Press release

Large Scale Publisher Survey reveals Global Trends in Open Access Publishing

9th January 2019 – A survey of publishers with journals indexed in DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) has revealed surprising trends in the way that content is published; what types of organisations are publishing the content; on how publishing standards are being accepted globally; and geographical trends on the uptake of open access.

The survey was sent out by DOAJ to its 6000+ account holders, that is to say publishers, in the Summer of 2018. Account holders were allowed one response each, regardless of how many journals they have in that account and all accounts have at least 1 journal active in DOAJ. The total number of responses returned was 1065. Answers revealed some interesting facts, especially when compared to answers provided in the last publisher survey carried out in 2013.

All links point to the underlying data.

  • Type of publishing organisation:
    Out of survey respondents, the top 5 most common types of publishing organisation in DOAJ are: University Department or Press, Non-commercial Publisher, Library publisher, Research centre and Society publisher. (It should be noted however that in terms of pure output, the top ten organisations in DOAJ account for just over a third of the 3.6 million articles indexed. Eight of the top ten organisations are commercial publishers.) 
  • Geographical spread:
    The geographical spread between 2013 and 2018 remains relatively unchanged apart from two notable exceptions. Open access in Indonesia has become de rigueur. In 2013, DOAJ received 9 survey responses from Indonesia; in 2018 that jumped to 155, the most responses from any one country in the 2018 Survey. Conversely, responses from India fell from 101 in 2013 to just 11 in 2018. (The number of Indian journals in DOAJ has fallen from 643 in 2013 to 254 in 2018.) The Top 5 countries providing responses in 2018 were Indonesia, Brazil, Spain, Romania and USA; in 2013 it was Brazil, Spain, India, Romania and Italy. 
  • DOIs for articles:
    While the DOI is an internationally recognised publishing technology, for some the financial and technical barrier to use of DOIs is a problem. In 2013, only 35% of respondents used DOIs; in 2018 this has jumped to 73%*. However, when publishers were asked why they did not use DOIs the 5 most common words given in responses are: implementing, cost, funding, financial, paying.
    * see note 
  • Article metadata:
    More publishers are supplying metadata to DOAJ than ever before; even more would if the process was easier and yet, for many article metadata is still a mystery. The number of respondents providing article metadata to DOAJ has increased from 55% in 2013 to 84% in 2018. When asked which format of metadata publishers would like to supply to DOAJ, 46% said they preferred CrossRef, while 8% said JATS. However, 42% of all 2018 respondents said that they didn’t understand what a metadata format was so there is much work to do here! 
  • Benefits of being indexed in DOAJ:

Our respondents said that the top 3 benefits of being indexed in DOAJ in 2018 are:

  1. Certification that our journal(s) are quality publications
  2. Increased readership
  3. Increased scientific impact

In 2013, it was:

  1. Increased visibility of content
  2. Certification of the journals
  3. Prestige

74% of respondents said that submissions had definitely or maybe increased since being indexed in DOAJ while over 70% thought that traffic had increased to their sites.

  • Predatory publishing:
    Predatory publishing really isn’t considered to be a big deal for DOAJ publishing community. 62% of respondents said that they didn’t have to deal with competition from predatory publishers or journals. There was no equivalent question in 2013.     
  • Research Assessment:
    “It’s where you publish that counts.” 86% of respondents said that in their countries researchers are evaluated on where they publish rather than what they publish. There was no equivalent question in 2013.

Building on these findings the DOAJ team will continue to adapt and develop its systems, in accordance with its strategy, to ensure that the DOAJ platform meets user needs, particularly those needs of the global publishing community. After all the platform consists entirely of journal and article metadata, all of which (bar one exception) is provided by the publishers themselves.

Contact
Dom Mitchell
Operations Manager
dom@doaj.org


About DOAJ Directory of Open Access Journals

DOAJ is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. DOAJ is independent. All funding is via donations, 40% of which comes from sponsors and 60% from members and publisher members. All DOAJ services are free of charge including being indexed in DOAJ. All data is freely available.

