We are rewriting our website in plain English so that it is easy for our users, especially publishers, to understand what is required for a good quality and complete application. These are first steps to us: becoming even more open and transparent; offering a greatly improved user experience for a new application form; starting a…
This is a guest post by Souheil Houissa, editor of the North Africa & Middle East (NAME) group, and long-serving DOAJ volunteer. He wrote the article in February 2020 so the statistics are historical. (As of today, the group has processed 536 applications.) However, the general conclusions drawn throughout the article are still valid. Journal…
DOAJ receives regularly questions and, sometimes, complaints from libraries, library consortia and other academic institutions about the role which publishers—by “publishers” I mean the traditional publishing organisations in academic publishing—play in DOAJ. A common misconception is that DOAJ is owned by, or wholly subsidised by these organisations and that DOAJ is only of benefit to…
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…
We are delighted to share with our community, particularly those in La Francophonie, that our long-term partner Érudit, with the help of members from Mir@bel, has translated and published in French all the pages from the ‘Guide to applying’ section on doaj.org. The following pages are now available in French: DOAJ is actively engaged in…
Student Successis an open access journal based in Australia published by and supported by the STARS Conference and Queensland University of Technology (QUT) Library. As part of our ‘Story behind the journal’ series, DOAJ spoke with the Managing Editor, Tracy Creagh. Tell us about the Student Success journal and your role within the journal The…
It won’t be long until our second DOAJ at 20 event is live, with eight fantastic speakers from different parts of the world. We’re also lucky to have one of our very own DOAJ Ambassadors, Ivonne Lujano, moderating the event, and our Head of Outreach and Advocacy, Tom Olyhoek, will be opening and closing the…
This is a guest post by our Associate Editor Sofia Fagiolo. Sofia Fagiolo is a librarian with experience in cataloging and archives and a keen interest in scholarlycommunication and open access. Recently, she has worked at the Campus Bio-Medico University ofRome. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Archival and Library Science and a Master’s degree…
“Open Access” is a catch-all term covering both Gratis and Libre Open Access. For DOAJ, Open Access is only when digital content is freely available online AND user rights and the terms of copyright are defined. More than 20 years ago, Open Access was understood to mean content that was available for free without a…
This is a guest post by Sophy, our UX Designer. Accessibility has always been a top priority in doaj.org’s redesign project, along with improving: user experience, navigation, and responsiveness on various devices, browsers, and operating systems. We approached the project with the idea that accessibility, as opposed to branding and visual design, is foundational to…
