Turkish and Chinese speakers needed

DOAJ uses a network of 100 skilled, voluntary Associate Editors and Editors who spend a few hours a week processing new journal applications for us. 

We are looking for new volunteers who speak either Turkish or Chinese. 

You do not have to be a native speaker. You must be able to write and speak English.

As a DOAJ Associate Editor, you will be expected to do a few hours of voluntary, unpaid work a week. We will give you training. You will be supported by an Editor and a Managing Editor. 

The work you do directly contributes to the quality, reputation and prominence of DOAJ and of open access around the globe.

To apply

Please complete this form.

Applications are open to anyone with the requested languages skills. If you are associated with a journal that is in DOAJ or has applied to DOAJ then you must declare your conflict of interest in the application form.

Requirements of the Role

You must have:

  • good knowledge about open access (OA);
  • good knowledge about developments in scholarly publishing;
  • a working understanding of OA publishing practices.

In your work you must:

  • assist in evaluating journals suggested to DOAJ in your specialist language;
  • keep details of applications confidential;
  • be confident working online;
  • have stable access to the internet;
  • support and promote DOAJ and its goals;
  • be a DOAJ advocate;
  • respect the terms of our privacy policy.

Thank you for considering volunteering for DOAJ!

(This blog post will be updated when we have filled the positions and the application form will be closed.)

Myth-busting: article content will appear in DOAJ once a journal is accepted for indexing

This is a myth.

Unlike some other indexing services, if a journal is accepted into DOAJ, we won’t automatically go and collect published content. Publishers have to send the content to us, either via our API or as XML.

Getting a journal accepted into DOAJ is a great feeling and it ensures that the metadata about your journal, its practices and publishing qualities will be integrated into many other discovery services. However, there is one extra step which should be done to really improve your journal’s impact: article metadata should be uploaded to us.

DOAJ has never gone out and collected metadata from journal websites and we have always relied on publishers providing it to us. The reason for this is simple: we simply don’t have the resources to build the many integrations that would be needed to pull published content from the thousands of journals in DOAJ.

JSON or XML, manual or automated?

There are several ways in which metadata can be provided to us, some of them more automated than others:

  1. Our API allows publishers to connect to DOAJ and send us JSON. This is highly automated.
  2. Publishers on the OJS platform–of which there are many with journals in DOAJ–are able to use a DOAJ XML plugin that the good people at PKP have created. This is semi-automated.
  3. There is an option to upload XML to us via your DOAJ account. You don’t need to upload one article at a time. You can upload as many as you like in one file, as long as the file is less than 250Mb. And you can send us DOAJ XML or Crossref XML.
  4. You can use our article metadata input form and input the article metadata by hand.

If your journal is part of a larger publishing platform which provides discovery services to you, ask them what options they can offer for getting your article metadata into DOAJ.

Any questions, or if you need help with sending us your metadata, leave a comment here.

Here is why you should apply for your open access journal to be indexed in DOAJ.

At DOAJ, we index and promote the value of quality, peer-reviewed open access journals. By reviewing journals according to a set of criteria, and helping journals to meet those criteria, we set the international standard for open access. The data that we collect is incorporated into discovery systems all over the world.

The steady growth of DOAJ reflects the global growth of open access, where open access becomes the default, sustainable model for scholarly publishing.

So why should you apply for your journal to be indexed in DOAJ?

Inclusion in the world’s most important open access service
We are the most important community-driven, open access service in the world. We index 15,000 open access journals from 133 countries, in 77 languages, and cover 300 subject areas. All journal applications are reviewed by our team of staff and volunteer editors to ensure they meet a set of quality standards.

Service
By indexing your journal with us, we can help you to serve your audience better. Authors and librarians assisting researchers need to be able to find information about your journal quickly and easily. Our basic criteria are designed to help you display certain information on your website clearly and transparently.

And we do all of this for free. There is no charge to submit an application; there is no charge to have your journal reviewed; there is no charge to have your journal and article metadata indexed.

Standards
We will help you adopt a range of ethical and quality standards, making your journals more attractive publishing channels. These standards operate as indicators to your users that your journal is serious in its mission.

We tackle the problems of unethical practice head-on by using an expert team of reviewers. We are fully engaged and committed to combatting questionable publishers and questionable publishing practices, helping to protect researchers from becoming trapped by these journals.

International support
We operate globally via a network of Ambassadors and volunteers, and we try to offer local support in your language whenever possible. It also means that we, as an organisation, have greater insight into how scholarly publishing works where you live. This allows us to be aware of the challenges and opportunities offered by the generation of scholarly knowledge around the world.

