Raising the Bar at Directory of Open Access Journals - Digital Science

Raising the Bar at Directory of Open Access Journals.  Digital Science

Guest author, Dominic Mitchell .

Abstract:

"The Open Access movement has changed the publishing landscape in a number of ways, some of which were quite unexpected. For instance, the emergence of the author as customer has resulted in a new level of understanding of the needs of researchers while enabling new entrants into the publishing market. It’s no longer necessary to convince a critical mass of libraries that a new journal should exist – publishers can effectively ‘sell’ their journal one author at a time. While this lowering of the barrier has enabled tremendous innovation, it also creates new challenges in terms of publishing ethics. high-jump-695308_640In 2013, DOAJ’s Managing Director, Lars Bjørnshauge sat down with a small DOAJ team and put together a list of features and mechanisms that they believed describes the characteristics of a legitimate publisher who is serious about disseminating peer reviewed research. The initial list was created using a mixture of experience in academic publishing and knowledge gathered from hundreds of instances of applications to DOAJ from both legitimate and non-serious journals and publishers. The list was given to our Advisory Board and then put out for public consultation in June 2013. It was finalized after several iterations. In March 2014, DOAJ launched a reformed application process, using that consultation document as a template. Today, all journals that apply for entry to the DOAJ must fill in a form containing 58 questions, the majority of which are obligatory. It was a timely change and one that was already taking shape in other areas."

In this piece, Mitchell discusses DOAJ's reasoning for and processes behind the re-application process. As well, he discusses moving OA forward in whole.