I fully support Jean-Claude's arguments. It should be added that DOAJ is based not least on voluntary unpaid work and everyone who wants to improve DOAJ is invited to participate.
Falk Reckling Von: Guédon Jean-Claude<mailto:jean.claude.gue...@umontreal.ca> Gesendet: Mittwoch, 21. August 2019 14:46 An: goal@eprints.org<mailto:goal@eprints.org> Betreff: Re: [GOAL] DOAJ: handmaiden to despots? or, OA, let's talk So, Heather is pointing all of us to further sources of information, and that is all very good. However, Heather should also acknowledge that DOAJ does what it can with the resources it has (and it does all this very well, thank you). I am also quite sure that DOAJ's leaders monitor parallel projects, if only to steer DOAJ better and position it more effectively. Elementary, my dear Watson, but thank you for the putative help! Of course, if Heather finds ways to respond to her own wish for "ideally with appropriate economic support", and manages to garner the needed funds for DOAJ, I am sure DOAJ will be very appreciative... :-) In conclusion, the way Heather is taking on DOAJ is a bit of a puzzle. Where is she coming from? Aren't there more important issues in the OA world than trimming details about DOAJ's operations, especially when you don't have the means to do the trimming? Has DOAJ become a point of obsession for her (a bit like her focus on CC-by)? Jean-Claude Guédon On 2019-08-20 5:10 p.m., Heather Morrison wrote: Thank you Lars. DOAJ has been an important contributor to the open access movement over the years, and I understand that DOAJ conducted a weeding process a few years ago as a partial response to the predatory publishing phenomenon. However, there are some important limitations to DOAJ, and I argue that it is timely to re-think solutions for the future, for what some of us are describing as the second generation of open access. Options for such solutions could include expanding or modifying DOAJ (ideally with appropriate economic support), developing complementary services that could interact with DOAJ at the search level, and/or developing new kinds of services that might build on DOAJ. This post focuses on the limitations of DOAJ and highlights existing and historical more inclusive approaches. Discovery tool for content: DOAJ currently provides a means of searching for (some) fully open access journals and for articles in some of the journals. This is useful, however a discovery tool limited to articles in fully open access journals that are currently active and whose publishers / editors have successfully completed the DOAJ application focus, is a very limited discovery tool. Examples of more inclusive open access focused journal lists: Jan Szcepanski was a pioneer in collecting open access journals and magazines and one of the major contributors to DOAJ in the early years. Szcepanski wrote about this work and motivation at my request here: http://oalibrarian.blogspot.com/2005/12/jan-szczepanski-collecting-for-world.html Szcepanski's lists included journals with open access to back issues. This is valuable content. These lists also included journals and magazines of academic interest that are not peer-reviewed. It was through Szcepanski's work that I, while living in British Columbia and very much interested in works by or about local First Nations, learned of the Ha-Shilth-Sa Newsletter, the official letter of the Nuu-Chah-Nulth Tribal Council, based on the West Coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia: https://hashilthsa.com/ A list that includes relevant non-peer-reviewed journals and magazines is a more useful service that a more exclusive list. Traditionally, indexing services and library bundled databases have included resources of academic interest such as trade magazines along with peer-reviewed literature. The Electronic Journals Library (EZB) is a collaborative effort of hundreds of libraries that provides members with cross-searching of subscriptions and "64352 journals which are accessible free of charge to anyone" (in contrast with DOAJ's just over 13,000 journals) - details here: http://ezb.uni-regensburg.de/about.phtml?bibid=AAAAA&colors=7&lang=en The important point about EZB is that, like DOAJ, it is a vetted list, but after vetting finds close to 5 times more journals that are both free of charge and worthy of inclusion. That is the kind of list that I, as a researcher, would prefer to search myself, and the cross-search with subscribed material is also a very useful service. No serious researcher would prefer to be ignorant of the existence of research just because it is not open access. Libraries in North America typically load DOAJ into local discovery services so that the journals are cross-searched along with subscriptions content. PubMed indexes all of the medical literature from vetted sources, with direct instant access to material that is freely available. This is the model I think we need to aim for, free indexing with links to open access content wherever available. If the indexing is not free of charge, we may end up having to pay for toll access services like Elsevier's Scopus to discover freely available content. best, Dr. Heather Morrison Associate Professor, School of Information Studies, University of Ottawa Professeur Agrégé, École des Sciences de l'Information, Université d'Ottawa Principal Investigator, Sustaining the Knowledge Commons, a SSHRC Insight Project sustainingknowledgecommons.org heather.morri...@uottawa.ca<mailto:heather.morri...@uottawa.ca> https://uniweb.uottawa.ca/?lang=en#/members/706 ________________________________ From: goal-boun...@eprints.org<mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org> <goal-boun...@eprints.org><mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org> on behalf of Lars Bjørnshauge <l...@arl.org><mailto:l...@arl.org> Sent: Tuesday, August 20, 2019 7:30 AM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) <goal@eprints.org><mailto:goal@eprints.org> Subject: Re: [GOAL] DOAJ: handmaiden to despots? or, OA, let's talk Attention : courriel externe | external email Heather, It is correct that in the handling of an application of a journal it is a requirement that a journal has published 5 articles in the previous year. However we are not policing this after the acceptance of the journal on a daily basis. If we discover that a journal has ceased publication for 1-2 years, we will remove the journal after communication to the publisher. DOAJ is actually spending considerable resources to help smaller journals to produce a good application, an application that can be a basis for the assessment of the journal, including requiring quite many URL´s to enable our staff and volunteers to work effectively. The DOAJ application form and guides are available in quite a number of languages. Somewhere we must draw a line to tell whether a journals actually is a journal. Lars Bjørnshauge Managing Director DOAJ On Thu, Aug 15, 2019 at 5:55 PM Heather Morrison <heather.morri...