DOAJ’s community consultation. Tell us what you think!

TLDR—We’re contacting our user communities to learn what you think about our journal metadata, our policy of which journals we index, the DOAJ Seal, and more. We have published a survey and encourage as many people as possible to complete it. Please share the survey widely!

It’s been over ten years since DOAJ conducted its last community consultation when we published a draft of our new criteria and invited public comment. The response was fantastic and helped shape what has become the de facto gold standard for open access journals today.

This time, we are reviewing the metadata we collect for each journal. The directory indexes more than 20,400 journals. A journal’s entry in the directory may contain up to 43 pieces of data, including 15 links, that have been checked and verified by hand. We’re interested in finding out how much of it the community uses. If you don’t use it, we want to stop collecting it. If we’re not collecting it and you need it, we also need to know. 

Complete the survey here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/DOAJconsultation

If you don’t use it, we want to stop collecting it. If we’re not collecting it and you need it, we also need to know. 

The last time we removed a piece of metadata from DOAJ, we did so without consulting with you all, which was wrong. Many of you contacted us and told us how you use the open access start date.  We reversed our decision and reinstated the date. This time, we’re doing it the right way. We have partnered with Gold Leaf who have written a survey that asks about different elements of metadata in our directory. Is the data we collect still relevant, necessary, and valuable? Gold Leaf will also conduct some interviews, for which you can volunteer at the end of the survey.

Complete the survey here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/DOAJconsultation

The survey is available in English, French, Portuguese and Spanish. It should take about 10-15 minutes to complete. PDF versions of the questions in each language are available for download. All global stakeholders and users of DOAJ, regardless of location, are encouraged to participate in the survey. The survey will close on Friday, 10 May 2024.

We will publish the headline results from this consultation on this blog, so please subscribe to the blog if you are interested in seeing those.

If you have any questions, please contact Annika Bennett, Linda Bennett or Brigitte Shull.