functionality

Widgets! Embed DOAJ directly into your site.

Happy New Year to all of you! We have a gift: two shiny widgets! You can now embed a set of search results or a DOAJ search box directly into your web sites.

Embedding search results
It works like this: 1) carry out a search in DOAJ 2) filter and refine the results until they are as precise as you need them 3) use the Embed button ‘share|embed’ button at the top of the search results to reveal the code that you will paste into your web page. The results that you embed in your site update automatically as DOAJ updates.

Some possible uses might be: a publisher can now display a list of all its journals or articles, indexed in DOAJ, on its own site; a library can display all DOAJ indexed journals with no APCs that have the Seal; a researcher might embed a list of all open access articles with a CC BY license that are pertinent to her research group.

Embed a DOAJ search box in your site
You can also embed a DOAJ search box directly into your site, allowing your users to search for open access, peer reviewed journals and articles directly. A user carrying out a search in this way will be taken to the search results in DOAJ. The search box can be embedded into your site, library portal, web page or blog, making quality open access material more easily accessible alongside other content.

We’ve created a new page for the widgets which has a little more technical detail on how to configure them so they behave exactly as you want them to. As ever, we’re always interested in your feedback!

 

 

Development plan for 2015/6

Recent discussions with a partner reminded me that we haven’t published a development plan.

I’ve put together a high level list of our developments: what we are currently doing and what we have next on the list. As it stands, it will take us through to mid-2016 but it is a very fluid document. We have the flexibility to add in items and move others so the 2016 items will be revisited in January 2016 and reviewed to make sure nothing else has cropped up in the meantime.

Some of these items I have already announced in earlier posts. I’ve collected those here.

As always, I’d welcome your feedback.

The new site upgrades are live; it’ll take some time for the data to settle

All of our new site upgrades were successfully rolled out to the site last Wednesday. We’d like to hear what you think of the upgrades!

A few comments about what you will see now on the site:

  • I mentioned that we will need some time for the data to settle. The site displays the new dataset only. That means that the data will grow as publishers resubmit their reapplications and those are accepted back into DOAJ. If you have been monitoring the data closely, there will be a large jump in the figures you are reporting on so you’ll need to account for that in any analysis that you do. Specifically, the number of journals with or without APCs has changed and the totals for the number of articles published per year have also shifted. I shall publish a blog post shortly that contains the last counts of the APC data and articles per year before the site was upgraded. This will serve as a historic record only but it is important that it is available online.
  • Every journal has an extended ‘home page’ on DOAJ that reveals all the new data we’ve been collecting in our new form. There’s all the important bits up at the top, especially the APC information and then, by clicking on the ‘More’ button, you can reveal information about licensing, copyright and best practices that the journal adheres to.
  • We’ve improved the way that tables of contents are displayed so you can now see clearly the volumes, issues and, if a journal has one, a continuation.
  • We’ve tidied up the URLs. For example URLs for journals now look like this http://doaj.org/toc/2175-8042 instead of like this http://doaj.org/toc/0006191878084b8d8bddae52ce72c948. An improvement; I hope you agree!
  • Try our built-in URL shortening service from Bit.ly. It turns this:
    https://doaj.org/search?source={%22query%22%3A{%22filtered%22%3A{%22filter%22%3A{%22bool%22%3A{%22must%22%3A[{%22term%22%3A{%22_type%22%3A%22article%22}}%2C{%22term%22%3A{%22index.license.exact%22%3A%22CC%20BY%22}}%2C{%22term%22%3A{%22index.classification.exact%22%3A%22Health%20Sciences%22}}]}}%2C%22query%22%3A{%22match_all%22%3A{}}}}%2C%22from%22%3A0%2C%22size%22%3A10} into http://bit.ly/1IQ11j3 in two clicks!
  • Finally, we’ve added OpenURL back to the site so for any of you who were using that service to link out to DOAJ, you should find that those links now resolve again.

Thanks for your patience as we settle into the new data structure. It’s going to take some time for things to even out, not least because our site upgrade has revealed the true nature of the data and we have some data clean-up tasks to do.

If you have any specific questions about what you are seeing then do get in touch!

