Improving the Transparency and Credibility of Open Access Publishing by Lars Bjørnshauge, DOAJ
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The document discusses the need for improved transparency and credibility in open access (OA) publishing, highlighting issues with existing peer-review processes and the dominance of traditional publishing models. It outlines the role of the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) in promoting best practices and developing stricter inclusion criteria for journals, aiming to enhance overall editorial quality and transparency. The document calls for community support to facilitate these improvements and ensure that journals in the DOAJ meet accepted standards.
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Improving the Transparency and Credibility of Open Access Publishing by Lars Bjørnshauge, DOAJ
- 1. Improving the transparency and credibility of open access publishing Presentation at the 4ª Conferencia internacional sobre calidad de revistas de ciencias sociales y humanidades (CRECS 2014) Madrid, 8-9 de mayo de 2014 Lars Bjørnshauge [email protected]
- 2. Agenda • Setting the scene – the big issues • Elements in transparency and credibility – Editorial ”quality” – Peer-review process – Openness/licensing – ”Technical quality” • How will DOAJ contribute to improved transparency and credibility of OA-journals?
- 3. Basic views • ”International” subscription based publishing excludes major parts of the world. • It doesn´t work, doesn´t serve research or societies. • Dominant publishers and proprietary databases constitute a ”system” excluding continents from participation • Dominant measures of scholarship enforces this power structure.
- 4. Science is broken! • Raison d´être of the work of traditional editorial boards – i.e. peer-review – belongs to the print world • 1-2 reviewers decide what future scholars and the public might find important. • Traditional closed peer-review supports existing power structures • It is elitist, flawed & biased!
- 5. Impact! • Dominant measures of impact – i.e. the JIF – only measure impact of research on researchers and research itself. • Determines research funding, research policy and the faith of scholars. • Fails to embrace impact on practioners, the public and our societies. • Is flawed, prone to manipulation. • What counts is not so much what you publish, but
- 6. The big problem? • The big problem: • is not whether open access publishing is transparent and credible • but rather how to create a scholarly communication system that serves research, researchers, the people and our societies! • The good thing is that awareness of the problems of the existing system is growing and a lot of promising developments are underway.
- 7. • Improving the transparency and credibility of open access publishing! • But: do not blame the publishers, rather blame those who allows the system to continue to exist and flourish!
- 8. Open Access, then… • The promises of open access • OA can: • remove access barriers • reduce participation barriers • create a truly global scholarly communication system • reduce the total costs • increase the impact of research on research, societies and the people!
- 9. Issues… • This is not to say that OA is problem free: • Many OA-journals do not live up to reasonable – editorial standards – technical standards – ethical standards • Some business models can exclude some researchers.
- 11. OA-journals • Should be much more transparent regarding − The editorial process − The peer-review process − Rights (reader rights, reuse rights, remixing rights etc.) − The services they provide to the author − Archiving − Identifiers − Discoverability
- 12. We will help! • COPE, OASPA, WAME & DOAJ: http://oaspa.org/principles-of-transparency-and-best-practice-in-scholarly-publishing/
- 13. The Principles 1. Peer review process 2. Governing Body 3. Editorial team/contact 4. Author fees 5. Copyright 6. Identification of and dealing with allegations of research misconduct 7. Ownership and 8. Web site 9. Name of journal 10. Conflicts of interest 11. Access 12. Revenue sources 13. Advertising 14. Publishing schedule 15. Archiving
- 14. DOAJ • Founded 2003 at Lund University – launched May 2003 with 300 journals • Membership and Sponsor funding model introduced 2006. • Situation 2010/2011: • Increasing expectations as OA gets momentum. • Difficulties in getting resources as expectations grow. • As OA matures demands from funders and libraries increase and become more differentiated and advanced.
- 15. www.is4oa.org Founded by Caroline Sutton, Alma Swan & Lars Bjørnshauge
- 16. A not-for-profit Community Interest Company (C.I.C.), registered in the United Kingdom.
