Find a reputable OA
publisher – Directory of
Open Access Books
(DOAB)
Janneke Adema
(Coventry University / DOAB)
Outline

Vanity publishing and predatory publishers

Quality and Open Access

New forms of quality control

Directory of Open Access Books

Quality requirements and policies

Checklists and resources
Preventing vanity publishing

‘A vanity press or vanity publisher is a term
describing a publishing house in which
authors pay to have their books published’
(Wikipedia)

But what about Gold Open Access
publishing models and APCs?

Quality control and editorial services

‘The explosion in open-access publishing
has fuelled the rise of questionable
operators.’ (Nature, 27 March 2013)
Dear Janneke Adema,
I am writing on behalf of an international publishing house, LAP Lambert
Academic Publishing.
In the course of a research on the Coventry University, I came across a
reference to your thesis on "Influence of online information transmission on
research practices within the Humanities?".
We are an international publisher whose aim is to make academic research
available to a wider audience.
LAP would be especially interested in publishing your dissertation in the form
of a printed book.
Your reply including an e-mail address to which I can send an e-mail with
further information in an attachment
will be greatly appreciated.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Acquisition Editor
LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing GmbH & Co. KG
Dudweiler Landstraße 99
66123 Saarbrücken
Germany
Fon +49 681 3720-310
Fax +49 681 3720-3109
www.lap-publishing.com
Predatory Publishers - Jeffrey Beal
 “Potential, possible or probable predatory
scholarly open-access publishers”
http://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/
 “An intention to deceive authors and readers,
and a lack of transparency in their operations
and processes” (Beal, Nature, 27 March
2013)
 Critique of Beal’s methods
 Predatory OA book publishers?
Buyer beware: A checklist to identify reputable
publishers - Declan Butler (Nature)
How to perform due diligence before submitting to a journal or publisher:

Check that the publisher provides full, verifiable contact information, including address,
on the journal site. Be cautious of those that provide only web contact forms.

Check that a journal's editorial board lists recognized experts with full affiliations. Contact
some of them and ask about their experience with the journal or publisher.

Check that the journal prominently displays its policy for author fees.

Be wary of e-mail invitations to submit to journals or to become editorial board members.

Read some of the journal's published articles and assess their quality. Contact past
authors to ask about their experience.

Check that a journal's peer-review process is clearly described and try to confirm that a
claimed impact factor is correct.

Find out whether the journal is a member of an industry association that vets its
members, such as the Directory of Open Access Journals (www.doaj.org) or the Open
Access Scholarly Publishers Association (www.oaspa.org).

Use common sense, as you would when shopping online: if something looks fishy,
proceed with caution.
Quality and Open Access

Open Access books are just as qualitative and
trustworthy as print publications

Misunderstandings and perceptions

OAPEN User Needs Report (2010)
“Many researchers still consider electronic-only
publications as of the equivalent of publishing
something without peer review. Even those who were
aware of the fact that electronic-only journals also
have full peer reviews were concerned that the people
who decide their careers were not (…).”
“(…) many researchers feel that the Internet is not a
good place to find authoritative material because of
the high level of poor quality information.” (25)

Open Humanities Press
“Our strategy is to create an open access brand
that people will trust and which will convey the
message that OHP's open access publications are
just as intellectually challenging, academically
rigorous and professionally produced as books and
journals produced by the best commercial
publishers.” (Beyond Impact: OA in the Humanities,
Sigi Jӧttkandt and Gary Hall, 2007)
Alternative forms of quality
control

Open peer review: peer-to-peer review

Post-publication review: comments, reviews

Editorial control

Who decides on quality control?
Academics - Peer Review Preferences
(N=48)
Directory of Open Access Books
www.doabooks.org
DOAB user needs research:
what kind of quality control?

Requirements and standards concerning quality
control are warmly welcomed

More transparency about procedures used (icon
system)

As long as these standards remain flexible and open
to a variety of quality control mechanisms, from
editorial control to open peer review and post
publication review

Focus should remain on the outcome, not on the
procedure used
“The standards, requirements and protocols DOAB
develops for quality control and licensing should be
flexible enough to incorporate change and innovation.
At the same time they should be strict enough to
ensure quality and trust within the system.” (23)
DOAB requirements
DOAB determines requirements for participation by
publishers, in consultation with the participating publishers
and OASPA. The current requirements have been specified
by the OAPEN Foundation. The current requirements to
take part in DOAB are twofold:
 Academic books in DOAB shall be available under an
Open Access license (such as a Creative Commons
license)
 Academic books in DOAB shall be subjected to
independent and external peer review prior to publication
The policies and procedures regarding peer review and
licensing should be clearly outlined on the publisher web
site. More information about these requirements can be
found in the Statement on Open Access (Appendix II of the
OASPA bylaws).
CrossMark to improve
quality assurance for Open
Access books
OAPEN-NL and OAPEN-UK are pleased to announce a
new joint project to improve quality assurance for Open
Access publications. The project will be exploring the use
of CrossMark as a OA awareness tool for OA books by
implementing it on a selection of titles within the OAPEN
pilot projects.
Readers use the service by clicking on the CrossMark
logos on PDF or HTML documents, and a status box tells
them if the document is current or if updates are
available. CrossMark also provides a record box, which
can contain other useful information about the document
to readers, for example, the usage rights, the peer review
process, the publication history, etc. It could also contain
information about the research connected to the
publication, information about grants or links to connected
elements such as research data.
Checklist Open Access
Book Publishers

Peer review procedures

Licensing policy (for a detailed description
of CC licenses please see the Creative
Commons website at
http://creativecommons.org/)

Business model used

Preservation policy

Digital formats

POD/print possibilities
More information/resources

http://www.doabooks.org/doab?func=about&uiLanguage=
en

http://oaspa.org/membership/code-of-conduct/

http://oaspa.org/membership/membership-criteria/

http://openscience.com/resources/how-to-publish-anopen-access-monograph/

http://www.doabooks.org/

http://oad.simmons.edu/oadwiki/Publishers_of_OA_books

http://www.doabooks.org/

http://books.openedition.org/
References

Janneke Adema, DOAB User Needs Analysis –
Final Report (DOAB Project Report)
(Amsterdam, 2012).

Janneke Adema and Paul Rutten, Digital
Monographs in the Humanities and Social
Sciences: Report on User Needs (Amsterdam,
2010).

Declan Butler, “Investigating Journals: The
Dark Side of Publishing,” Nature 495, no. 7442
(March 27, 2013): 433–435,
doi:10.1038/495433a.

Sigi Jӧttkandt and Gary Hall, “Beyond Impact:
OA in the Humanities” (presented at the Open
Humanities Press Presentation, Brussels,
February 13, 2007).