@uottawa.ca<mailto:heather.morri...@uottawa.ca>> wrote: Thanks Lars. DOAJ de-lists journals that fall below a certain level of activity (5 articles per year, right?) If people are relying on DOAJ to identify quality journals, this is problematic from a number of perspectives. This conflates quality and size. Frequency of publication is an indicator of activity, not quality. There are traditional scholarly communities that are small and have bi-annual conferences. A traditional list (Ulrich's) recognizes such journals. The more people rely on DOAJ, the greater the disadvantage for small journals. Over time, I anticipate that this will lead to disappearance of small independent journals and feed the existing tendency towards market concentration. There are many reasons why a small journal could become less active or inactive. In the case of an editor under a dictatorship, cessation of publication and an unresponsive editor could reflect actions of a dictator against an editor perceived as unfriendly to the government such as firing (hence loss of work email) or imprisonment of the editor. Removing a journal is this context effectively assists the dictator in the task of censorship. Would DOAJ consider retaining small and inactive journals? I recommend this simple step as a courtesy to small journals, to avoid inadvertently helping dictators, and to make DOAJ a more valuable service. Metadata elements for "ceased publication", "predecessor" for title changes and "active / inactive" are common in journal lists such as Ulrich's and the PMC journals. Currently DOAJ metadata includes multiple URLs for each journal. Fewer URLs and more of the information above would be helpful for people seeking content or publication venues. Fewer requests for URLs would make the application process less onerous for small journals. Last time I checked, the DOAJ application process requested 15 different URLs for each journal. This is a lot to ask of a small journal, especially if the editor's first language is not English. best, Dr. Heather Morrison Associate Professor, School of Information Studies, University of Ottawa Professeur Agrégé, École des Sciences de l'Information, Université d'Ottawa Principal Investigator, Sustaining the Knowledge Commons, a SSHRC Insight Project sustainingknowledgecommons.org<http://sustainingknowledgecommons.org> heather.morri...@uottawa.ca<mailto:heather.morri...@uottawa.ca> https://uniweb.uottawa.ca/?lang=en#/members/706 ________________________________ From: goal-boun...@eprints.org<mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org> <goal-boun...@eprints.org<mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org>> on behalf of Lars Bjørnshauge <l...@arl.org<mailto:l...@arl.org>> Sent: Thursday, August 15, 2019 8:55:34 AM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) <goal@eprints.org<mailto:goal@eprints.org>> Subject: Re: [GOAL] DOAJ: handmaiden to despots? or, OA, let's talk Attention : courriel externe | external email Hello Heather, We agree that “Achieving the goals of the movement requires critical reflection and occasional changes in policy and procedure”. Over the years DOAJ has done this, listening to the changed and increasing demands from the community, for instance when in 2014 we implemented substantially stronger criteria for inclusion which were based on extensive feedback from the community: https://blog.doaj.org/2019/08/05/myth-busting-doaj-indexes-predatory-journals/ Earlier today we responded to your statement that we reject open access journals that would be "suitable venues for critics of the despotic government”. DOAJ wants to index good quality open access journals, but they must apply and meet the selection criteria in order to be included. We might also discuss the issue about “despotic governments”, but currently we would find it very hard to 1) create selection criteria for DOAJ defining what constitutes a journal sponsored by a “despotic government” and 2) agree on a list of such governments. Best Lars Bjørnshauge Managing Director DOAJ On Thu, Aug 15, 2019 at 8:08 AM Heather Morrison <heather.morri...@uottawa.ca<mailto:heather.morri...@uottawa.ca>> wrote: As any movement grows and flourishes, decisions made will turn out to have unforeseen consequences. Achieving the goals of the movement requires critical reflection and occasional changes in policy and procedure.The purpose of this post is to point out that the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) appears to be inadvertently acting as a handmaiden to at least one despotic government, facilitating dissemination of works subject to censorship and rejecting open access journals that would be suitable venues for critics of the despotic government. There is no blame and no immediately obvious remedy, but solving a problem begins with acknowledging that a problem exists and inviting discussion of how to avoid and solve the problem. OA friends, please consider this such an invitation. Sustaining the knowledge commons full post: https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2019/08/14/doaj-handmaiden-to-despots-or-oa-we-need-to-talk/ best, Dr. Heather Morrison Associate Professor, School of Information Studies, University of Ottawa Professeur Agrégé, École des Sciences de l'Information, Université d'Ottawa Principal Investigator, Sustaining the Knowledge Commons, a SSHRC Insight Project sustainingknowledgecommons.org<http://sustainingknowledgecommons.org> heather.morri...@uottawa.ca<mailto:heather.morri...@uottawa.ca> https://uniweb.uottawa.ca/?lang=en#/members/706 _______________________________________________ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org<mailto:GOAL@eprints.org> http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal -- Lars Bjørnshauge Managing Director DOAJ (www.doaj.org<http://www.doaj.org>) mobile phone: +45 53 51 06 03 Skype-Id: lbj-lub0603 - Twitter: elbjoern0603 e.mail: e<mailto:l...@arl.org>lbjoern0...@gmail.com<mailto:lbjoern0...@gmail.com> _______________________________________________ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org<mailto:GOAL@eprints.org> http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal -- Lars Bjørnshauge Managing Director DOAJ (www.doaj.org<http://www.doaj.org>) mobile phone: +45 53 51 06 03 Skype-Id: lbj-lub0603 - Twitter: elbjoern0603 e.mail: e<mailto:l...@arl.org>lbjoern0...@gmail.com<mailto:lbjoern0...@gmail.com> _______________________________________________ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org<mailto:GOAL@eprints.org> http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal _______________________________________________ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