DOAJ’s mission is to increase the visibility, accessibility, reputation, usage and impact of quality, peer-reviewed, open access scholarly research journals globally, regardless of discipline, geography or language. DOAJ will work with editors, publishers and journal owners to help them understand the value of best practice publishing and standards and apply those to their own operations. DOAJ is committed to being 100% independent and maintaining all of its services and metadata as free to use or reuse for everyone.

Survey reveals need for good guidance about trustworthy places to publish research

19 December 2018 – A survey carried out by the Think. Check. Submit. initiative has revealed a strong demand from both researchers and librarians for guidance about where to publish and an appreciation of the services that the initiative offers. However, it also revealed a need for further educational resources and wider reach for the initiative.

Think Check Submit Logo

Launched in 2015, Think. Check. Submit. helps researchers identify trusted journals for their research. Through a range of tools and practical resources, this international, cross-sector initiative aims to educate researchers, promote integrity, and build trust in credible research and publications. Central to the initiative is a checklist based on best practices in scholarly communication. The widely used checklist is available in nearly 40 languages from Albanian to Vietnamese.

The survey was carried out by Think. Check. Submit. in September 2018 as a benchmark to guide future work and was completed by 410 respondents from all parts of the world. In-depth analysis of the findings is still ongoing but preliminary analysis points to some clear trends:

  • Think. Check. Submit. is welcomed and seen to be fulfilling an important role. 14% said it was “essential” and 42% said it was “very useful”, while less than 7% of respondents said the initiative was “not very useful” or “not useful at all”. More than 75% would definitely recommend Think. Check. Submit. to a colleague.
  • The decision on where to publish is complex and dubious publications can take advantage of that. The top reason given by respondents for selecting a journal to publish in was relevance to their field, followed by inclusion in indexes/impact factor; belief that the journal was trustworthy came third and was the top choice for just over 20% of respondents.
  • There is still work to be done in building awareness of how Think. Check. Submit. can help researchers address this challenge; 34% of respondents had not heard of the initiative before completing the survey.
  • The responses to the survey revealed a sense of community ownership about the initiative, in particular the willingness of many survey respondents to provide more detailed insight and help with development of the initiative, for example by providing translations.

Building on the survey findings, in conjunction with the wider Think. Check. Submit. community, in 2019 the committee will focus on extending the reach of the initiative and further developing educational resources to assist researchers and librarians worldwide.

Contact
Alastair Horne
pressfuturist@gmail.com

About Think. Check. Submit. (thinkchecksubmit.org)
Think. Check. Submit. helps researchers identify trusted journals for their research. Through a range of tools and practical resources, this international, cross-sector initiative aims to educate researchers, promote integrity, and build trust in credible research and publications. The campaign has been produced with the support of a coalition from across scholarly communications in response to discussions about deceptive publishing.

DOAJ’s New Governance Model

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 18th December 2018 DOAJ will implement a new governance model in 2019 which will see DOAJ financers having a role in the organisation’s Board and Council. All organisations funding DOAJ with €1500 or more will be eligible for nomination.

In January 2019 DOAJ will inaugurate a new governance model providing the structure and transparency that it needs to meet its strategic goals, and ensure the organisation is fit-for-purpose for at least the next 5 years.

Today, DOAJ is run by the DOAJ Team with help provided as and when we need it—and always willingly—by our Advisory Board. Over the last 5 years, DOAJ has grown in size and importance and has come to a point where the existing model is no longer fit for purpose. DOAJ needs to be more formally structured and transparent if it is to meet the needs of the academic community, as well as its funders and sponsors.

DOAJ's governance model

The model for DOAJ’s governance was first drafted in October 2017 and has been reviewed and updated after input from the current Advisory Board. When the SCOSS model for funding DOAJ and other services was announced at the end of 2017, we decided that it is only fitting that the donors get some input into how DOAJ is run. We are proposing an Advisory Board of a maximum of 9 seats, and a Council with a maximum of 15 seats. Their role is to provide expert advice to the DOAJ Team and help us meet our strategic goals. We are also establishing an editorial subcommittee to assist us with questions around editorial process and content quality.

An organisational chart, showing how the Board, Council and Subcommittee interact with each other and with the DOAJ Team will be published shortly.

