[GOAL] DOAJ: handmaiden to despots? or, OA, let's talk

[Heather Morrison]

Thanks Lars.

DOAJ de-lists journals that fall below a certain level of activity (5 articles per year, right?)

If people are relying on DOAJ to identify quality journals, this is problematic from a number of perspectives.

This conflates quality and size. Frequency of publication is an indicator of activity, not quality. There are traditional scholarly communities that are small and have bi-annual conferences. A traditional list (Ulrich's) recognizes such journals. The more people rely on DOAJ, the greater the disadvantage for small journals. Over time, I anticipate that this will lead to disappearance of small independent journals and feed the existing tendency towards market concentration.

There are many reasons why a small journal could become less active or inactive. In the case of an editor under a dictatorship, cessation of publication and an unresponsive editor could reflect actions of a dictator against an editor perceived as unfriendly to the government such as firing (hence loss of work email) or imprisonment of the editor. Removing a journal is this context effectively assists the dictator in the task of censorship.

Would DOAJ consider retaining small and inactive journals? I recommend this simple step as a courtesy to small journals, to avoid inadvertently helping dictators, and to make DOAJ a more valuable service.

Metadata elements for "ceased publication", "predecessor" for title changes and "active / inactive" are common in journal lists such as Ulrich's and the PMC journals.

Currently DOAJ metadata includes multiple URLs for each journal. Fewer URLs and more of the information above would be helpful for people seeking content or publication venues. Fewer requests for URLs would make the application process less onerous for small journals. Last time I checked, the DOAJ application process requested 15 different URLs for each journal. This is a lot to ask of a small journal, especially if the editor's first language is not English.

best,

Dr. Heather Morrison
Associate Professor, School of Information Studies, University of Ottawa
Professeur Agrégé, École des Sciences de l'Information, Université d'Ottawa
Principal Investigator, Sustaining the Knowledge Commons, a SSHRC Insight Project
sustainingknowledgecommons.org
Heather.Morrison at uottawa.ca
https://uniweb.uottawa.ca/?lang=en#/members/706
________________________________
From: goal-bounces at eprints.org <goal-bounces at eprints.org> on behalf of Lars Bjørnshauge <lars at arl.org>
Sent: Thursday, August 15, 2019 8:55:34 AM
To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) <goal at eprints.org>
Subject: Re: [GOAL] DOAJ: handmaiden to despots? or, OA, let's talk

Attention : courriel externe | external email
Hello Heather,


We agree that “Achieving the goals of the movement requires critical reflection and occasional changes in policy and procedure”. Over the years DOAJ has done this, listening to the changed and increasing demands from the community, for instance when in 2014 we implemented substantially stronger criteria for inclusion which were based on extensive feedback from the community: https://blog.doaj.org/2019/08/05/myth-busting-doaj-indexes-predatory-journals/

Earlier today we responded to your statement that we reject open access journals that would be "suitable venues for critics of the despotic government”. DOAJ wants to index good quality open access journals, but they must apply and meet the selection criteria in order to be included. We might also discuss the issue about “despotic governments”, but currently we would find it very hard to 1) create selection criteria for DOAJ defining what constitutes a journal sponsored by a “despotic government” and 2) agree on a list of such governments.

Best


Lars Bjørnshauge

Managing Director

DOAJ

On Thu, Aug 15, 2019 at 8:08 AM Heather Morrison <Heather.Morrison at uottawa.ca<mailto:Heather.Morrison at uottawa.ca>> wrote:
As any movement grows and flourishes, decisions made will turn out to have unforeseen consequences. Achieving the goals of the movement requires critical reflection and occasional changes in policy and procedure.The purpose of this post is to point out that the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) appears to be inadvertently acting as a handmaiden to at least one despotic government, facilitating dissemination of works subject to censorship and rejecting open access journals that would be suitable venues for critics of the despotic government. There is no blame and no immediately obvious remedy, but solving a problem begins with acknowledging that a problem exists and inviting discussion of how to avoid and solve the problem. OA friends, please consider this such an invitation.

Sustaining the knowledge commons full post:
https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2019/08/14/doaj-handmaiden-to-despots-or-oa-we-need-to-talk/


best,


Dr. Heather Morrison

Associate Professor, School of Information Studies, University of Ottawa

Professeur Agrégé, École des Sciences de l'Information, Université d'Ottawa

Principal Investigator, Sustaining the Knowledge Commons, a SSHRC Insight Project

sustainingknowledgecommons.org<http://sustainingknowledgecommons.org>

Heather.Morrison at uottawa.ca<mailto:Heather.Morrison at uottawa.ca>

https://uniweb.uottawa.ca/?lang=en#/members/706

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--
Lars Bjørnshauge
Managing Director DOAJ (www.doaj.org<http://www.doaj.org>)

mobile phone: +45 53 51 06 03
Skype-Id: lbj-lub0603 - Twitter: elbjoern0603
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