Discoverability
If your journal is accepted for indexing with us,  information about it and any article abstracts that you load to us will be incorporated into discovery services (see below) all over the world. This increases traffic to your website and therefore the visibility of your published content. Levels of traffic to a journal website typically increase threefold after inclusion in our index. Your journal website’s indexing in search engines, such as Google, will also improve.

Metadata reuse
Our metadata is free for anyone to use and re-use which means it is pulled into search engines and discovery services. We know that the following services take our metadata:

Web of Science
Scopus
Primo
Summons
EBSCO
Google
Google Scholar
OCLC
WorldCat
Dimensions
… and many more!
We also know that academic libraries and research institutions use our metadata. 75% of all the traffic to our website is referred, showing that many systems link to us. Usage is also generated by the use of our widgets, RSS feeds, API and other services.

Access to funding
Open access publication funds often require authors to publish in journals that are indexed with us. For example in Poland, researchers will not receive funding from the National Science Agency (NCN) if they don’t publish articles in journals indexed in DOAJ.

Compliance with publishing initiatives
Certification in DOAJ makes your journal compliant with regional and local initiatives such as Plan S for Europe, or Capes/Qualis in Brazil.

We are hiring! Freelance Marketing and PR Officer

DOAJ is looking for a freelance Marketing and PR Officer to start immediately. The Marketing and PR Officer role is a part-time role, working remotely. The maximum number of hours per week is 30.

Why are we looking for a Marketing and PR Officer?

DOAJ is the world’s only free, independent, community-curated, online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. Our uniqueness makes us stand out from the crowd and we have a powerful reputation that we want to build on. Our name is our brand and, more and more, people recognise it and associate it with quality, open access content. However, DOAJ is also 17 years old and, as with many organisations, there are myths and untruths about us that we believe can be corrected through an effective PR communications strategy.

DOAJ must become the website to refer to for researchers who are looking for peer-reviewed, open access content. We are also known as an advocate for openness. We want to make sure our name becomes synonymous with these points and that the messages which we publish reflect them.  Within organisations around the world, we want to get the attention of those responsible for managing content discovery and electronic resources.

DOAJ is a non-profit organisation which relies on voluntary financial support. We need to be better at communicating our value to both existing and prospective supporters to ensure their support and our continuing survival as a vital service for the open access community.

The main duties

The main duties of the Marketing and PR Officer are:

  • Marketing strategy
    • Develop and implement a marketing strategy to improve DOAJ’s presence and reach across communication channels and online and industry events
    • Continue to develop and grow the DOAJ brand
    • Work with web and graphic designers
  • External and internal communications strategy:
    • Develop and implement an external comms strategy including:
      • Communications to stakeholder groups about changes and developments around strategy, editorial policy, new features and functionality, funding, governance, partnerships
      • Tailored messages appropriate for each stakeholder group: libraries/librarians/consortia, publishers, discovery services (aggregators, search engines, portals), researchers, funders
    • Develop and implement an internal comms strategy including:
      • Keeping internal groups informed on organisational developments: management team, editorial team, ambassadors, volunteers
      • Advise colleagues on communication style where appropriate
  • Creating press releases and online content, using clear, plain English
  • Developing and implementing a social media strategy
  • Identifying opportunities through new strategic partnerships
  • Maintaining DOAJ’s presence and profile in publications, newsletters, blogs, and platforms where debate and discussion about open access happens
  • Dealing with enquiries from supporters, the press, and other organisations
  • Reporting and analysis
  • Representation and promotion of DOAJ and its values online and in person, at conferences, and in meetings

The qualities and skills we are looking for

  • You must have at least five years’ experience in internal and external communications, marketing and PR,
  • You must have experience of scholarly communications
    • we’re particularly interested in speaking with you if you have worked with academic libraries or research funders.
  • This is a new role at DOAJ so we are looking for an experienced leader:
    • we have a good idea of what we want to achieve but you need to get us there.
    • we need someone who is an all-rounder; someone who can think strategically and implement tactically.
  • You need to be analytical and be able to tease out the history of DOAJ and how we work to identify our strengths and weaknesses.
  • We are looking for someone who is a self-starter and has initiative.
    • You need to be able to identify new opportunities and grow your ideas into reality.
  • As a global organisation, it would be preferable if you have some experience of how scholarly communications work outside of North America, Australia and Europe.
  • As we work remotely, it is vital that you are independent but aren’t afraid to check in regularly and ask questions.

