Dropped from DOAJ – don’t rush to judge quality | Sustaining the Knowledge Commons / Soutenir les savoirs communs

A few years ago the Directory of Open Access Journals underwent a major weeding process. Many journals and entire publishers were removed from the directory. Does this mean that they are low quality? Based on this year’s collection of data from the Asian Network for Scientific Information (ANSInet), my advice is not to be too quick to judge. According to the ANSI website, this publisher is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics and the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers. Both organizations list ANSInet as a member. Looking at the list of ANSInet journals, I noticed that at least one is not that active; DOAJ will de-list journals that are not active regardless of the quality of publishing. As an aside, I wish DOAJ would stop doing this; there are good journals that publish less frequently and deserve to be listed. For example, there is a tradition of journal publishing associated with conferences, and some conferences are held every other year.