All organisations and publishers donating €1500 or more to DOAJ every year are eligible for nominations and will be invited to submit candidates for election to the new Advisory Board and the Council. Specific invitations will be sent out early in the New Year.

The 10 Principles of Plan S

The welcome announcement last week from Marc Schiltz‘s Science Europe about cOAlition S and the publication of The 10 Principles of Plan S was well received at DOAJ Headquarters. The key principle of Plan S is:

“After 1 January 2020 scientific publications on the results from research funded by public grants provided by national and European research councils and funding bodies, must be published in compliant Open Access Journals or on compliant Open Access Platforms.”

The document continues to outline important factors surrounding the desired model of open access and this model sometimes follows closely DOAJ’s preferred model for open access:

  1. Authors will retain copyright.
  2. Content will be published under an open license which fulfils the requirements defined by the Berlin Declaration.
  3. All scientists should be able to publish Open Access even if they have limited means.
  4. Publications fees should be standardised or capped.
  5. The hybrid model of publishing is not compliant with the principles.

DOAJ is pleased to see these principles so in line with the DOAJ criteria.

Lars Bjørnshauge, DOAJ Founder and Managing Director, said: ‘While we should remember that these principles only cover Europe and focus on science and that they may not be applicable on all continents or to the humanities, they will hopefully have a positive impact. Their announcement is timely and they are a welcome move in the right direction. DOAJ is proud to support their implementation.’

News: OASPA to require DOAJ listing for single-journal publishers

OASPA_Logo.jpgDOAJ and OASPA have worked together for many years now, with our Founder and Managing Director, Lars Bjørnshauge, serving as an OASPA board member for the past 5 years.

Publisher applications to OASPA have been rapidly increasing, in particular from those publishing just one journal. Given the many similarities in the indexing criteria between DOAJ and OASPA, we have agreed that all single-journal publishers that apply to OASPA will now be referred to DOAJ if the journal is not already listed in the DOAJ database.

Both organisations feel that this change is in the best interests of single-journal applicants because indexing by DOAJ is the most effective way for these journals to increase their visibility, and this is often their stated reason for applying to join OASPA.

Once a journal is indexed by DOAJ, applicants that still wish to join OASPA should get back in touch with them. However, publishers should note that OASPA have some specific requirements that differ from ours, particularly with respect to
licensing. Approval by DOAJ will not automatically mean acceptance by OASPA.

Following the implementation of this new policy and other membership criteria introduced last year, OASPA will be working with any of their existing members who don’t now meet their criteria to encourage improvements and apply to have their journals listed in DOAJ.

For more information, please see the announcement by OASPA.

 

 

Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft signs up as a sustainable funder

dfgDOAJ is extremely pleased to welcome Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft to the growing list of organisations who have committed funds, via SCOSS, to support DOAJ on its way to a sustainable form of funding and future. DFG has demonstrated a commitment to open access for years and as such, we are very proud to receive their support.
Angela Holzer said of the commitment that DFG “considers the sustainability of vital infrastructures for open access crucial for the future. DOAJ has proven to be a very valuable tool not only for researchers and libraries, but also for funders and infrastructure providers. We welcome a transparent and sustainable development of DOAJ in the public interest”.
About DFG
The DFG is the self-governing organisation for science and research in Germany. It serves all branches of science and the humanities. In organisational terms, the DFG is an association under private law. Its membership consists of German research universities, non-university research institutions, scientific associations and the Academies of Science and the Humanities. (http://www.dfg.de/en/dfg_profile/mission/index.html)
About SCOSS
The formation of the Global Sustainability Coalition for Open Science Services (SCOSS) represents a community-led effort to help maintain, and ultimately secure, vital infrastructure. This recognition of the cruciality of such infrastructure, and of securing it, is what led to the formation of SCOSS. Groundwork for the coalition was laid by the Knowledge Exchange, which presented many of the foundational ideas for it in its 2016 report Putting Down Roots, Securing the Future of Open Access Policies.

