How many learned societies publish Diamond Open Access journals? – Ross Mounce

“To seek an answer to the question posed in the title, I sought out reliable data on open access journals. My first port of call was the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). Although DOAJ certainly isn’t a complete listing of open access journals, as is well documented in ‘The OA Diamond Journals Study‘ (2021), it will at least help provide a minimum bound answer to the question….

After casting the net wide for societies and associations, I ended up finding over 1600 journals which both charge authors and readers no fees (diamond) AND are associated with a learned society. For transparency, I have uploaded this list of society associated, diamond open access journals to github here. Edits, additions, and corrections to this dataset are very welcome….”

DOAJ at 20: Trusted

“This is the third and last event in the DOAJ at 20 series, where we are celebrating 20 years of DOAJ through themes ‘Open’, ‘Global’ and ‘Trusted’.

This event will be on the theme ‘Trusted’, where our moderator Joy Owango will host a discussion with our four speakers; Judith Barnsby, Dr Haseeb Irfanullah, Ivan Oransky and Ixchel M. Faniel. Topics for discussion will surround what it means to be trusted, and what variations of mistrust exist in scholarly communications. At the end of the discussion, there will be a Q&A, where the audience can ask any questions they have to our speakers. Dominic Mitchell from DOAJ will open and close the event, outlining what Trusted means for DOAJ.”

Statistical analysis of DOAJ-indexed Chinese open access journals and their charging policies

Abstract:  [Purposes] This paper aims to analyze the characteristics of DOAJ-indexed Chinese open access (OA) journals and their charging policies to provide references for the establishment of an article processing charge (APC) system for OA journals in China. [Methods] A total of 253 Chinese and English journals in China included in DOAJ were used as the research objects, and the time of inclusion, language distribution, publisher distribution, discipline distribution, and charging policies of each journal were collected from the journals’ official websites and DOAJ database by web research method. Then, the characteristics of the journals and their charging policies were analyzed. [Findings] The number of Chinese OA journals included in DOAJ is small, and the distribution of OA journals by discipline is uneven. The degree of intensification of OA journal publishing is not high. Chinese OA journals and Chinese and English OA journals still follow the traditional mode of charging page fees and the fees are generally not high. English OA journals have initially established APC charging rules. Different disciplines show differences in APC. [Conclusions] Strengthening policy guidance, enhancing information construction, improving journal service quality, encouraging Chinese researchers to debut their results in Chinese OA journals, and developing a charging system framework suitable for the development of OA journals in China will promote OA publishing development in China.

New criteria for special issues – DOAJ News Service

“There has been a proliferation of special issues recently. DOAJ is responding to concerns from the community by adding new criteria to its Basic criteria. After today, all new applications submitted must comply with them….

Journals that publish special issues or other content curated by guest editors must adhere to these additional criteria:

The Editor-in-Chief must be responsible for the content of the entire journal, including all special issues, which must fall within the scope of the journal
Special issue articles must have the same editorial oversight as regular papers, including external peer review, and be clearly labelled
Journals must ensure that guest editors’ credentials are checked and approved
The Editor-in-Chief or dedicated board members must oversee the guest editors
Papers submitted to a special issue by the guest editor(s) must be handled under an independent review process and make up no more than 25% of the issue’s total

DOAJ will not accept a journal if all content in the last year/volume is published as special issues….”

Celebrating 20,000 journals in DOAJ: the value (and cost) of maintaining trust in scholarly publishing – DOAJ News Service

“Today, the DOAJ team is happy to share a significant milestone with our community: the Directory of Open Access Journals now proudly lists 20,000 journals! This achievement is not just a number; it is a testament to our rigorous evaluation process and dedication to ensuring the trustworthiness and quality of scholarly journals in our index. For 20 years, DOAJ has been at the forefront of advocating for open access and facilitating access to reliable academic research. For the DOAJ team, this milestone reflects the tremendous growth of the open access movement and our commitment to transparency and best practice in journal publishing. As the number of journals increases, so does the potential for sharing knowledge, connecting researchers, and advancing science and scholarship.”

Sustaining DOAJ: our new support model for libraries – DOAJ News Service

“We are constantly improving our processes and systems but can no longer absorb the rising costs of providing our service with our current supporter models. We need to increase our income so we can continue to grow, handle the growing number of applications from journals, and support our questionable publishing investigations that are becoming increasingly resource-intensive….