What else is required of the Marketing and PR Officer

In order to carry out your duties effectively, you must:

  • Be a graduate or have some form of further education
  • Be able to create and edit basic HTML and markdown
  • Be able to create or manipulate images to support online and social media content
  • Be fluent in spoken and written English. (Fluency in other languages too is a bonus.)
  • (Under normal circumstances) be able to travel to meetings and industry events, including two DOAJ Team meetings a year, usually held in Europe
  • Able to work with Google Apps for Business, Google Analytics, Slack, Mailchimp, SurveyMonkey and other project management tools where necessary
  • Be available for meetings/contact with the DOAJ team at some point during the hours of 9 am and 5 pm UTC, Monday to Friday (Apart from that, you are expected to manage your own schedule)
  • Have a good, solid and reliable internet connection
  • Be used to conducting and attending online meetings using Google Meet, Zoom, Skype etc

Diversity

DOAJ is an adopting organisation of the C4DISC Joint Statement of Principles and strives to improve diversity and inclusion in scholarly communications.

Hourly rate

The hourly rate for this role will be calculated based on your experience and geographic location.

Start date

We are looking for someone to start immediately. We envisage a start date, allowing for interviewing and summer holidays, of no later than 1st September 2020 but we are willing to wait for the right person.

Questions

If you have questions about the role described here, about working for DOAJ or about the application process, please send an email to Dom Mitchell, dom@doaj.org.

How to apply

To apply, send a covering letter and a copy of your CV to Dom Mitchell, dom@doaj.org, by 14th August 2020.

A PDF version of this announcement is available.

Third update on changes to our API coming in Q3 2020

Progress report on the changes coming to the API in Q3 2020
This is the THIRD update about changes to the API which will go live in September 2020. The first and second updates are also available.

  1. We will be releasing a version 2 of the whole API. All the URLs that you currently use for the API are of the form “/api/v1/{endpoint}”, these will all become “/api/v2/{endpoint}”
  2. The API routes for “/api/v1/articles” and “/api/v1/articles/{article_id}” will continue to work, but they will respond with a permanent redirect to “/api/v2/articles” and “/api/v2/articles/{article_id}”. You should not have to change your article upload integration at all during this API upgrade, though you should strongly consider moving from the v1 to v2 URL routes.
  3. The data model for Journals and Applications is changing, quite significantly. This will affect all Application CRUD interfaces, Journal retrieve and Journal/Application search APIs.
  4. Attached are two files, OutgoingAPIJournal.md.txt and IncomingAPIApplication.md.txt, which show the data models of the Application and Journal models as they will appear in the new API. Full documentation is not quite done yet, but these provide a preview of the new models.

Any questions, please ask them here or email me: dom@doaj.org

Diamond Open Access study commissioned by cOAlition S

Please, help us get to know the open access journals and platforms that are free for readers and authors.

We are pleased to invite you to fill in a survey dedicated to gaining in-depth understanding of open access journals that don’t charge author-fees, often known as the “diamond model”; journals that are free to both readers and authors.

This survey is part of the Diamond Open Access Study commissioned by cOAlition S and intends to explore and deepen our understanding of collaborative non-commercial publishing models for Open Access.

We need to assess the depth and breadth of OA diamond offerings across the globe, and we need to make the case for this kind of OA if we are to gain stronger support from funders.

The survey will be open until the 25th of August 2020

Take me to the survey (English version).
There are translated versions of the survey as well:

DE : https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/GZQDBT5?lang=de
FR : https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/GZQDBT5?lang=fr
IT : https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/GZQDBT5?lang=it
ES : https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/GZQDBT5?lang=es
PT : https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/GZQDBT5?lang=pt

Rationale

The landscape of open access journals and platforms that do not charge authors to publish is broad and diverse. These journals and platforms serve specific research areas in different languages, and are attuned to local or regional needs specific to various publishing cultures.

This variety results in a multi-faceted publication offering that is often characterized by a lack of connection and collaboration between publishers. This, in turn, can result in the unintended duplication of efforts or inefficiencies. This survey aims to draw a more complete picture of the diamond journal and platform offering to identify concrete ways to coordinate and support this sector in the future.

Objective

We plan to gain a deeper understanding of this landscape and bring greater visibility to it. Furthermore, we will provide insights that will help Coalition S and other stakeholders develop effective policies and funding mechanisms that more strategically support this sector.

