Training & education

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.

Learn about DOAJ and Open Access Best Practices

We are very glad to announce the launch of a series of educational videos. This first playlist is an introductory course created by the DOAJ Team itself to assist publishers, librarians, researchers and authors understand those standards and what an entry in DOAJ means.

Our goal is to continue developing our YouTube channel in order to create a comprehensive educational programme. Stay tuned and let us know your preferred topics!

DOAJ launches the DOAJ Best Practice Guide

DOAJ has launched the DOAJ Best Practice Guide.

The Guide is a web resource that provides selection criteria, resources and tools for the identification of reputable open access journals to support researchers, publishers and librarians in their search of best practice and transparency standards. It is also an attempt to collect discussions about open access to publications and its development. It is developed by, and updated regularly by, the DOAJ team based on existing and new information.

The Guide complements the work of the DOAJ Ambassadors as well as academics, librarians and publishers worldwide. Based on the information provided on the For Publishers page on the DOAJ website and the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing, the Guide aims to do the following:

  • Highlight issues surrounding questionable publishing practices;
  • Provide a checklist of criteria to help identify questionable publishers based on guidelines for editors working with applications to DOAJ;
  • Identify other tools that assist in making informed decisions on where to submit articles for publication. based on the ThinkCheckSubmit initiative;
  • Contain case studies and examples gathered by DOAJ over 13 years of operation.
Initial work with the Best Practice Guide was funded by IDRC  as part of the Ambassadors’ programme. If you know of other resources that should be included in the Guide, then do please contact us or leave a comment here.

New DOAJ Ambassadors in the Republic of Korea

Following our training sessions last month in Seoul we are very pleased to announce that we have appointed three new Ambassadors and an honorary Ambassador in Korea. We have also created a group of seven voluntary associate editors who will help DOAJ with applications coming from Southeast Asia. From 1st December 2017, the Ambassadors will start working on promoting DOAJ’s practices and standards, and Best Practices in Open Access publishing.

We are increasing our work and visibility as Open Access implementation spreads in many regions in Asia.

The three new Korean Ambassadors are:

Hea Lim Rhee

Hea is a senior researcher at Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI), and also the managing editor of KISTI’s

Journal of Information Science Thea-lim-rhee.jpgheory and Practice (JISTaPJISTaP), the first English journal on computer science in Korea. 

Hea received her PhD from the University of Pittsburgh and her Master of Science in Information from the University of Michigan, where she specialized in archives and records management. Conflict of Interest document

 

Hyun Jung Yi

Hyun Jung Yi holds a PhD in Library and Information Science from Chung-Ang University, Korea. She is a librarian at Hanyang University Guri Hospital, Korea. 20171114_134053

Currently, she also serves as a member of the Scholarly Committee at the Korean Medical Library Association and as a vice chair of the Committee of Information Management at the Korean Council of Science Editors. Her interests include observing trends in the scholarly publishing market, disseminating open access journals, and enhancing the publishing environment for researchers.

Conflict of Interest document

Youngim Jung

Youngim holds a PhD from Pusan National University in Computer Science and Engineering.

She is now a Senior Researcher at Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information developing and managing scholarly publishing systems for supporting domestic societies. Previously, she worked for KESLI, the national library consortium in South Korea and contributed herself to establish Korea DOI Center. Youngim Jung.jpg

She is a committee member of KCSE (Korean Council of Science Editors) and CASE (Council of Asian Science Editors). She has authored publications and communications in the field of Scientometrics, Library Systems and Natural Language Processing. Conflict of Interest document.

 

Sun Huh (honorary Ambassador)

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Sun is a medical doctor and holds a PhD from Seoul National University in parasitology. He has been a Professor of Parasitology, College of Medicine, Hallym University, Korea since 1988. He has worked voluntarily as a board member of Korean Association of Medical Journal Editors (1996-2011), Korean Council of Science Editors (2011-present), and Council of Asian Science Editors (2014-present).

He has been an editor of Journal of Educational Evaluation for Health Professions since 2005. His goal with DOAJ is to pursue the registration of all open access journals from Korea to DOAJ. Conflict of Interest document.

 

The new Ambassadors will work alongside the existing DOAJ Ambassadors from other territories and the DOAJ Team in Europe.

Indonesian Universities Consortium

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Following the enrollment of ADRI, Indonesia, we are very pleased to announce that we have a consortium of Indonesian universities in the making.

Next week DOAJ will conduct a three days workshop in Bali, Indonesia to recruit Ambassadors in Indonesia. Indonesia comes in second  as users of the DOAJ, and we expect hundreds of journals to be listed in DOAJ in the future.

 

 

NEW DOAJ PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS

DOAJ is often asked for materials to help librarians and open access advocates to spread the word about open access and DOAJ.

We would like to announce that you can now access, share, and use our new promotional materials.

We have produced two flyers and a poster for you to use as you need:

Flyer 1 -This A5 flyer provides general information about DOAJ:

  • Why DOAJ matters
  • Ways DOAJ makes an impact
  • Why journals want to be in DOAJ
  • Our latest figures: how many journals, countries and API hits

Flyer 2 -This A5 flyer gives a summary of our Ambassador programme:

  • What is the DOAJ Ambassador’s programme?
  • What are the regions covered?
  • Highlights and outcomes of the programme

Poster – The A2 poster is a mixture of general info and the Ambassador programme.

Please promote Open Access and DOAJ! Thank you.