Expanding the potential of Diamond Open Access Journals

Standards for best publishing practices and technical requirements in light of the FAIR principles

This blog post is a synopsis of CRAFT-OA Deliverable 3.1: Standards for best publishing practices and technical requirements in light of the FAIR principles. The synopsis was written by Kristina Posavec, Maxim Kupreyev & Sona Arasteh.

In the vast landscape of scholarly communication, Diamond Open Access (DOA) Journals have emerged as a powerful force, fostering an environment of openness and accessibility. Published in 2021, the “Open Access Diamond Journals Study” (OADJS) has shed light on the enormous potential of these journals, revealing that 17,000 to 29,000 Open Access Diamond Journals (OADJ) worldwide are responsible for publishing 8-9% of the world’s scientific articles, constituting a significant 45% of Open Access (OA) publishing in general.

To fully harness this potential, serious challenges must be addressed, and robust support provided to the Diamond OA Journals community. In response, the “Action Plan for Diamond Open Access” (APDOA) was unveiled in 2022. This comprehensive plan targets challenges related to technical capacity, management, visibility, and sustainability of journals and platforms.

Two associated projects, DIAMAS (Developing Institutional Open Access Publishing Models to Advance Scholarly Communication) and CRAFT-OA (Creating a Robust Accessible Federated Technology for Open Access), embody these actions. Focusing on best practices and technology development, policy recommendations and, in the case of DIAMAS, the development of non-technical standards, both projects aim to support OADJsS by capacity building. 

With this goal in mind, the CRAFT-OA team has worked on an overview of the technical standards and best publishing practices to help OADJs navigate through the plethora of requirements and standards, thereby enhancing the Diamond OA community’s capacities. In alignment with key policy documents, such as Plan S, and EQSIP, the Extensible Quality Standard for Institutional Publishing, CRAFT-OA suggests best practices and standards that align with the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) principles. The FAIR principles are interrelated, with the implementation of aspects related to one principle often improving the performance of another. For each principle a comprehensive list of technical standards and practices have been identified, providing a detailed overview of their role in the implementation of FAIR principles. The emphasis on metadata, persistent identifiers, open access status, licensing information, and machine-readable formats underscores the importance of standardised approaches in achieving FAIR objectives. Not only are specific technical standards identified, but they are also contextualised through their interconnectedness, highlighting the need for a holistic approach to ensure comprehensive FAIR compliance across the scholarly publishing landscape:

• The Findability standards and best practices presented in this section highlight the importance of rich metadata and persistent identifiers, emphasising their role in resource discovery. 
• Accessibility is discussed in terms of metadata retrievability through standardised communication protocols, focusing on long-term accessibility and preservation.
• Interoperability, crucial for optimal machine-based communication, is addressed by adopting open specifications and standards that support multidirectional metadata exchange. 
• Reusability, vital for enabling resources to be used in alternative contexts, involves accurate description, curation, and adherence to machine-readable standards. 

In conclusion, the report highlights the significance of interoperability for research outputs’ discoverability, reuse, and reproducibility. It marks the first systematic endeavour to compare requirements established by policies and services, offering a roadmap for the Diamond OA Journals community.  

Analysing the standards for best Diamond OA publishing practices is the first step. Read more about how CRAFT-OA has continued identifying the gaps in implementing these standards here. In the future, the project will provide training materials to overcome these gaps – sign up for our newsletter to be aware of all project developments here.

CRAFT-OA Deliverable 3.1 Report on standards for best publishing practices and technical requirements in light of the FAIR principles is available on Zenodo.