Some people are afraid to use DOAJ because they believe that it lists questionable (\u201cpredatory\u201d) journals. DOAJ started to clean up its index in 2014. DOAJ was the first service to define the standards aimed at preserving the quality and trustworthiness of a database of open access journals. Today, DOAJ\u2019s standards are the unofficial gold standard for open access journals.<\/span><\/p>\n Raising the bar Work on a new set of criteria for inclusion in DOAJ started in early 2013; this was developed, reviewed by the Advisory Board and eventually sent out for public consultation in June 2013. After extensive development work, the new application form built around the criteria was made live in March 2014. The new criteria, a work that had involved the whole open access community, increased the DOAJ application form from just <\/span>17 questions<\/span><\/a> to <\/span>today\u2019s 58<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n At that point, <\/span>every single journal in DOAJ was made to reapply<\/span><\/a> under the new criteria, to be re-indexed. This was more effective at improving the level of quality in DOAJ than we could ever anticipate.<\/span><\/p>\n *A typical questionable publishing trait is to pretend that a journal is registered in Global North countries, particularly the USA.<\/em><\/p>\n Effective criteria One of the most effective checks, which delivered considerable changes in the geographic distribution of journals in the database, is insisting that a journal is listed in the country that its business activities are carried out<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n Compared to other indexes that are often cited in research on scholarly publishing and open access, it is safe to say that DOAJ is probably the cleanest and most reliable, especially in the context of questionable publishing. To back up that statement, DOAJ is carrying out its research, comparing some well-known indexes. More details on that will be published here very soon.<\/span><\/p>\n Joint initiatives DOAJ is also a founding organisation of <\/span>the innovative campaign, Think. Check. Submit<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n Old stains are hard to wash away
\n<\/b>Early in 2013, DOAJ’s team decided that the problem of questionable journals\u2014at that time proliferating from India in particular\u2014needed to be tackled. \u00a0<\/span>DOAJ\u2019s inclusion criteria<\/span><\/a>\u00a0were not adequate enough to filter out journals of dubious character. By October 2013, the <\/span>three countries with the most journals in DOAJ were the USA, Brazil and India<\/span><\/a>. In December 2013, the number of journals in DOAJ passed the 10 000 mark for the first time: the number of journals from the “USA”* (1247) and India (652) had risen sharply and faster than any other country.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>DOAJ has developed rigorous checks to ensure a very high level of quality of every journal in its index.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>To highlight its approach to creating a list of quality journals, to reinforce its position on questionable publishing and to emphasise the importance of standards as an effective tool to helping to identify good journals, DOAJ co-authored the <\/span>Principles of Transparency and Best Practice<\/span><\/a>, first released in December 2013.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>The problem of questionable publishing is vastly exaggerated<\/a>. For those who still insist that DOAJ is filled with questionable journals, we would ask you to take a closer look at the database today, review our criteria and read the research on both the problem of questionable publishing and how prolific it isn\u2019t.<\/span><\/p>\n