doaj/roadmap

DOAJ public roadmap for the development of the platform

DOAJ Roadmap for developments of the service and the platform (2023-2025)

View our roadmap

Our roadmap provides a view of some of the items that feed into our strategic plan for 2023-2025. This includes technical development of our website.

Roadmap stages

The roadmap is arranged on a project board to give a sense for how far out each item is on the horizon. Every column is grouped around each of our strategic themes. Items may appear or disappear, as we work on prioritising the different bits of work. Although we plan and prioritise our work in advance, some things may be added to the roadmap as need necessitates.

roadmap's Issues

Analysis of usage against support

Using metrics from #39, find out where we are being used but not receiving financial support.

DOAJ @ 20 Years

DOAJ turns 20 in 2023.

The occasion will be marked throughout the year with branding, a series of 3 events, and a fundraising campaign.

Increase capacity

Ensure there is capacity in the Editorial team by

• adding resource to the Quality Team
• adding resource to the Managing Editors

Implement notifications and alerts for Team

AIM: to provide focus and automation

• Create a system that send useful notifications to users
• create a system that alerts users that log in to their dashboards.

Evaluate the Ambassador programme and establish sustainable outreach

A 6-month project to re-evaluate the Ambassador programme, with the aim to launching a new and improved framework for Ambassadors in June 2024.

Establish a sustainable organisational structure for DOAJ's outreach programme by June 2024.

Nominations and elections for Board and Council 2022

End of 2021/ beginning of 2022, bring the new Board and Council members on board:

• 5 new Board members
• 5 new Council members
• Invite one organisation to the Council

Implement a CRM

Investigate alternatives for building customer relationships with our supporters, our volunteers, our team, and our Board and Council.

Acquisitions project: Scielo

Reach out to journals on the Scielo network and help them be more "DOAJ-ready" and submit better applications to DOAJ.

Working with the DOAJ Ambassador's for Latin America, identify suitable journals on the Scielo networks for this project.

Help DOAJ-indexed journals assign PIDs to research output

In partnership with Crossref:

• identify the list of DOAJ-indexed journals that do not use DOIs
• work out the best option for those journals to assign DOIs.
• investigate whether DOAJ can be an agent in helping journals assign DOIs

Project JASPER: pilot

Work with project partners to get more DOAJ-indexed journals archived with long-term preservation agencies.

• Identify an initial group of journals
• Build a pipeline
• create documentation and materials to emphasise the importance of archiving
• seek funding to extend the pilot
• take a small group of journals through the process

Key messaging for stakeholders

Create key messaging for all stakeholder groups.

Recruit a new Managing Director

• advertise the post
• establish a selection committee
• interviews
• make final selection
• induction and onboarding

Sysadmins maintenance and housekeeping

CAPACITY BUILDING

• Move DOAJ to larger machines with a bigger capacity
• Switch off the smaller machines

INCREASING THROUGHPUT

• Retain two test servers?
• Establish a staging server?

EFFICIENCIES

• as project work touches different parts of the system, do the refactoring tasks identified in 2019.
• continue to clean up after the site relaunch in Nov 2020

Improve automation in editorial workflow (phase 3)

• investigate tools to improve review effectiveness
• consider opportunities offered up by AI

Survey journals added to find out how indexing has affected them

Generate a questionnaire to send to publishers who had journals added to DOAJ in the first 6 months of 2021.

Find out from them how DOAJ-indexing has affected their journal.

Implement editorial dashboards and To Do lists

AIM: provide focus and automation

• Redesign the Admin area to accommodate the new dashboards.
• Implement dashboards for the editorial team: Managing Editors, Editor, Associate Editors
• Create an automated To Do list for each user, sorted by activity type and date.

Data visualisations

Data visualisations using our metadata to show easily where we have gaps in our coverage

Systematic review of journals last updated in 2016

Review all journal records that were last update in 2016

Put together a funding proposal

Put together a funding proposal that covers all our major areas where we need blostering

Select and work with three funders, building on existing discussions, to make a successful bid

Use statistical data to show strengths and gaps in our coverage

Extract statistical data from our index to show the strengths and gaps in our coverage. Find out which areas are underrepresented.

Check by:

• subject
• language
• country

Acquisitions project: INASP's "journals online" platforms

In partnership with INASP, reach out to journals on the INASP JOL platforms and help them be more "DOAJ-ready" and submit better applications to DOAJ

OA Journals Toolkit

With OASPA, launch the OA Journals Toolkit

Better information for publishers on the website

Create and populate two new pages to ensure that publishers have all the information that they need:

• 'Publishers' responsibilities'
• 'Copyright and licensing

Acquisitions project: Danish OJS

Help OJS journals from Denmark be "DOAJ-ready" and submit applications to DOAJ.

Project in association with the Royal Danish Library.

Acquisitions project: Mir@bel 2022 project

Work with Mir@bel to reach the Mir@bel 2022 project partners and the journals they represent.