How you can help

  • If you belong to the scientific or editorial team of a journal, you can take the survey  on behalf of your journal: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/GZQDBT5

  • We’d like to ask you to disseminate this message to your community to increase our outreach to as many quality journals as possible. This message is available in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese.

Contact
If you have any questions, please contact us: operas@operas-eu.org

About us
The study is commissioned by cOAlition S, a group of national research funding organisations, with the support of the European Commission and the European Research Council (ERC), committed to making full and immediate Open Access to research publications a reality.

The Consortium is coordinated by OPERAS, the infrastructure for open scholarly communication for SSH in Europe. Its partners in this study are: SPARC Europe, Utrecht University, DOAJ, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, LIBER, OASPA, ENRESSH, Redalyc-AmeliCA and the CSI.

Introducing the Editorial Subcommittee

DOAJ has created an Editorial Subcommittee to provide input into and advice on editorial issues around process and content quality, issues which arise from DOAJ’s day-to-day operations and which require specialist input. The volunteer Subcommittee will operate in an advisory capacity.

Each member has been chosen based on their ability to provide advice to DOAJ in the following areas:

  • medicine
  • life sciences
  • physical sciences
  • social sciences
  • humanities
  • the arts
  • statistics
  • publishing/research ethics

We are delighted to welcome the following experts to the DOAJ:

Professor Carol S Bond, Caring for Lifelong Health Research Centre, UK
Dr. Jocelyn Hipona, Far Eastern University, Philippines
Professor Marc Couture, Canada
Maude Laplante-Dubé, Université Laval, Canada
Dr. Oliver Mendoza-Cano, Universidad de Colima, México
Plinio Casarotto, University of Helsinki, Finland
Rachel Lee, California Digital Library, USA
Stephanie Hull, Emerald Publishing, UK

Further details have been published on the DOAJ website.

 

cOAlition S chooses DOAJ’s technical partner, Cottage Labs, to deliver their Journal Checker Tool

PRESS RELEASE

As announced today, cOAlition S has awarded the tender for the Plan S journal checker tool (JCT) to Cottage Labs LLP, DOAJ’s existing technical partner. Cottage Labs became DOAJ’s technical partner back in 2013. 

The announcement is welcomed by DOAJ. Lars Bjørnshauge, Managing Director and Founder of DOAJ, said: “Working with Cottage Labs on this project means that DOAJ can focus on what it does best: reviewing applications from journals and making sure those continue to move through the system, without us having to spend huge amounts of time explaining how we work, what we do, and why. Cottage Labs already know how we work, understanding the editorial processes and realising the full extent of what we do.” 

The JCT will be a tool built for measuring how a journal meets different requirements under the three different Plan S compliance routes: Gold open access, Green open access, and transformative journals. For Gold open access, being indexed in DOAJ is the baseline criteria. DOAJ already indexes the vast majority of the journals used by cOAlition S-funded authors and already collects information about the two criteria contained in the first iteration of the JCT:

  1. The journal allows the use of a CC BY license on its articles
  2. Copyright is retained by the author

Richard Jones, a founder of Cottage Labs and technical lead for DOAJ, said: “Plan S is a key step forward for the Open Access movement, and DOAJ is central to that.  Our extensive knowledge of DOAJ makes us ideally placed to deliver a high-quality Journal Checker Tool for cOAlition S, and we’re very excited to be a part of it.“

Work on the JCT is expected to commence immediately as cOAlition S are expecting the first iteration of the tool to be publicly available by November. 

For more information:

DOAJ’s Basic criteria – updated and rewritten in plain English

We are rewriting our website in plain English so that it is easy for our users, especially publishers, to understand what is required for a good quality and complete application.

These are first steps to us:

  1. becoming even more open and transparent;
  2. offering a greatly improved user experience for a new application form; 
  3. starting a localisation project to offer elements of the website in languages other than English.

Today the basic criteria are mixed with the advanced criteria on a very wordy page and in our application form. It is hard to tell which is which. The advanced criteria are only required for a journal wishing to get the DOAJ Seal.

This leads many to believe that a journal has to have the Seal to be indexed in DOAJ. This is not true.

So here are our basic criteria – rewritten, updated and offered in simple, clear language. These will soon be available on our website as part of our new ‘Guide to applying’.

Let us know what you think.

The type of journal that can apply

Open access journals published in any language may apply.

