[GOAL] DOAJ publishes response to public feedback on revised selection criteria and a Roadmap
In June 2013, DOAJ announced its intention to revise its criteria for selecting journals to be included in the directory (http://www.doaj.org/doaj?func=newsnId=303uiLanguage=en). A public consultation period followed where feedback was received. The consultation period incited much discussion on social media, in mailing lists and via email. Redalyc ran several workshops (see page 5 - https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B1Fw8p9XB3C6Qlp1Rm9kRVUwNzg/edit?usp=sharing ) dedicated to raising awareness and collecting feedback. In general, the changes were welcomed by the communities but further refining was needed: the consultation period produced some important feedback. A summary of changes and DOAJ's response to each is now available: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B1Fw8p9XB3C6NjBwN3dGNFpqajA/edit?usp=sharing. Most significantly, it was clear that the term revised Selection Criteria was not appropriate to describe the project that DOAJ is undertaking. As a first step, all changes have been incorporated into a draft Google form https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1u0F-fVbEHySkTRXvJLkfd1s_ace9-nTzRYIWdJwSR68/viewform The fully functional form will be hosted directly on the DOAJ site, as it is now. DOAJ is also publishing its Roadmap of activities until the end of 2013 https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B1Fw8p9XB3C6OGtUZzZTVFFCSkk/edit?usp=sharing We encourage you to share this document with your institutions and libraries. For further information, contact Lars Bjørnshauge (l...@doaj.org) or Dom Mitchell (d...@doaj.org) Dom Mitchell Community Manager, DOAJ Support us! http://www.doaj.org/doaj?func=loadTemplatetemplate=supportDoaj Follow us: https://twitter.com/DOAJplus ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] DOAJ announces new selection criteria
The Directory of Open Access Journals (www.doaj.org) is delighted to announce new selection criteria and *hereby announces that these new criteria are open for public comment until July 15th*. The DOAJ-team has developed the criteria and our Advisory Board (http://www.doaj.org/doaj?func=loadTemplatetemplate=aboutuiLanguage=en#board) has provided input and comments. With the growth in the number of research funders, institutional open access policies and mandates, all stakeholders involved – researchers (as authors and readers), research managers, staff managing publication funds, librarians, universities and research funders - need a trusted and reliable information resource that identifies good quality open access journals and filters out disreputable publishers. Equally, the former have a vested interest in not being associated with the latter. We have tried to construct objective criteria that can facilitate compliance verification easily. In order to be listed in the DOAJ, a journal must meet the following criteria: - Journal will be asked to provide basic information (title, ISSN, etc.), contact information, and information about journal policies - Journal is registered with SHERPA/RoMEO - Journal has an editorial board with clearly identifiable members (including affiliation information) - Journal publishes a minimum of five articles per year (does not apply for new journals) - Allows use and reuse at leastat the following levels (as specified in the Open Access Spectrum, http://www.plos.org/about/open-access/howopenisit/): - Full text, metadata, and citations of articles can be crawled and accessed with permission (Machine Readability Level 4) - Provides free readership rights to all articles immediately upon publication (Reader Rights Level 1) - Reuse is subject to certain restrictions; no remixing (Reuse Rights Level 3) - Allow authors to retain copyright in their article with no restrictions (Copyrights Level 1) - Author can post the final, peer-reviewed manuscript version (postprint) to any repository or website (Author Posting Rights Level 2) You may review the complete list of criteria here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AlFw8p9XB3C6dHE3ZC1Hd2FMMjAweE96czRQb3NDbncusp=sharing Future submissions for inclusion in to DOAJ must include the complete set of information provided by the publisher. This information will be publicly available in the Directory. The journals currently listed in the DOAJ will have to go through a re-evaluation process based on the new criteria. This work will take place over the next 12 months or so. *DOAJ Seal of Approval* At the same time we are launching the DOAJ Seal of Approval for Open Access Journals (in short: the DOAJ Seal) to encourage a high practice standard. These journals will be identified with the DOAJ Seal logo. In addition to the more general criteria, above, required for inclusion in the DOAJ, the following criteria must be met for a journal to receive the DOAJ Seal: - Provides machine readable copyright information to help search engines identify open works - Provides DOIs at the article level - Provides metadata to DOAJ at the article level - Has a digital archiving/preservation arrangement in place - Allows use and reuse at least at the following levels (as specified in the Open Access Spectrum, http://www.plos.org/about/open-access/howopenisit/): + Allows a community standard API or other protocol to crawl or access full text, metadata, citations, and data (including supplementary data) for articles (Open Access Spectrum: Machine Readability Level 2) + Ensures generous reuse and remixing rights (Open Access Spectrum: Reuse Rights Level 1) + Allows authors to post any version of their article to any repository or website (Open Access Spectrum: Author Posting Rights Level 1) + We are confident that the new criteria will positively contribute to the transparency of open access. Since open access journals are a relatively new phenomenon, and one that is continuously changing, we will probably have to revise the criteria in a couple of years to keep them current and up to date. To avoid any misunderstanding, we are restating DOAJ’s scope here: The DOAJ has the ambition to continue to be the white list of open access journals that are global in scope in terms of geography, scientific discipline and language. In scope: Journals that provide immediate access to scholarly articles without reader payment, including back-files from those journals made freely available after transitioning to open access. Not in scope: Single articles from subscription based journals made freely available under an open access option (hybrid articles). Articles from subscription based journals made freely available after an embargo period (so-called delayed open access – not a term in our dictionary). Your comments on the new criteria are much appreciated and will contribute toward their implementation.