• Raise awareness about the DOAJ criteria among the partners and journals
• Help the journals be more "DOAJ-ready" and submit better applications to DOAJ

Choose a new taxonomy for classifying journals

The current LCC subject classification is no longer fit for purpose.

• seek project sponsorship
• investigate alternatives
• choose a new taxonomy
• scope the work to migrate the journals
• scope the work to implement the new taxonomy
• implement new classification system

Diversity, Equality, Inclusion review of DOAJ

• re-vitalise the DEI working group
• establish how a DEI review might be useful to DOAJ and how it might be applied
• assess the different areas of DOAJ
• establish a plan to implement outcomes and a review cycle
• communicate the results

Reinstate the open access start date: Phase 3

Ingest the missing OA data, collected by the team, into the index.

Make the OA start date available in the various endpoints again.

Implement a ticketing system for the Help Desk

Investigate alternative ticketing systems to alleviate the pressure on our Help Desk inbox.

Scope the requirements
Choose the right service
Implement according to our criteria
Monitor and collect feedback
Reporting

Upgrade of Elasticsearch from 1.7 to v 7.10

Campaign on why journal quality criteria are important

Create a campaign with informational materials that explains:

• why journal quality criteria are important for the advancement of national research programs (eg Indonesia, Japan, Colombia)
• why improving local journals is important

Possibly add importance of publishing in all languages

Acquisitions project: help AJOL journals

In collaboration with AJOL, reach out to journals on the AJOL platform and help them be more "DOAJ-ready" and submit better applications to DOAJ.

Structuralise and reinforce our institutional supporter model

To be ready for implementation for 2024 renewals.

Add structure, build out, and reinforce existing methods. Find new ways to get support.

Editorial workflow (Phase 2) - editorial view of the application form

Relies on #29 to be done first.

Further enhancement to the editorial system that DOAJ uses to review records:

• Enhancement to notes
• Flags
• View of the form that helps editorial with their work

Investigate and implement a project framework

In order to ensure that DOAJ is only focussed on the most relevant projects that align with the Strategy, implement a project framework to help determine which projects should be started

Could include:

• a risk assessment and register
• an Equality Impact Assessment
• selection criteria

Review of priorities for 2022

A review of all priority work areas for 2022:

• communications
• governance
• education & outreach
• technical development
• discovery

Improve accuracy and recency of DOAJ through automated help

AIM: all records in DOAJ have been updated within the last two years

• publisher CSVs, available for download and upload in publisher dashboard
• micro-updates
• introduce a History page or section for each record
• automated URL checking
• rework publisher-submitted updates
• reminders, notifications, and flags
• scope a system for identifying journal records that need updating

Project JASPER: Phase 2

• Seek funding for the long-term sustainability of the project.
• Onboard more publishers, possibly opening up eligibility to a larger group of journals
• Connect more archiving agencies from Keepers

Structuralise and reinforce our publisher supporter model

To be ready for implementation for 2024 renewals.

Add structure, build out, and reinforce existing methods. Find new ways to get support.

Acquisitions project: China

• Get more financial support from China

• Help Chinese publishers be more "DOAJ-ready" so that they can submit good applications.

• drum up more support and publicity by using Chinese social media.

Comparison of DOAJ, Web of Science, Scopus

Redo the analysis of the DOAJ/WoS/Scopus comparison to show DOAJ's diversity compared to the other two indexes.

Measurement and monitoring of new editorial workflow system

After the implementation of #8, review and monitor how users are using the new system

Collect usage data and feedback to inform #3

Systematic review of journals last updated in 2018

Review and update all the journal records in DOAJ that have a last updated year of 2018.

Systematic review of journals last updated in 2017

Review all journal records that were last updated in 2017

Metrics that show who is using our metadata

Extract metrics from the analytics we have access to that show who is using our metadata.

This is mostly:

• hits to our endpoints (API, CVS, OAI-PMH) that we haven't been able to surface before
• referrals in Plausible

Governance structure review

• Complete the set-up of DOAJ's new legal identity
• Review the current governance structure of DOAJ and assess its suitability
• Define the role of the new Board

Devise and implement a three-year fundraising strategy

DOAJ needs to be funded in a way that is sustainable. Riding on the success of the three-year funding model, we need to find a way to keep DOAJ funded.

• collect ideas for fundraising
• feasibility assessment for each
• collect into a strategy
• stakeholder communications and buy-in

Strategic partnerships

Partner with other organisations to work in selected under-represented regions (Africa, Japan)

Write and implement a social media strategy

Review our social media use, audience, timings, who is doing what when.

Review all our channels:

• Twitter
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Instagram

EU projects that promote equitable publishing

Participate and lead work packages in EU projects and collaborations that promote more equitable publishing.

• project participiation - DIAMAS: in progress
• Coordinate and deliver DIAMAS IPSP guidelines
• project participation - CRAFT: in progress
• WIDERA: write two work packages