The aim of the Directory of Open Access Journals is to increase the visibility and ease of use of open access scientific and scholarly journals thereby promoting their increased usage and impact.
The Directory aims to be comprehensive and cover all open access scientific and scholarly journals that use a quality control system to guarantee the content.
In short a one stop shop for users to Open Access Journals.
Open access journals are journals that use a funding model that does not charge readers or their institutions for access. From the BOAI definition [1] of "open access" the right of users to "read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles" is mandatory for a journal to be included in the directory.
For a journal to be include it must exercise peer-review or editorial quality control.
Coverage
* Subject: all scientific and scholarly subjects are covered
* Types of resource: scientific and scholarly periodicals that publish research or review papers in full text.
* Acceptable sources: academic, government, commercial, non-profit private sources are all acceptable.
* Level: the target group for included journals should be primarily researchers.
* Content: a substantive part of the journal should consist of research papers. All content should be available in full text.
* Language: All languages
* Types of resource: scientific and scholarly periodicals that publish research or review papers in full text.
* Acceptable sources: academic, government, commercial, non-profit private sources are all acceptable.
* Level: the target group for included journals should be primarily researchers.
* Content: a substantive part of the journal should consist of research papers. All content should be available in full text.
* Language: All languages
Access
* All content freely available.
* Registration: Free user registration online is acceptable.
* Open Access without delay (e.g. no embargo period).
* Registration: Free user registration online is acceptable.
* Open Access without delay (e.g. no embargo period).
Project Background
The proliferation of freely accessible online journals, the development of subject specific pre- and e-print archives and collections of learning objects provides a very valuable supplement of scientific knowledge to the existing types of published scientific information (books, journals, databases etc.). However these valuable collections are difficult to overview and integrate in the library and information services provided by libraries for their user constituency.
At the First Nordic Conference on Scholarly Communication in Lund/Copenhagen (http://www.lub.lu.se/ncsc2002) the idea of creating a comprehensive directory of Open Access Journals was discussed. The conclusion was that it would be a valuable service for the global research and education community.
Available technologies make it possible to collect and organize these resources in a way that allow libraries worldwide to integrate these resources in existing services thus offering added value both for the service providers of these resources and for the global research and education community.
Demonstrable need for this project, increased visibility leads to increased usage and there is a practical need and vested interest for the community to support new open access journals. A service that systematically provides
Demonstrable need for this project, increased visibility leads to increased usage and there is a practical need and vested interest for the community to support new open access journals. A service that systematically provides
* journal level information
* article level information
* access to full text of articles
* simplified integration with other services
* article level information
* access to full text of articles
* simplified integration with other services
would contribute substantially to securing a future for Open Access Journals.
Compiled by Victor G. Kamau
KEMU Library
KEMU Library