 

ISSN and DOAJ: a renewed partnership

DOAJ is delighted to announce the renewal of its partnership with ISSN. DOAJ is heavily reliant on issn.org (the ISSN database) as having a fully registered and confirmed ISSN is one of the first checks that the Editorial Team undertakes when considering applications. For DOAJ, obtaining an ISSN for a journal is the first of many steps that a publisher can take to show that a journal intends to adhere to Best Practice.

As well as using the ISSN database as a reference point, DOAJ and ISSN are committed to assist each other in improving the quality of each database. DOAJ will send corrections to ISSN; ISSN will help ensure that DOAJ always has correct and up-to-date ISSNs. Furthermore, DOAJ metadata is used to enrich the ISSN’s daughter service, ROAD.

Launched in 2013, ROAD, Directory of Open Access Scholarly Resources, is a service which provides:

“free access to those ISSN bibliographic records which describe scholarly resources in Open Access: journals, monographic series, conference proceedings, academic repositories and scholarly blogs. These records, created by the ISSN Network (89 National Centres worldwide + the International Centre), are enriched by information extracted from indexing and abstracting databases, directories (DOAJ, Latindex, The Keepers registry) and journals indicators (Scopus).”

DOAJ is delighted to work in partnership with ISSN and is looking forward to a continued fruitful collaboration.

Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing, version 3

The 3rd version of the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing is published today.

Introduction

The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA), and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) are scholarly organizations that have seen an increase in the number, and broad range in the quality, of membership applications. Our organizations have collaborated to identify principles of transparency and best practice for scholarly publications and to clarify that these principles form the basis of the criteria by which suitability for membership is assessed by COPE, DOAJ and OASPA, and part of the criteria on which membership applications are evaluated by WAME. Each organization also has their own, additional criteria which are used when evaluating applications. The organizations will not share lists of publishers or journals that failed to demonstrate that they met the criteria for transparency and best practice. Backgrounds on each organization are at the bottom of this post.

This is the third version of a work in progress (published 15 January 2018); the first version was made available by OASPA in December 2013 and published on the DOAJ web site in January 2014. We encourage its wide dissemination and continue to welcome feedback on the general principles and the specific criteria.

