DOAJ- what is it?

The following is information on how to use DOAJ or the Directory of Open Access Journals in comparison with Gale Academic One File.  The information is designed to help showcase how to use DOAJ while comparing to a standard database.  The learning objectives for this were to be able to reliably locate information through DOAJ and then to make aware what types of documents are available in DOAJ.  A final goal is to understand how access and availability of resources creates challenges in academic work.  These goals can be reached/modified through the use of the ppt addressing these questions which includes screenshots of both systems.  Attached documents to this include the broad lesson plan, the ppt and the big ideas the ppt is trying to get across in relation to the which address all three learning objectives.  This information could be used and modified by the presenter to focus on just DOAJ and leave out the comparison or focus on just a few aspects of DOAJ.  Below is a walkthrough on how to use DOAJ.

The important thing for DOAJ is that is open access.  Its goal is to make resources more accessible to everyone.  As such, this is a good source for those who don’t have the resources or capabilities to access academic peer reviewed journals.  This would highly benefit those who cannot attend or afford formal education and the resources that come with it.  For those unable to attend university, but interested to learn and grow and do academic work on their own, this is a great source.  From a world perspective, this would also highly benefit those who have the academic abilities but don’t have the physical ability to attend universities due to geographic, economic or various other reasons.  Where this further shows itself is the ability to translate the website and all info on it into many languages, making it more accessible.

DOAJ does broad categorization according to the Library of Congress Classification, but this is very broad way to narrow down resources.  For DOAJ, you will need to rely on keywords and have info on what you are searching for.

As DOAJ is open access to academic journals, it only includes academic journals and those academic journals who are open access.  As such, the amount of resources are more limited to just these types of works.  It does not include any other works mainly due to copyright restrictions.  As such, searched and results will be more limited, especially when compared with GALE.  For example a search for School librarians resulted in 291 results.  One thing that does stand out is that it has resources available in many languages.

After searching when you have chosen a resource, DOAJ will give you the abstract and journal background info.  Again, all of this is translatable for open access.  It will also then links to follow that give information of how the article was reviewed and how long it was reviewed for and the editorial board.  As this is an open access journal platform, this would reassure trust that academic procedures that were followed were according to similar norms.  With journals from around the world, this information may ensure readers the validity of the article.  There is then a link to the journal of the article where you can download the article if you choose after the abstract.  Unfortunately, depending on the publisher, there isn’t the same translation features to ensure it is accessible in all languages.