New From SPARC: “Directory of Open Access Journals Introduces New Standards to Help Community Address Quality Concerns”

From a SPARC Blog Post by Caralee Adams:

Lars Bjørnshauge, Managing Director of the DOAJ [Directory of Open Access Journals ] in Copenhagen and director of SPARC Europe, helped to spearhead the expanded review process, which began in March of 2014. The application that must be approved to get into the directory now includes about 50 questions rather than just seven. The questions explore aspects of the journal ranging from the transparency of the journal’s editorial processes to peer review and selection criteria, to plagiarism screening mechanisms, requiring full disclosure on all of these areas before a journal is accepted for inclusion in the DOAJ database.

The DOAJ currently includes 10,000 journals, each of which has been invited to re-apply for inclusion in the directory under the new procedure.  This unprecedented, comprehensive review is currently underway, and is expected to be completed by the end of 2015.

[Our emphasis] Since the new criteria were established in March 2014, DOAJ  has received 4100 applications from journals, many duplicates. 700 have been included, 1100 have been rejected and 2300 are pending or in process.  During the same period (12 months) 175 journals has been removed from DOAJ.

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Caroline Sutton, Co-Founder and Editorial Director of Co-Action Publishing, and past-president of OASPA [Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association], was one of the experts with whom DOAJ consulted. She agreed it was time to tighten up some of the some of the criteria, and recognized that it also provided an opportunity to “harmonize” the new DOAJ criteria with the criteria used by OASPA in its membership review process. OASPA in collaboration with COPE, WAME and DOAJ developed the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing, and these organizations and now collaborating in promoting these principles.

Direct to Full Text Article (Approx. 1600 Words)

See Also: Take a Look at the Enhanced DOAJ Application Form

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