Principles of Transparency

  1. Website: A journal’s website, including the text that it contains, shall demonstrate that care has been taken to ensure high ethical and professional standards. It must not contain information that might mislead readers or authors, including any attempt to mimic another journal/publisher’s site.
    An ‘Aims & Scope’ statement should be included on the website and the readership clearly defined. There should be a statement on what a journal will consider for publication including authorship criteria (e.g., not considering multiple submissions, redundant publications) to be included. ISSNs should be clearly displayed (separate for print and electronic).
  2. Name of journal: The Journal name shall be unique and not be one that is easily confused with another journal or that might mislead potential authors and readers about the Journal’s origin or association with other journals. 
  3. Peer review process: Journal content must be clearly marked as whether peer reviewed or not. Peer review is defined as obtaining advice on individual manuscripts from reviewers expert in the field who are not part of the journal’s editorial staff. This process, as well as any policies related to the journal’s peer review procedures, shall be clearly described on the journal website, including the method of peer review used. Journal websites should not guarantee manuscript acceptance or very short peer review times. 
  4. Ownership and management: Information about the ownership and/or management of a journal shall be clearly indicated on the journal’s website. Publishers shall not use organizational or journal names that would mislead potential authors and editors about the nature of the journal’s owner. 
  5. Governing body: Journals shall have editorial boards or other governing bodies whose members are recognized experts in the subject areas included within the journal’s scope. The full names and affiliations of the journal’s editorial board or other governing body shall be provided on the journal’s website. 
  6. Editorial team/contact information: Journals shall provide the full names and affiliations of the journal’s editors on the journal website as well as contact information for the editorial office, including a full address. 
  7. Copyright and Licensing: The policy for copyright shall be clearly stated in the author guidelines and the copyright holder named on all published articles.  Likewise, licensing information shall be clearly described in guidelines on the website, and licensing terms shall be indicated on all published articles, both HTML and PDFs.  If authors are allowed to publish under a Creative Commons license then any specific license requirements shall be noted.  Any policies on posting of final accepted versions or published articles on third party repositories shall be clearly stated. 
  8. Author fees: Any fees or charges that are required for manuscript processing and/or publishing materials in the journal shall be clearly stated in a place that is easy for potential authors to find prior to submitting their manuscripts for review or explained to authors before they begin preparing their manuscript for submission.  If no such fees are charged that should also be clearly stated. 
  9. Process for identification of and dealing with allegations of research misconduct: Publishers and editors shall take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred, including plagiarism, citation manipulation, and data falsification/fabrication, among others. In no case shall a journal or its editors encourage such misconduct, or knowingly allow such misconduct to take place. In the event that a journal’s publisher or editors are made aware of any allegation of research misconduct relating to a published article in their journal, the publisher or editor shall follow COPE’s guidelines (or equivalent) in dealing with allegations. 
  10. Publication Ethics: A journal shall also have policies on publishing ethics. These should be clearly visible on its website, and should refer to: i) Journal policies on authorship and contributorship; ii) How the journal will handle complaints and appeals; iii) Journal policies on conflicts of interest / competing interests; iv) Journal policies on data sharing and reproducibility; v) Journal’s policy on ethical oversight; vi) Journal’s policy on intellectual property; and vii) Journal’s options for post-publication discussions and corrections. 
  11. Publishing schedule: The periodicity at which a journal publishes shall be clearly indicated. 
  12. Access: The way(s) in which the journal and individual articles are available to readers and whether there are associated subscription or pay per view fees shall be stated. 
  13. Archiving: A journal’s plan for electronic backup and preservation of access to the journal content (for example, access to main articles via CLOCKSS or PubMed Central) in the event a journal is no longer published shall be clearly indicated. 
  14. Revenue sources: Business models or revenue sources (e.g., author fees, subscriptions, advertising, reprints, institutional support, and organizational support) shall be clearly stated or otherwise evident on the journal’s website. Publishing fees or waiver status should not influence editorial decision making. 
  15. Advertising: Journals shall state their advertising policy if relevant, including what types of adverts will be considered, who makes decisions regarding accepting adverts and whether they are linked to content or reader behaviour (online only) or are displayed at random. Advertisements should not be related in any way to editorial decision making and shall be kept separate from the published content. 
  16. Direct marketing: Any direct marketing activities, including solicitation of manuscripts that are conducted on behalf of the journal, shall be appropriate, well targeted, and unobtrusive.  Information provided about the publisher or journal is expected to be truthful and not misleading for readers or authors.

In the event that a member organization is found to have violated these best practices, or other specific requirements of the organization, OASPA/DOAJ/COPE/WAME shall in the first instance try to work with them in order to address any concerns that have been raised. In the event that the member organization is unable or unwilling to address these concerns, their membership in the organization may be suspended or terminated. All of the member organizations have procedures for dealing with concerns raised about member journals.

_________________________________________________________________________

About the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE, https://publicationethics.org/)

COPE provides advice to editors and publishers on all aspects of publication ethics and, in particular, how to handle cases of research and publication misconduct. It also provides a forum for its members to discuss individual cases. COPE does not investigate individual cases but encourages editors to ensure that cases are investigated by the appropriate authorities (usually a research institution or employer). All COPE members are expected to apply COPE principles of publication ethics outlined in the core practices.

About the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ, https://doaj.org)

The mission of the DOAJ is to curate, maintain and develop a source of reliable information about open access scholarly journals on the web; to verify that entries on the list comply with reasonable standards; to increase the visibility, dissemination, discoverability and attraction of open access journals; to enable scholars, libraries, universities, research funders and other stakeholders to benefit from the information and services provided; to facilitate the integration of open access journals into library and aggregator services; to assist, where possible, publishers and their journals to meet reasonable digital publishing standards; and to thereby support the transition of the system of scholarly communication and publishing into a model that serves science, higher education, industry, innovation, societies and the people. Through this work, DOAJ will cooperate and collaborate with all interested parties working toward these objectives.