Following our adoption of POSI and a pilot of the FOREST framework last year, we also want to simplify our complex funding models for libraries and publishers, enabling us to be more transparent to the community about who is funding us and with how much.

 

To address this problem, we have recently worked with Research Consulting on a sustainability review that involved conversations with the wider scholarly community to understand our value as well as recommending changes to our revenue models. We shared some reflections on this process and funding challenges for DOAJ and open scholarly infrastructures in general in a recent LSE impact blog. Over the next few weeks, we will be sharing and explaining these changes to the community and are beginning here with the changes we have made to our library supporter model for 2024….”

The story behind the journal: Physics Access – DOAJ News Service

“The journal is an international open access journal, established in 2020 by the Department of Physics, Kaduna State University, Nigeria. The journal publishes all Physics research, including interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary studies. The journal is mainly funded by the department, but has received some support from the university as well. We also get some funds through APCs, though we have one of the lowest APCs in the field….

Open access is the present and the future. It opens a lot of possibilities for journals like ours and researchers around the world, because it enhances visibility, makes the spreading of knowledge more accessible, increases the visibility of both local and international research and leads to citation impact advantage. However, the cost of publishing open access journals is a major concern and I feel there is a need for a continuous conversation about how to fund open access. But I am totally for open access. …”

DOAJ and Lyrasis Collaborate to Facilitate Library Support for Open Access

“The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and Lyrasis, two prominent players in the global scholarly communications landscape, are pleased to announce a new partnership that enables libraries to provide crucial financial support to DOAJ. This collaboration underscores the commitment of both organizations to strengthen Open Access and democratize access to scholarly research….”

Improving Student Journal Visibility via the Directory of Open Access Journals | Current Issues in Education

Abstract:  In this interview with Judith Barnsby, Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), we look at how student-run journals could enhance their visibility by joining DOAJ. We highlight the general and student journal-specific application requirements for inclusion in DOAJ, known challenges with the application process, and recommendations for student journals that want to apply. The interview is conducted by Mariya Maistrovskaya, University of Toronto Libraries, the Interviewer.

 

Who’s afraid of open infrastructures? | Research Information

“Joanna Ball, Yvonne Campfens and Tasha Mellins-Cohen underline the importance of non-profit infrastructure and standards bodies…

both COUNTER and DOAJ are essential components of the knowledge ecosystem – but new challenges arise and new organisations are needed to help meet them. In 2018 the idea for the OA Switchboard (https://www.oaswitchboard.org/) was conceived to allow publishers, libraries and research funders to easily share information about OA publications throughout the publication journey, synchronising data from a multitude of systems and processes that would otherwise have to be manually connected within each separate organisation.

What do these organisations have in common? We are all owned and led by our community, and we’re not for sale or for profit. We are foundational open infrastructure and standards bodies, operating behind the scenes with low budgets and limited staffing – none of us have salespeople, marketing teams, exhibition budgets or in-house technology support. We collaborate with one another and with bigger bodies like Crossref, ORCID and NISO to create the foundations on which much scholarly infrastructure relies.

 

And foundations is absolutely the right word: scholarly communications is an exciting and innovative space with new commercial and non-commercial services springing up almost daily. We deliver value through open infrastructure, data and standards, and naturally services and tools have been built by commercial and not-for-profit groups that capitalise on our open, interoperable data and services – many of which you are likely to recognise and may use on a regular basis….”

Boston Library Consortium joins the movement to support DOAJ – DOAJ News Service

“A new agreement was announced this week between the Boston Library Consortium (BLC) and Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).

This partnership will provide an avenue for BLC’s coalition of libraries in the northeastern United States to support DOAJ’s work to curate and index nearly 20,000 peer-reviewed, open access journals from around the world. As part of the agreement, seven additional BLC member institutions have pledged support alongside five long-time DOAJ supporters in BLC’s network….”

Increasing the Visibility and Impact of Nigerian Research: Upcoming Webinar on August 31, 2023 – DOAJ News Service

“This upcoming webinar aims to raise awareness among policymakers, scholars, and publishers in Nigeria about the importance of publishing research openly in local journals. Key highlights of the webinar will include:

Overview of the African Open Access publishing landscape for journals and books and the importance of Nigeria.
Open Access Advantages: Discussing the benefits of open access, enabling researchers to reach a wider audience without barriers.
Governmental Roles: Stressing why governments must adapt policies and reward systems that recognize local open access venues.
Criteria and Application Procedures: Explaining the application procedures for DOAJ and DOAB.
Q&A Session: Addressing questions from the audience….”