[GOAL] DOAJ celebrates 10 years at the heart of Open Access
Dear colleagues, Copenhagen, Denmark- It is now 10 years since a new initiative was set in motion: The Directory of Open Access Journals is the result of a unique venture between Lund University Libraries, supported by the Information Program of the Open Society Institute (http://www.osi.hu/infoprogram/), along with SPARC (The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, (http://sparceurope.org). Back in February 2003, the then Program Manager of the Open Access Program at theOpen Society Foundations, Melissa Hagemann said, somewhat prophetically, Open access journals can compete with traditional subscription-based journals if librarians and users are made aware of these titles, and the Directory of Open Access Journals is the way to publicise their existence. Happily, she was right and today, DOAJ sits at the very heart of open access scholarly content on the web. Today, Melissa told us that the Directory [has] become a major reference tool for the scholarly communications community. Back in 2002, when OSF helped to define OA, we thought that it wasnt enough to simply call for the development of OA journals, but we knew that there had to be a guide or directory where users could find and access these open resources. Thus we were pleased to support the development of the DOAJ and have been proud to see that it is now a resource used by libraries throughout the world. Today, DOAJ receives over 12 million page requests a month, lists journals in 51 different languages, from 119 countries and is used the whole world over. Today it is hard to imagine a world without the open access publishing model, without open access content freely available online for everyone to use, re-use and add to. Back in 2002, it was a very different story and the open access model was struggling to gain a real footing in the scholarly publishing communities. Libraries were struggling to retain journal collections as they saw their budgets cut and subscription prices hiked. The open access movement was seen as a radical one, looked on with some derision by traditional publishers. Therefore, one of the primary tasks of establishing the DOAJ was to increase the visibility on the web and in library holdings of open access content, alongside the more traditional fee-based journals. Who would have thought that in ten years’ time, we would see scholarly content from well-established publishers rubbing shoulders with content from emerging territories, from newborn journals and from journals with experimental business or publishing models? And yet, the content indexed in DOAJ today is all that and more. Over the years, open access journals have developed rapidly and so have the demands and expectations of the online communities consuming the information published.DOAJ has already started strategic partnershipsto carry it through the next 10 years: a new home under the management of Infrastructure Services for Open Access (www.is4oa.org),a new platform implemented by SemperTool(www.sempertool.dk) and new, tighter criteria for including journals in DOAJ. DOAJ’s various stakeholders – researchers, funders, universities, libraries, and users - all have demands and expectations of the DOAJ service and thus the next ten years will see continued development of services so that DOAJ can strive to meet and exceed expectations. Collaboration and being an active part in the community is key to DOAJ’s success so we will be interacting more with the community that has supported us so avidly. DOAJ’s managing director, Lars Bjrnshauge, said “We are very grateful for the support over the years from all of our members, supporters sponsors and we are delighted that DOAJ has reached such an important milestone. While we have already made such great progress in 2013, I feel that we have so much more to do. I hope that DOAJ can continue to count on support from the community and allow us to reach our goals over the next 10 years.” Find out more information on how to support DOAJ. Thank you for reading, Best wishes, Dom Dom MitchellCommunity Manager, DOAJTel: +46 (0)702044095 - mob/cell +44 (0)207 097 8565Support us! http://www.doaj.org/doaj?func=loadTemplatetemplate=supportDoajFollow us https://twitter.com/DOAJplus ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