About the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA, https://oaspa.org/)

OASPA is a trade association that was established in 2008 in order to represent the interests of Open Access (OA) publishers globally across all disciplines. By encouraging collaboration in developing appropriate business models, tools and standards to support OA publishing, OASPA aims to help ensure a prosperous and sustainable future for the benefit of its members and the scholarly communities they serve. This mission is carried out through exchanging information, setting standards, advancing models, advocacy, education, and the promotion of innovation.  

About the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME, http://www.wame.org)

WAME is a global nonprofit voluntary association of editors of peer-reviewed medical journals who seek to foster cooperation and communication among editors; improve editorial standards; promote professionalism in medical editing through education, self-criticism, and self-regulation; and encourage research on the principles and practice of medical editing. WAME develops policies and recommendations of best practices for medical journal editors and has a syllabus for editors that members are encouraged to follow.

Large-scale Implementation of Open Access in China

At the end of October, the National Science Library, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NSL, CAS), the National Science and Technology Library (NSTL) and ShanghaiTech University Library signed the Open Access 2020 Initiative. The Director of NSL, CAS, Mr. LIU Huizhou, said that open access is beneficial to scientific research, scientific communication and the development of a creative society. The signature of OA2020 means that China will actively contribute to the reform of the global scientific communication system. It will also accelerate the implementation of CAS’s open access policy.

China has long supported open access. In 2004, CAS signed Berlin Declaration on Open Access. In 2013, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and CAS signed GRC Action Plan on Open Access for Publications. In 2014, NSTL attended SCOAP3, and from then on Chinese authors can publish articles for free in journals funded by SCOAP3.

On the same year, CAS  and NSFC  made statements about making publications funded by public money open access, and requested researchers to deposit accepted articles in their institutional repositories or the NSFC’s Open Repository and to make them open access within 12 months after publication. CAS supports its researchers to publish in open access & quality controlled journals with reasonable APCs, and researchers can choose quality controlled journals according to the inclusion criteria of DOAJ. 

English version of the Expression of Interest document.

Chinese version of the Expression of Interest document.

International coalition to help sustain DOAJ and its further development in the coming years

scoss-1

SCOSS (The Global Sustainability Coalition for Open Science Services) today announced that major organizations have recommended to their member institutions to support DOAJ with funding that will enable DOAJ to move towards a new crowdfunding effort and away from its incremental annual contribution system. Under the new model organisations will work towards sustaining DOAJ for the coming 3 years, giving it more stability for the mid-term. This will enable DOAJ to develop a fully comprehensive, longer term development plan for its systems and services.

For a decade the funding of DOAJ has been based on contributions from individual libraries, library consortia and research funders from many countries around the globe. We are extremely grateful for their continuous support and we are looking forward to welcoming many of them as contributors under the SCOSS initiative.

These contributions have allowed DOAJ to develop step by step and thus become one the most important freely available resources for Open Access.

As an initial step, DOAJ will introduce a governance structure that will allow for more active influence from the community on strategic directions for DOAJ.

The new SCOSS funding drive will enable DOAJ to:

  1. Engage in strategic longer term development of the services and systems behind our operations.
  2. Provide adequate resource to cover the large number of applications coming in to DOAJ (currently 500+ per month).
  3. Actively curate its list thereby keeping the index more up to date and relevant.
  4. Enable publishers to update their own journal information, keeping records relevant.
  5. Continue efforts to assess and include journals from the Global South to make DOAJ even more comprehensive on a global scale.
  6. Continue our advocacy work directed at influencing decision makers to support a transition to open access for local language journals.
  7. Implement functionality that will allow DOAJ to actively harvest article-level metadata from the 10,000 journals that are currently indexed. Currently more than 70% of the journals are providing (parts of) their article-level metadata (aproximately 2,700,000 records) and are exposing these via the OAI-PMH service and our API.
  8. Enhance the DOAJ metadata via collaboration and integration with relevant organizations, enriching the metadata records with DOIs, integrated article-level metrics (ALMs), ORCID IDs etc.
  9. Stabilise and build out the platform that underpins the DOAJ and its database to ensure that it remains fit-for-purpose and operational at least until 2020.

Please contact Managing Director Lars Bjørnshauge – lars@doaj.org – for more information or visit the SCOSS web site for the complete details.