Have you used our RSS Feed?

Have you used our RSS feed? It allows you to keep track of the last 100 journals added to DOAJ. It includes the journal title, the date and time that the journal was added, and a link to the journal’s home page. An item looks like this:

Antropologìčnì Vimìri Fìlosofsʹkih Doslìdženʹ
21 April 2015 19:15
Antropologìčnì Vimìri Fìlosofsʹkih Doslìdženʹ

You can integrate the feed with your browser feed manager, any standalone feed-reader, indeed anything that is capable of consuming RSS feeds. You can even integrate the code directly into your website using an RSS feed converter tool.

Let me know what you have any comments on the feature.

Updates to DOAJ will be switched off while we upgrade the site

Earlier this month I wrote about the twelve developments that we were working on. These are now ready to be released to the live site this week and we will be making the upgrade between Tuesday (21st April) evening and Wednesday (22nd April) morning British Summer Time (GMT+1). During this time, we will switch off all parts of the site that allow new data to be submitted to us:

  • the application form
  • the form for adding article metadata
  • the XML upload page for uploading article metadata
  • the CSV upload page for submitting bulk reapplications
  • the reapplication form

All other aspects of the site will continue to function as normal. We expect a full service to be reinstated by Wednesday 12 noon BST. I will post further updates here.

Further development: metadata harvester and API

Here’s some good news for a Thursday.

In May we will be starting our next development projects: a metadata harvester and an API.

For the harvester, we will run a pilot phase collecting the PLoS metadata. Just by gathering PLoS metadata alone, we will very quickly double our existing article count. In 2016, we’ll scale up the harvester to seek out and collect article metadata for as many DOAJ-indexed journals as possible that do not have metadata associated with them.

The API will have two functions. Although we haven’t finalised the details, it is our intention that it will allow publishers to bulk upload their own article metadata without having to manually upload an XML file. For our mega-publishers, such as Redalyc, SciELO, BMC and PLoS, this will ensure their journals are always up-to-date in DOAJ with the latest article content. It will also allow bulk applications by publishers of new journals. Secondly, the API will provide an interface into our database that will allow custom queries of the data and advanced analysis.

These developments take serious funding so if you haven’t yet donated to us then please consider becoming a Publisher Member, a Member or a Sponsor. With the community’s help, we can greatly improve the visibility of quality, peer-reviewed open access content.

I’ll post more details as soon as I know them.

Greater visibility to APCs: amount, currency, URL

There has been a lot of focus in research on author processing charges (APCs) and submission charges, particularly in the last 16 months or so and DOAJ data is often used as a basis of that research.  Heather Morrison’s recent article in Publications and Walt Crawford’s research published in Cites and Insights are two very recent examples.

DOAJ wants to raise the visibility of charges information even further to facilitate future research and to make it easier for authors, researchers and funders to make informed decisions on where to publish. As part of our commitment to raising the level of quality of data in DOAJ, we released yesterday a small but important change to the display of charging information. All journals accepted into DOAJ after March 2014, or back into DOAJ after a successful reapplication, will have the following information displayed against them:

  • Does the journal have APCs or Submission charges?
  • If so, how much and what is the currency of those charges?
  • What is the URL where that information is clearly displayed and stated on the journal web site?
  • If there are no charges, what is the URL where that information is clearly displayed and stated on the journal web site?

During our review of applications we request that ‘no charges’ is stated explicitly on the journal’s site and we will ask publishers to add that information if they have not already done so.

You will find the new information on each journal’s table of contents page; that is to say the long, detailed view of all the information and metadata that we hold for a journal accessible by clicking a journal’s title in search results. Two examples would be here where the journal has no charges, or here where the journal has APCs.

There are further improvements in the pipeline: we will move the information above the [more detail] link on these pages; we will add charge information to all records in search results; we will include amount and currency in our downloadable CSV file; and we will point the Publication Charges facet in search to the new data. These changes are scheduled for completion in April.

Update on our reapplication process

I just read a great post in the Digital Commons’ DC Telegraph which has prompted me to write a little update of where we are with the reapplication process that we have been speaking about—that is, the process where all existing journals in DOAJ have to reapply to stay indexed.

