What is the DOAJ and why is it important?

What is it?

The Directory of Open Access Journals is an index of approximately 9000 open access journals in all subject areas. The aim of the DOAJ is to increase the visibility and ease of use of open access scientific and scholarly journals in order to increase their usage and impact. Their list of accepted journals is made publicly available, and many university libraries integrate the data from DOAJ into their discovery services. This makes it one of the main routes for open access content to reach scholars in institutions.

DOAJ is a not-for-profit and based in the UK, but has an international advisory board and approximately 100 voluntary editorial staff who review applications for inclusion.

What does the DOAJ cover?

• All scientific and scholarly subjects, using the Library of Congress Classification Outline.
• Periodicals that publish research or review papers in full
• Journals whose target audience is researchers
• Journals that have at least a third of their content as original research or review papers
• All languages

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Why should you participate?

Being listed in DOAJ not only provides a benefit to your authors and readers by making your content more discoverable, it also signals that you are a trustworthy venue to publish in. It shows that you maintain the standards that DOAJ requires for listing. If you become a Publisher Member of DOAJ, this indicates a clear statement of intent about your commitment to quality, peer-reviewed open access.

What are the criteria for inclusion?

The requirements for listing in DOAJ are spelled out in detail here, along with recommendations that go above the basic requirements. In short, to be listed in DOAJ, a journal must at least have:

• The full text of all content available for free, immediately upon publication.
• Its own homepage with a unique URL.
• Journal information, including aims and scope, editorial board, instructions for authors, open access statement, plagiarism policy and licensing terms all hosted on the journal’s site (or at least prominently linked there).
• All content hosted on the same site.
• An ISSN.
• A homepage that is easy to navigate, demonstrating that care has been taken to ensure high ethical and professional standards, and containing clear links to the current issue, archive/past issues, search, browse, about, editorial board and contact details.
• An editor and editorial board with an up-to-date page and prominent linking on the homepage (arts and humanities can be listed without a board, but in those cases need two editors).
• Instructions for authors clearly presented on the journal’s homepage.
• Clearly displayed charges for processing or publishing papers, including Article Processing Charges (APCs), submission charges, page charges or colour charges. If your journal doesn’t level any charges, this must also be clearly stated.
• A clear open access policy on its homepage.
• Clearly and precisely stated terms of use and reuse that apply to the published content. CC licences are recommended.

In addition, each article must have:

• Its own unique URL.
• PDF or HTML.
• Editorial or peer review, and the type of review must be stated.

How do you join?

To apply for an individual journal to be indexed, once you are sure it fulfils all the requirements, apply here.

To become a Publisher Member, you must have at least one journal accepted and can apply here.

Veruscript is proud to be a Publisher Member of DOAJ. All journals published through our partner journals and presses program comply with DOAJ requirements, and Veruscript will mediate the application process for a journal to be listed.

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