DOAJ data verification
I. GENERAL
Q1: How should I evaluate journals from European and non-European countries? Should European journals be verified locally by individuals operating in the local environment?
A1: Journals outside of Europe are outside the scope of this verification process. Europe, for these purposes, includes the following 44 countries: Spain, Poland, United Kingdom, Italy, Türkiye, Romania, France, Germany, Ukraine, Serbia, Croatia, Portugal, Czechia, Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, Hungary, Lithuania, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Finland and Åland Islands, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, Slovakia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Moldova, Morocco, Greece, Estonia, Ireland, North Macedonia, Armenia, Georgia, Latvia, Albania, Iceland, Montenegro, Tunisia, Israel, Luxembourg, Malta, Cyprus. If you can verify a journal within Europe, we encourage you to do so. If not, please contact the DDH editorial team for assistance.
Q2: How should I evaluate journals with owners located outside of Europe?
A2: Journals with owners based outside of Europe are generally outside DDH’s scope. Exceptions may be made for joint enterprises involving institutions in both European and non-European countries. In such cases, the content should be assessed. It remains outside the scope if the content focuses heavily on non-European topics.
Q3: How are journal proceedings evaluated in DDH?
A3: If conference proceedings comprise only part of a journal (e.g., a special or regular issue), the journal may be included in DDH. However, journals consisting solely of conference proceedings are considered series, not journals, and are omitted.
II. OPEN TO ALL AUTHORS
Q4: How can I determine if a journal is “open to all authors” when there’s no explicit statement?
A4: The absence of a statement declaring openness to all authors is generally not considered a negative criterion. Even journals focusing on narrow disciplines, using only one language, or serving primarily students are typically considered “open to all authors” unless specific restrictions are stated.
Q5: How should I evaluate journals on the “open to all authors” criterion with statements restricting author provenance?
A5: Journals explicitly limiting authorship to specific institutions, affiliations, or memberships are considered not open to all authors. This also applies to student journals restricting submissions to a single faculty or university or requiring author participation in a specific conference (with or without the conference fee).
Q6: Does the lack of author instructions in multiple languages disqualify a journal from being “open to all authors”?
A6: No. The ability to write in specific languages isn’t a criterion for determining openness to all authors. The focus should remain on restrictions based on affiliations, status, or group membership.
III. COMMUNITY-OWNED
Q7: How should I assess community ownership if there is no statement on ownership?
A7: Determining community ownership can be challenging as it’s not always explicitly stated. The publisher’s status is often the primary indicator. Note that the owner and publisher can be distinct entities:
Owner: Holds rights to content and brand, influencing policy and governance. Sets overarching policies and goals, which include budgetary considerations.
Publisher: Manages editorial workflow, publication and dissemination. Responsible for the content. A journal owner can transfer other responsibilities to the publisher (management of the editorial board, setting the journal policies, managing economic rights, etc.), including the finances and logistics of running the journal.
The journal is considered community-owned if the owner is unknown, but the publisher is an academic institution, scholarly/professional society, or charity.
Q8: What if the ISSN record and DOAJ list different publishers?
A8: If the ISSN International Centre and DOAJ records list different publishers, the publisher listed in the ISSN record is considered the journal’s legal entity. DOAJ should be notified to correct the discrepancy.
Q9: How should I assess community ownership when the (co)publisher is for-profit?
A9: Journals with for-profit (co)publishers or those outside Europe are generally not considered community-owned.
Q10: How should I evaluate journals that are joint enterprises across multiple countries, with only one in Europe?
A10: Assess the content. If content heavily focuses on non-European topics, the journal falls outside DDH’s scope.
Q11: How should I assess GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives, museums) sector organisations that overlap with for-profit enterprises?
A11: Examine the parent institution. Public sector parent institutions qualify as “community-owned.”
Q12: Can a single editor (e.g., a university professor) own a community-owned journal?
A12: If the editor acts on behalf of a community, this should be clearly stated in editorial policies. Otherwise, a journal solely controlled by one individual does not meet the community-owned criteria.
Q13: How should journals with a public owner and private non-profit partners be evaluated?
A13: A positive decision is warranted if the journal is primarily community-owned, even without conclusive evidence—however, insufficient information regarding ownership structure results in the journal not meeting the community-owned criterion.
Q14: Is a journal financed by a ministry “community-owned”?
A14: Yes, for the time-being we accept when the financial support comes from the governmental organisations (ministries, etc) from 44 countries, including ERA, ERAC observer countries and countries associated with Horizon Europe, mentioned above.
IV. NO FEES
Q15: How should I handle journals charging fees for articles exceeding a certain length?
A15: True Diamond Open Access journals don’t charge publication fees. Therefore, journals with length-based fees do not qualify.
Q16: Do “Subscribe to Open” (S2O) models qualify as Diamond Open Access if the publisher is a scholarly society?
A16: Models based on library-facing charges such as transformative agreements or “Subscribe to Open” qualify for DDH inclusion only if offered by academic, scholarly or explicitly not-for-profit publishers and the “community-owned” criteria is also met.
Q17: The journal owner has an agreement with a for-profit publishing service or publisher, but no APC has been stated. Should I consider such a journal as “no fees”?
A17: Such agreements typically involve payments from the journal owner, not the author. Since there are no fees for authors or readers, these are considered “no fees” journals.
Q18: How should I evaluate journals that publish conference papers (with a conference fee) for free?
A18: This does not qualify as an “additional fee” if the journal itself doesn’t charge authors for publication.
V. OPEN ACCESS WITH OPEN LICENSE
Q19. If a journal is first published in print and then, after an embargo period, published online; can this be considered gold/diamond OA?
A19. No, embargoed journals are not Diamond open access.
VI. OTHER
Q20: How should I handle discontinued journals in the DDH assessment?
A20: Mark discontinued journals (those that no longer publish or accept submissions) accordingly. Journals that are inactive for one or two years should be assessed cautiously, taking into account potential delays in publication cycles, particularly for smaller journals. An additional possibility is a continuation of the journal as one or more journals with new titles.
Q21: How should I address significant journal metadata errors (e.g., title changes)?
A21: Don’t attempt corrections. Report the error to DOAJ or the primary data source and await a correction.
Q22: What if the DOAJ URL is incorrect?
A22: Report the incorrect URL to DOAJ and wait for a correction; do not attempt to correct it yourself.
Q23: How should I handle journals with multilingual titles or acronyms?
A23: Check for distinct ISSNs. If two ISSNs exist, treat them as separate journals. If the multiple titles reflect only a translated title of the same journal, this can be ignored.
Q24: What about discrepancies in capitalisation in DOAJ entries?
A2: 4 Discrepancies in capitalisation, particularly those related to language-specific conventions, can generally be ignored, at least until DDH 2.0. Inform DOAJ of the discrepancy.
Q25: How should I handle journals with multiple publishing platforms (e.g., a journal website plus a national portal or for-profit service)?
A25: For DDH evaluation, prioritise the publisher information found in the official ISSN record, and then check for consistency with the data in DOAJ and other sources. Additional editorial efforts should be dedicated to aligning multiple journal entries.
Q26: How can the scholarly status of the journal be checked?
A26: The Journal can be considered a scholarly journal if it employs the peer review process (at least for some articles), which should be described on the journal website.
Q27: How can the open access status of the journal be verified?
A27: All outputs of the journal should be in open access and carry an open licence that is included in the article-level metadata.