As happens with some development projects, the launch of the functionality that will handle all the reapplications had to be moved out from our original estimated date. We’re sorry for the delay. The good news is that we are in testing now and, if all goes to plan, should be ready to release the functionality in December. If testing throws up some serious flaws in our developments then we may have to wait until January 2015. Either way, we are almost there.

As mentioned in the DC Telegraph, and in Nina Rose’s post on L.J. eds., we will be emailing all publishers as soon as we are ready so if you haven’t heard from us yet, that’s OK. We will also be publishing an announcement here, on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn AND every publisher that logs into their account will see a blue ‘sticky note’ across the top of their account letting them know that they have reapplications to make.

Sample sticky note

The sticky note appears in your Publishers’ Area once you have logged in.

As always, get in touch if you have questions.

 

Proactive not reactive

Earlier this week, Nature News & Comment published a piece about the DOAJ under the heading ‘Open-access website gets tough‘.

We are happy about the exposure but there are a couple of things to address.

1) Coming to the end of a process started in December 2012

The process of drafting new, tougher criteria started way before the so-called “Science sting” which found problems in the peer review process of many of the questionable open access journals deliberately selected for the study.

IS4OA (www.is4oa.org) officially took over the responsibility for DOAJ on 1st January 2013 but it announced on 18th December 2012 that one of the most important things it would do was to ensure the implementation of stronger selection criteria for journals to be included—and to stay included—in the DOAJ. This was primarily to make it easier for authors to find a proper open access journal in which to publish their work. It makes it easier also for research funders, universities and managers of open access publication funds to make an informed decision on which open access journals comply with their policies in terms of licensing, archiving and APCs. In June 2013, after input from the DOAJ Advisory Board, I tweeted that a draft of the new criteria was available for public comment:

The draft received a lot of attention and constructive input from the community and the new application form finally went live in March this year, after a platform migration and a good deal of development.

All new journals wishing to be indexed in DOAJ and all journals indexed currently have to complete the form and then pass a much more rigorous and detailed evaluation. All the information provided by the journals will eventually be publicly available and searchable, further empowering the community to make better decisions re which open access journal to publish in and to help the DOAJ team monitor compliance. At time of writing, 231 journals have been accepted into the DOAJ under these new criteria.

Naturally, this change means much more evaluation is needed per application—multiplying current operations by a factor of 10—so DOAJ put out a call in January 2014 for voluntary editors to assist in the (re)-evaluation of the journals. The call generated 250 applications from researchers, PhDs, professors, librarians and academic publishing professionals from more than 30 countries mastering more than 30 languages. For DOAJ to achieve its vision of being a truly global service, extending coverage around the world, this is an important landmark.

With further development, DOAJ has also implemented a 3-tier evaluation process which will, as far as possible, filter out any questionable journals. This process will take time, especially since 99% of the 9939 journals have to be re-evaluated. We expect the process to be completed late 2015.

2) Even more vital to the community

The DOAJ Team knows for a fact that these efforts are taking DOAJ in the right direction that will ensure it continues to meet the needs of the public. It has already had excellent feedback on the new developments via social media channels, via training sessions held by Redalyc throughout South America and from its sponsors and supporters. It is also known that many university open access publication funds list inclusion in the DOAJ as being one of the criteria for a successful funding request. Furthermore, someone looking for a quality, peer-reviewed, open access journal in their field is more likely to start their search with the DOAJ list of journals, than with any other list; a curated list of reputable journals that uses a 3-tier review process, that harnesses the skills and expertise of the community and that requires 48 pieces of different information from an applicant before a journal can be considered for inclusion.

All the improvements above add up to a dramatic change for the DOAJ and the way it operates. It can only continue this approach if the communities that use and value DOAJ continue to support it. DOAJ has been operating entirely on financial support and is one of the oldest community funded, open access infrastructure services. Along with its sponsors, more than 100 university libraries, 15 library consortia and others already support DOAJ financially but more are needed! Become part of this impressive group of sponsors and supporters by going to http://doaj.org/supportDoaj and donating.