doaj(Directory of Open Access Journals), also known as:"Open Access Journal Catalog".is an internationally renowned academic journal database created by Lund University in Sweden and currently the world's largest database of open access journals only.
The DOAJ database covers a wide range of research fields, including science and technology, medicine, social sciences, arts and humanities, and has no language restrictions.
In November 2023, the Open Access Journal Directory (DOAJ) announced that in response to the recent surge in special issues and in response to societal concerns, the DOAJ added new standards for special issues, which will be implemented from November 2, 2023. The new rules for the inclusion of the DOAJ special issue have received a wide range of positive feedback from the community, and it is believed that the publication of the special issue will be fully supervised.
On January 25, 2024, the DOAJ announced that it had revised the inclusion criteria for special issues, mainly by removing the following rules:
"If all content in the journal's latest annual volume is published as a special issue, the DOAJ will not accept it. ”
The reason for the removal of the rule is that many people believe that the new policy will affect the normal inclusion of certain journals, such as in the humanities and social sciences, some journals publish special issues hosted by guest editors, which is an established model. These journals are usually open-access journals for diamonds led by academics.
The DOAJ does not want to exclude such journals from indexing, so the DOAJ listened to the industry and removed this restriction to avoid"Accidental injury"Notable journals that use this publishing model.
What is a special issue
Special issue refers to the solicitation of papers for a specific research direction, which is generally published by influential experts in the academic circle to collect a group of manuscripts with the latest research results for the latest research hotspots and concentrate on a certain issue of the journal or scattered in various issues of the journal. However, in recent years, there has been a surge in articles in special issues, and the different process between special issues and traditional academic publishing has led to various negative reviews.
Special issues were originally a normal way of publishing, but in recent years they have been used by some publishers to become"Money printing machine"Therefore, DOAJ timely revised the journal inclusion standards for special issues, also in order not to"Throw out the bath water along with the child"。