  • The journal must be actively publishing scholarly research
    • All research subject areas are accepted
    • Should publish at least 5 research articles per year 
  • The primary target audience should be researchers or practitioners

The type of open access

  • DOAJ only accepts open access journals. 
  • We define these as journals where the copyright holder of a scholarly work grants usage rights to others using an open license (Creative Commons or equivalent) allowing for immediate free access to the work and permitting any user to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose.
  • The journal must display an open access statement indicating that it fulfils the DOAJ definition of open access.
  • The full text of all content must be available for free and open access without delay
    • No embargo period
    • Requiring users to register to read content is not accepted
    • A charge for the print version of a journal is permitted

The journal website

  • The journal must have its own dedicated URL and homepage that is accessible from any location
  • The website must be clear and easy to navigate
  • The journal  should adhere to the guidelines described in the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing
  • Each article must be available as an individual, full-text article
    • one unique URL per article
    • HTML or PDF, as a minimum

The following information must be available online, and easily accessible from the journal homepage: 

  • Open access policy
  • Aims and scope
  • Editorial board (including institutional affiliations of all members)
  • Instructions for authors
  • Editorial process (peer review)
  • Licensing terms
  • Copyright terms
  • Author charges
    • If a journal doesn’t have any charges then this must be stated
    • Must include all fees that may be charged to the author, from submission to publication, including:
      • submission fees
      • editorial processing charges
      • article processing charges (APCs)
      • page charges
      • colour charges
  • Contact details
    • The contact details must include a real name and the journal’s dedicated email address
    • The country in the application and on the journal website must be the country where the publisher is registered and carries out its business activities

ISSN

  • A journal must have at least one ISSN (International Standard Serial Number) which is registered and confirmed at issn.org.
  • The ISSN(s) must be displayed on the website.
  • The name of the journal in the application and on the website must match what is shown at issn.org.

Editorial process

  • A journal must have an editor and an editorial board. 
    • The editorial board must be listed on the website.
    • The name and affiliation of all editors and board members must be included.
    • If the journal is run by a student body, it must have an advisory board of which at least two members have a PhD or equivalent.
  • All articles must pass through a quality control system (peer review) before publication.
    • The type and details of the peer review process must be stated clearly on the website.

Licensing

  • The licensing terms for use and re-use of the published content must be clearly stated on the website.
  • DOAJ recommends the use of Creative Commons licenses for this purpose. 
  • If Creative Commons licensing is not used, similar terms and conditions should be applied.
    • Extra care must be taken to state these terms clearly. 

Copyright

  • The copyright terms applied to the published content must be clearly stated and separate from the copyright terms applied to the website.
  • Copyright terms must not contradict the licensing terms or the terms of the open access policy.
    • “All rights reserved” is never appropriate for open access content.

Footnote

Applications that contain information that is inaccurate or wrong, or that have answers missing, are automatically rejected.

Journals that are rejected must wait 6 months from the date of rejection before applying again unless otherwise advised by DOAJ.

Redalyc-AmeliCA and DOAJ announce their intention to collaborate.

1200px-Logo-redalyc-2019Redalyc (Autonomous University of the State of Mexico), AmeliCA and DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) are delighted to announce a collaboration focussed on increasing DOAJ’s coverage of Latin American non-APC Open Access journals and to broaden the 20-AmeliCA-300x102implementation of AmeliCA’s and Redalyc’s advanced technologies that make journal publishing more efficient and increase the visibility of the content.

Both organisations will work to increase the visibility of non-commercial, open access journals from Latin America and to encourage those journals to strive towards better standards and to adopt best practice. A particular focus will be journals published in Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities. DOAJ has been focussed on improving their coverage in DOAJ since 2019 with its project with the Federation of Finnish Learned Societies and the recently announced collaboration with Érudit, Canada.

Lars Bjørnshauge, Founder and Managing Director of DOAJ, says: “We are very excited to be able to work with Redalyc-AmeliCA. We share the common goals of promoting non-commercial and non-English language open access publishing and helping non-APC and non-English language journals. DOAJ already has representatives on the ground in Latin America who are ready to collaborate with Redalyc-AmeliCA so this partnership really feels like a good fit.”

Arianna Becerril-García said: “We’ve always been big supporters of DOAJ and have always encouraged Redalyc journals to apply for indexing. Redalyc has been working for many years to automate the export of data to DOAJ and help journals in this matter. This collaboration is the perfect opportunity for more efficiency and coordination and will be an effective way to ease the integration of non-APC, non-English journals into DOAJ.”

For more information, contact: Dom Mitchell, DOAJ Operations Manager [dom@doaj.org]; or Arianna, Redalyc Executive Director [arianna.becerril@redalyc.org].