Re: [GOAL] DOAJ is what it is: acknowledging contributions and highlighting limitations

2019-08-22 Thread Guédon Jean-Claude 
As usual, my comments in blue.

Jean-Claude Guédon

On 2019-08-22 11:27 a.m., Heather Morrison wrote:

[snip]

To conclude my portion of this discussion, I would like to highlight two 
limitations of DOAJ that to me represent important problems for the future of 
scholarly communication with no current solution:


  1.  As a list of suitable OA journals for authors to publish in, DOAJ 
presents some risk to the author as a journal in DOAJ at the time the author 
decides on a submission venue may be removed from DOAJ at a later date. This 
could be a problem for the author if they wish to prove that they publish OA, 
for example to fulfill an open access mandate, or to establish their 
credibility as an OA author. Taking into account funder and institutional 
requirements for OA, this can have a negative financial (loss of grants) and 
promotional impact on the researcher. One solution is for funders and 
universities to exclusively use green OA policies (as I always recommend). 
Recently, I wrote about 33 SpringerOpen journals (13% of their titles) that 
have ceased publication; 31 of the journals are no longer listed either on 
SpringerOpen or DOAJ. I submit that this is a disservice to authors who 
published in these journals. 
https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2019/07/22/springer-open-ceased-now-hybrid-oa-identification-challenges/

Funders and universities should use both Green and Gold avenues to OA (as 
recommended in BOAI), and not exclusively Green as Heather suggests.

Regarding the handling of journals that have stopped publications, I believe 
that, in the past, DOAJ has discussed the possibility of maintaining such 
publications visible in a special category. Once again, the issue is resources, 
and not DOAJ. If librarians and information science specialist decided to 
organise a kind of professional crowd-sourcing in coordination with DOAJ, I am 
sure some really interesting results would ensue, and it would go further than 
criticisms. Suggesting positive solutions appears more positive to me (and 
perhaps a few others as well) than simply conjuring up yet another negative 
scenario. The realities of the world do not always fit the perfection of 
ideas...

  1.  As a list to direct authors to content, DOAJ's exclusions are problematic 
for searchers. DOAJ has rejected one of the top fully open access journals in 
my field (The International Journal of Communication) and several smaller fully 
open access journals that I consider essential content. As a researcher, this 
diminishes the usefulness of DOAJ for me. As a professor, I would hesitate to 
refer students to a list that rejects this content. It is nice to know which 
journals are fully open access, active, and meet the DOAJ criteria, but this is 
not sufficient for research purposes.

All lists will be incomplete, contested, criticised. WoS and Scopus suffer from 
the same problem. In the particular case of the International Journal of 
Communication, it would be interesting to know why this journal is not on DOAJ, 
or was de-listed from DOAJ. In her message, Heather does not explain the 
situation of this particular journal, and neither does she in her blog 
(https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2019/08/13/no-fee-inclusive-journals-and-disappointment-with-doaj/comment-page-1/).
 Does she know? Has DOAJ commented on this particular case? Here again, we are 
presented with a negative landscape, and no means to understand what is behind. 
And when one of her reader asks her (Aug. 13th and 14th) why this is the case, 
all she answers is: "... if you would like to pursue this question, you need to 
ask DOAJ and/or the journals. I do not speak for them." Asking DOAJ why is not 
the same as "speaking for them" and the answer, to say the least, appears a bit 
disingenuous to me. If you know, Heather, then say it. If you do not know, then 
try to find out. That is what an "information specialist" is supposed to do, is 
it not?
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.morri...@uottawa.ca

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



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[GOAL] DOAJ is what it is: acknowledging contributions and highlighting limitations

2019-08-22 Thread Heather Morrison 
DOAJ has been a valuable service to the open access movement over the years, in 
tracking and linking to a select set of open access journals and providing 
metadata that is helpful for researchers like me and to include DOAJ content in 
library services.

Like any service or initiative, DOAJ has its limitations. Based on recent 
discussions, I gather that there is no interest in discussing the limitations, 
brainstorming potential solutions, or exploring underlying assumptions and 
whether the current approach is optimal. This discussion is at an impasse. DOAJ 
is what it is, and this is within the rights of the people who make DOAJ 
decisions.

To conclude my portion of this discussion, I would like to highlight two 
limitations of DOAJ that to me represent important problems for the future of 
scholarly communication with no current solution:


  1.  As a list of suitable OA journals for authors to publish in, DOAJ 
presents some risk to the author as a journal in DOAJ at the time the author 
decides on a submission venue may be removed from DOAJ at a later date. This 
could be a problem for the author if they wish to prove that they publish OA, 
for example to fulfill an open access mandate, or to establish their 
credibility as an OA author. Taking into account funder and institutional 
requirements for OA, this can have a negative financial (loss of grants) and 
promotional impact on the researcher. One solution is for funders and 
universities to exclusively use green OA policies (as I always recommend). 
Recently, I wrote about 33 SpringerOpen journals (13% of their titles) that 
have ceased publication; 31 of the journals are no longer listed either on 
SpringerOpen or DOAJ. I submit that this is a disservice to authors who 
published in these journals. 
https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2019/07/22/springer-open-ceased-now-hybrid-oa-identification-challenges/

  2.  As a list to direct authors to content, DOAJ's exclusions are problematic 
for searchers. DOAJ has rejected one of the top fully open access journals in 
my field (The International Journal of Communication) and several smaller fully 
open access journals that I consider essential content. As a researcher, this 
diminishes the usefulness of DOAJ for me. As a professor, I would hesitate to 
refer students to a list that rejects this content. It is nice to know which 
journals are fully open access, active, and meet the DOAJ criteria, but this is 
not sufficient for research purposes.

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.morri...@uottawa.ca

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