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:
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.
