General Criteria for Publishing High

Quality Open Access Journals -Checklist

Susan Veldsman

Scholarly Publishing Programme

Increase visibility, accessibility & searchability of SA accredited scholarly journals

Improve quality of SA scholarly journals, books & conference proceedings

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Strategic Objective 1

Strategic Objective 2

Peer-review of Journals (1)• In 2007 ASSAf, with the support of the NSEF, was mandated by

the Department of Education and the Department of Science and Technology to carry out peer reviews of all SA research journals.

• In response to the need for a system of quality assurance for scholarly journals that are accredited by the DHET.

• Subject grouped titles sharing a particular broad disciplinary focus.

• The report makes recommendations to DHET in terms of DHET accreditation and SciELO SA inclusion. The report also includes the findings of the Peer Review Panel in terms of the journal’s quality and operations.

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Peer-review of Journals • Titles reviewed to date: 145

Agriculture, Social Sciences, Religion, Health, Law and Humanities: Language and Linguistics

• Titles to be reviewed (current): 162

Currently under review

• Engineering and Architecture (15)

• Humanities II: Visual and Performing Arts (10)

• Communication and Information Science (14)

Panels being established

• Education (17)

• Politics, History and Philosophy (26)

• Mathematics and Science (22)

Panels to be established

• Economics and Business Management (27)

• Other disciplines (31)

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PRELIMINARY QUESTIONNAIRE DIRECTED TO EDITORS BY THE PEER REVIEW PANEL

Please type in a short answer, just after each question, and send us your consolidated response as an MSWord document.

You are requested to examine hard copies of issues published over the last 3 years of the above-listed

journals in your institutional library, and, if at all possible, to provide opinions on/answers to all the questions

listed under item (1) below (these are primarily focused on the content and significance of the journals, and not on operational issues) :

Item 1: Do the hard copies of the last 2-3 years of issues of the journal reflect:

1. high national/international disciplinary reputations/standing of the editor-in-chief/ associate editors/members of the editorial board?

2. a high/good (general/average) quality of the articles accepted/published?

3. a (contextually) adequate/good number of articles per annum?

4. an (adequate/good) sample of the best work done in the country in the discipline/field?

5. a focus on local/regional kinds of materials/problems?

6. publication of articles by authors from across the country, and internationally?

7. useful additional scholarly features like editorials, topical reviews, book reviews, scholarly correspondence, etc?

8. proper (English-language) abstracts for all articles?

9. suitable publication of errata?

1.10 good citation practice?

1.10 good presentation, lay-out, style and copy-editing interventions?

1.10 suitability as a general on-going stimulus for local graduate

students/young staff in the discipline concerned?

1.11 some kind of comparability with leading international journals in the

field?

Item 2: You are also requested to provide suggestions for an improvement programme for each of the journals concerned?

QUESTIONNAIRE DIRECTED TO EDITORS BY

THE PEER REVIEW PANEL

Please type in a short answer, just after each question, and send us your

consolidated response as an MSWord document.

(a) Editorial process-related criteria (generally based on the “National Code of

Best Practice in Editorial discretion and Peer Review” developed by ASSAf):

- For how many years has your journal been published?

- Have there been significant interruptions in publication?

- How many peer-reviewed original papers have you published during the last three

years: Articles?

Letter-type articles?

Reviews?

- How many manuscripts (of all three types) were received in the same period?

- Approximately how many manuscripts of all three types were rejected without peer

review?

- What proportion of papers of all three types that you published had at least one

author with a non-South African address?

http://www.assaf.org.za/index.php/publications/evidence-based-reports

Online Journal System (OJS) Pilot Project

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http://journals.assaf.org.za/

Trusted List of OA Journal Titles

• Journal management & publishing system, web site – all in one

• Licensed as Open Source Software

• Developed by Public Knowledge Project (PKP) & Simon Fraser University

• Community of developers

• Download and install on local server https://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs/

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DOAJ

• Publish in journals accredited by the SA Dept. Of Higher Education and Training (DHET) (± R 118 000-00 per article)

• See 6 lists accredited by DHET

• High Impact Factor (IF) journals

• International acknowledged journals specially those in their fields

What do Authors prefer?

About the Journal

Journal Articles - technical

Journal Articles - content

Journal Financial Sustainability

Journal Visibility & Impact

Journal Guidelines

Journal Policies & Statements

Journal Roles & Responsibilities

Publishing agreement• Right to publish

• Assign DOI

• Copyright author

• Author warranties

• Not published before

• Not under consideration with other journals

• Unlawful statements

• Defamatory material

• Ethics

• All authors listed

• Have rights to publish

• IR depositing

• ASSAf

• When accepted—ASSAf must publish

• Not accepted—author free to publish elsewhere

• All the authors must sign agreement

Layout and Design

File Formats: PDF

Author names, affiliations and contact information clearly visible. Space options for ORCIDs.

How to cite information, with the DOIdisplayed.

Licencing information

Clickable DOI in reference list, for easy citation information

EPUB In-article table of contents. With clickable links

Ability to enlarge letter size. Compatible with screen sizes.

EPUB

Links to online citationsSearch ability and screen size adaption

Your Journal Online

Google Analytics

In-depth analytics on site visits, bounce rates and page views

Customisable timeline

Browser data

Overview of countries with most visitsEasy reporting on

monthly/quarterly/annual or per issue details

Dissemination of your content

Electronic Newsletters and Table of Contents

Electronic highlights email with each issue, using Mailchimp.com

Access to the full issues

Links to social media pages

Full electronic Table of Contents

Mailchimp is a free-to-use online service for building and sending electronic newsletters.

• To generate a wider interest and increase awareness from the public • To create a large following• To encourage interaction and build relationships with readers and to provide a platform for authors and readers

to communicate with the SAJS• To encourage submissions, downloads/access• To encourage visibility of the journal

Social Media

Questions? Thank you!

Susan VeldsmanDirector: ASSAf Scholarly Publishing Unit

susan@assaf.org.za