- 17. • IS4OA took over DOAJ January 1st 2013. • We said we would: − Respond to demands and expectations by developing new tighter criteria for inclusion − Reengineer the editorial back office work − Invite “associate editors” to contribute to evaluation of journals to be listed
- 18. Why tighter criteria? • To create better opportunities for funders, universities, libraries and authors to determine whether a journal lives up to standards – transparency! • Enable the community to monitor compliance • Addressing the issue of fake publishers or publishers not living up to reasonable standards both in terms of content and of business behavior.
- 19. Why tighter criteria? • To motivate and encourage OA-journals to – be more explicit on editorial quality issues – be more explicit on rights and reuse issues – improve their “technical” quality fostering improved dissemination and discoverability • To promote standards and best practice • Lack of transparency and credibility hurts all OA- publishers!
- 20. New criteria • New tighter criteria address: − “Quality” − “Openness” − “The delivery” or “Technical quality” • They are much more detailed • Publishers will have to do more to be included • Criteria will be binary (either in or not in!)
- 21. The long tail!
- 22. Archiving/Preservation • Does your organisation or your journal(s) have an arrangement for long term preservation and availability (LPTA) or partake in any LPTA program? • Yes: 14% • No – I´m not interested: 41% • Would you be interested in DOAJ providing/facilitating a fee-based LPTA service?
- 23. Archiving
- 24. Permanent Identifiers (DOIs) • Has your journal(s) implemented DOIs? • Yes: 35% • No: 55% • Don´t know: 10%
- 26. Editorial ”quality” • QUALITY AND TRANSPARENCY OF THE EDITORIAL PROCESS • The journal must have an editor or an editorial board, all members must be easily identified • Specification of the review process – Editorial review, Peer review, Blind peer review, Double blind peer review, Open Peer Review, Other • Statements about aims & scope clearly visible • Instructions to authors shall be available and easily located • Screening for plagiarism? • Time from submission to publication
- 27. Editorial issues Specify what kind of review process is applied: Editorial review, Peer Review, Blind Peer Review, Double Blind Peer Review, Open Peer Review
- 28. Plagiarism etc
- 29. Openness
- 30. Reuse/remix
- 31. Licensing
- 33. Deposit policy
- 34. APC´s
- 35. Charges
- 36. A delicate balance! • Respecting different publishing cultures and traditions • Not primarily exclude, but rather facilitate and assist the smaller journals to come into the flow • While at the same time promoting standards, transparency and best practice
- 37. DOAJ SEAL • Promoting best practice (anno 2014) – qualifiers for the DOAJ SEAL: − Archiving arrangement with an archiving organisation − Provision of permanent identifiers − Provision of article level metadata to DOAJ − CC-BY (embedded machine readable in article metadata) − CC-BY or CC-BY-NC − Deposit policy registered in a deposit policy directory
- 38. The DOAJ SEAL
- 39. To conclude! • We believe that the new application criteria will improve the transparency and credibility of OA- journals • We will continue to contribute to the momentum of open access publishing by – carefully promoting standards, transparency and best practice – without losing the global view – collaborating
- 40. But! • ”upgrading” DOAJ is a major effort: • major system development work • implementing a new way of working – putting associate editors to work • we will only be able to do this, if we get more financial support from the community. • Support the work we are doing! • http://doaj.org/supportDoaj
- 41. Our ambition: DOAJ to be the white list! and make other lists superfluous – that is: if a journal is in the DOAJ it complies with accepted standards
- 42. Thank you for your attention! [email protected]
- 43. Thanks to all the Library Consortia, Universities and Publishers and our Sponsors for the financial support to DOAJ! [email protected]
- 44. Credits to the hard working team at DOAJ: Sonja Brage, Rikard Zeylon and Dominic Mitchell and all our incoming Associate Editors, and our technical partner Cottage Labs! [email protected]