Answering the need for an online resource to support new and established open access journals in navigating the rapidly changing landscape of open access publishing.
The Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA) and DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) today release a new Open Access Journals Toolkit. The launch of the Toolkit marks a significant milestone in the efforts of OASPA and DOAJ to promote transparency, accessibility, and inclusivity in scholarly publishing. The Toolkit answers a need for an online resource to support new and established open access journals in navigating the rapidly changing landscape of open access publishing. The Open Access Journals Toolkit design process began in November 2022 and ended in June 2023 with this launch.
Intended for anyone involved in journal publishing and with a strong focus on helping under-resourced journals globally, the Toolkit enables empowered and informed decision-making. It will contribute to the advancement of scholarly publishing standards and best practices.
Claire Redhead, OASPA’s Executive Director, says: ‘OASPA has been a home for small publishers and scholar-led journals since it was founded and has a strong, global community of members who are passionate people running journals in a wide range of disciplines. We field lots of questions related to running journals – particularly for people based in institutions without publishing support at hand. We’ve long wanted a central place to be able to point to that brings guidance and resources together in an easy-to-follow format that can be self-guided and easy to download or share, and we’re delighted to have had a fantastic editorial board to help us develop a toolkit that we hope will provide exactly that practical support for open access journals. It’s fantastic to see it launch, and it’s a great starting point – but we also welcome feedback from the community to help us develop it even further.’
Dominic Mitchell, DOAJ Operations Manager, said: ‘Launching the Toolkit with OASPA is perfectly aligned with DOAJ’s mission to increase the impact of quality, peer-reviewed, open access scholarly research journals globally, regardless of discipline, geography or language. We have created a resource that aims to be globally relevant and up-to-date, with a dedicated editorial board. We look forward to the response and input from the community and to further additions to this great resource.’
OASPA and DOAJ are committed to supporting the global research community’s transition to open access.
Full information can be found at https://oaspa.org/launch-of-new-open-access-toolkit
To stay updated on the Open Access Journals Toolkit, visit oajournals-toolkit.org or follow OASPA and DOAJ on social media.
