time)
• Community Manager (full time)
• Editor-in-Chief (full time)
• 4 Managing Editors (2 FTE))
• 60+ Volunteers, based on 15+ countries,
working unpaid a few hours per week
October 1st 2015 Lars Bjørnshauge

4. Current staff
• Managing Director (part time)
• Community Manager (full time)
• Editor-in-Chief (full time)
• 4 Managing Editors (2 FTE))
• 50+ Volunteers, working unpaid a few hours
per week
October 1st 2015 Lars Bjørnshauge

5. The DOAJ Ambassadors!
• Facilitated by a one year grant from IDRC, Canada (,
11 DOAJ Ambassadors have been recruited to
– Promote DOAJ, evaluate applications and reapplications
– Promote Best Publishing Practice and raise awareness
about questionable publishing
– Covering Asia, Middle East, Africa & Latin America + 3
Ambassadors covering Russia and neighb. countries
• https://doajournals.wordpress.com/2016/06/
20/presenting-the-doaj-ambassadors/
Lars Bjørnshauge

8. The DOAJ Ambassadors!
• Facilitated by a one year grant from IDRC, Canada (,
11 DOAJ Ambassadors have been recruited to
– Promote DOAJ, evaluate applications and reapplications
– Promote Best Publishing Practice and raise awareness
about questionable publishing
– Covering Asia, Middle East, Africa & Latin America + 3
Ambassadors covering Russia and neighb. countries
• https://doajournals.wordpress.com/2016/06/
20/presenting-the-doaj-ambassadors/
Lars Bjørnshauge

9. DOAJ Ambassador Program - Overview
• DOAJ Ambassadors were selected among 250 applicants
from 11 regions/sub-regions
Africa - 4 , China - 3, Middle East - 1, India - 3,
Latin America – 1
• Since DOAJ is a virtual organisation with no physical office
space, Ambassadors operate from their region, with their
own work space and equipment.
*IDRC – International Development Research Centre https://www.idrc.ca/en

10. The DOAJ Ambassadors!
October 1st 2015 Lars Bjørnshauge

11. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
7IsPuOBfnbE

12. DOAJ Ambassador work profile
• Solicit good applications for journals to be included in DOAJ.
• Evaluate applications and reapplications that DOAJ receives
from OA publishers in the region
• Communicate & support OA publishers who wish to be listed
in DOAJ
• Advocate the use of DOAJ with publishers and academic
community
• Promote best publishing practices with regional publishers
and identify questionable publishing practices

13. • A five day workshop was conducted for selected Ambassadors
at Greece. Absentees attended a week of online training.
• At the end of the training Ambassadors created their
individual work plans for the next two months
• Ambassadors operated out of their region and continued with
reporting their progress and discussing plans with their
mentors
Kickstart of the Ambassador Program in
Crete, Greece

14. Work plans
• Evaluating applications and reapplications was one of the
core areas
• Promoting and advocacy of OA and DOAJ generated a lot of
excitement and eagerness from the Ambassadors. There
were no barriers on how much and what we could do

15. DOAJ Ambassadors participating in Open
Access Week 2016
China
India
Egypt
Algeria
Latin America

16. Representing DOAJ at OA Events
Conference Webinars
Leena at ICDL Conference
Poster Presentation
Ivonne at OpenCon Conference
Vrushali presenting at a
conference
Ina doing a webinar series at South Africa

17. Ambassadors – Blogs & Interviews
Leena’s Interview published in National
newspaper of India
Kamel’s Interview by Science Open
Ivonne’s radio interview with UAM Radio
(Mexico)

18. Achievements
Reached out to publishers which has not been possible before
the program:
• Team from China have connected with nearly 200
publishers/aggregators/Societies in the region to introduce
DOAJ and invite them to apply for inclusion
• Ivonne has contacted many publishers and given a talks
about DOAJ at these publisher meetings on at least 15
different occasions

19. Achievements cont.
• Policy changes:
The National Council of Scientific Research and Technology of
Algeria[DGRSDT] is one of the important OA journal promoter in
Algeria. Kamel ‘s meeting with DGRSDT resulted in the latter publishing
a recommendation that all Algerian journals become familiar with
DOAJ criteria and apply for indexing in DOAJ.
• Policy changes in the pipeline:
In response to the Approved List of Journals released by University
Grants Commission [UGC], Team India DOAJ wrote a letter of
recommendation to UGC to request that they include the OA journals
indexed in DOAJ into this list

20. More achievements
• Ambassadors have solicited hundreds of new applications
for journals to be included in DOAJ
• Have given advice to hundreds of publishers about best
publishing practice and about how to produce a good
application to DOAJ.
• Have contributed to the evaluation of thousands of journals
- new applications and reapplications.
• Have contributed to translations of DOAJ pages and flyers in
several languages.
• Have contributed to the translation of
ThinkCheckSubmit.org to more languages

21. The Journey
• Working with a global team and knowledge sharing amongst
team members from different regions
• Representing DOAJ as an Ambassador at webinars &
conferences is a privilege
• Team meetings in beautiful locations - Barcelona, Spain and
in Greece

22. The Journey continues..
• After the end of this IDRC-funded project, the Ambassadors
continue to work with DOAJ, some as volunteers, others
paid by DOAJ funds
• DOAJ plans to roll out similar volunteer Ambassador
programs to help educate journal publishers about best
publishing practices in countries such as Indonesia, Korea &
Japan.
• Workshop in Indonesia for selecting Ambassadors and
voluntary DOAJ-editors.

23. More Ambassadors in more countries?
 How does it work?
 Contacts are made to a relevant association/organization
(partner)in potential countries
 Agreement on the need for DOAJ Ambassadors in the
country
 A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) are developed,
agreed and signed by the partner and DOAJ.
 A workshop for training potential Ambassadors is planned

24. More Ambassadors in more countries
 The partner:
 provides potential candidates and secure funding of one or more
Ambassadors
 Arranges the workshop
 Supports DOAJ staff travel and time for the workshop by direct
funding, sponsorship or memebrship contribution
 DOAJ:
 prepare and plan for the workshop
 select participants for the workshop
 select the new Ambassadors

25. Thank you for your attention!
lars@doaj.org

26. Thanks to
all the Library Consortia, Universities and Publishers
and our Sponsors for the financial support to DOAJ!
DOAJ is entirely dependent on support from the
community
Support the work we do for publishers and for
Open Access!
https://doaj.org/support