What are you doing for Open Access Week 2015 (OAW 2015)? Perhaps you are holding a workshop at your university or giving a presentation in your library? OAW 2015 is the EIGHTH OAW and DOAJ stand firmly behind it.

To honour this year’s OAW, DOAJ is launching a volunteer loyalty program. You may have read about our wonderful volunteers that give a few hours of their time every week to review new journal applications. Our volunteers do fantastic work and are a talented and dedicated bunch. We decided that we should honour the fantastic work that they do with a series of rewards.

We will be awarding a certificate of loyalty and achievement* to volunteers for every 50 applications reviewed and completed. The more applications a volunteer reviews, the more certificates they get. We’re designing the certificate just now but I’ll post an example here as soon as I have one. [UPDATE 15th October: here are the certificates plus the link to the volunteers page!]

Editor's certificate
Sample image of editor’s certificate awarded for a year’s service to DOAJ.
Associate Editor's certificate
Sample image of associate editor’s certificate awarded for 25 applications completed.

We will also be listing all our working volunteers on our site.

We’re exploring the option of awarding Mozilla Open Badges so that a DOAJ volunteer can officially declare their work for DOAJ. we will host an annual virtual volunteer meeting to bring our volunteers together and give them the opportunity to network, exchange ideas or ask questions. Watch this space!

*Credit to Felipe G. Nievinski, one of our volunteers, for the original idea. Thanks Felipe!

Leave a Reply

10 Comments

      1. Hello there,

        Normally anyone can apply to become a volunteer but applications are currently closed. We shall announce here on our blog when they open again. Thanks for your interest, Dom, Operations Manager

  1. That is awesome. Tremendously immersed in happiness to be recognized as a volunteer. Look forward to hear another good ideas to appreciate the volunteers.

  2. The certificates looks very awesome. I really enjoyed and appreciate working with you as an Associate Editor.