From: Claudia Holland <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2014 20:30:51 +0000

I am glad to see and appreciate DOAJ tightening its criteria. As one who
manages an OA publishing fund and vets author requests for assistance, I
groan when I see an individual title listed in DOAJ at the same time the
publisher of the journal is included on Beall¹s List. However, I can¹t
envision publishers voluntarily reapplying to DOAJ as implied by this
sentence in the Nature article "the website is asking all of the journals
in its directory to reapply on the basis of stricter criteria." Would it
be possible for DOAJ volunteers (I¹m happy to help) to compare the
directory with Beall¹s list and send a form letter to overlapping
publishers REQUIRING them to reapply?

Beall has a valid point about how DOAJ reviewers will determine whether a
publisher is lying, but I don¹t agree that DOAJ¹s new criteria is "too
little, too late." What I hope to see is more participation by librarians
and others in published review of new OA journals, perhaps in a
centralized forum like Beall¹s blog. That way, the "blame" is not directed
to one individual, and we are more active participants in scrutinizing
these journals. Using Beall¹s criteria or a modified version, these
reviews may also offer much needed guidance to new journal publishers who
are not in it just for the money.

Unfortunately, in the eyes of scholars who continue to view all/most OA
publications disparagingly, disreputable OA journals undermine the
credibility of good OA publishers. The former get more attention than
crummy subscription e-journals, it seems.

Claudia Holland


On 8/10/14, 1:25 PM, "LIBLICENSE" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>From: Ann Shumelda Okerson <[log in to unmask]>
>Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2014 08:41:59 -0400
>
>See the following article regarding a re-vamp of the DOAJ.  Kudos to
>the DOAJ for taking on this overhaul.
>
>"Now, following criticism of its quality-control checks, the website
>is asking all of the journals in its directory to reapply on the basis
>of stricter criteria. It hopes the move will weed out Œpredatory
>journals¹: those that profess to publish research openly, often
>charging fees, but that are either outright scams or do not provide
>the services a scientist would expect, such as a minimal standard of
>peer review or permanent archiving."
>
>http://www.nature.com/news/open-access-website-gets-tough-1.15674?utm_sour
>ce=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Copyright%20%26%20A2K%20Issues
>%20-%208%20August%202014
>
>[Also see the 5 August liblicense-l posting (reproduced below) linking
>to West/Bergstrom's article about economic considerations in
>submitting to OA journals.  The work considers the relationship
>between APCs and journal prestige.]
>
>Jevin West, Ted Bergstrom, Carl Bergstrom.  Cost Effectiveness of Open
>Access Publications.
>
>http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1132&context=ted_berg
>strom
>
>To be published in Fall 2014:  Economic Inquiry 52.4 (2014)
>
>[A journal from Western Economic Association & Wiley]
>
>Abstract
>
>Open access publishing has been proposed as one possible solution to
>the serials crisis‹the rapidly growing subscription prices in
>scholarly journal publishing. However, open access publishing can
>present economic pitfalls as well, such as excessive article
>processing charges. We discuss the decision that an author faces when
>choosing to submit to an open access journal. We develop an
>interactive tool to help authors compare among alternative open access
>venues and thereby get the most for their article processing charges.