Professional Development
Using the Directory of Open Access
Journals to Expand Publishing
Opportunities and Stay Competitive
Armando Duarte
Kwansei Gakuin University
This article is an introduction to the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), which
is a free search engine of indexed academic journals from across the globe covering many
academic disciplines and dozens of languages. With the ever-present need for university
teachers to publish their academic research to gain stable employment and engage inprofessional development, the directory can be an invaluable resource for both novice andveteran researchers alike in selecting a journal in which to submit a manuscript. This paper
reviews relevant literature to establish that publishing original research is necessary foruniversity teachers. It then offers an overview of how the DOAJ can be effectively utilized
by researchers to find reputable, academically rigorous journals in which to publish theirwork more widely at no cost. The ways in which demographic changes in Japan have resulted
in increased competition for a static number of teaching positions at the university level arealso outlined.

Publish or Perish

Previous studies in the field of Japanese labor trends indicate that publishingresearch is one of the keys to stable university employment (e.g., McCrostie, 2010).
An examination of the job postings on the Japan Research Career Information
Network website (https://https://www. jrecin.jst.go.jp/seek/SeekTop) reveals
the necessity of having a certain number of publications on one’s résumé. The
phrase “publish or perish” is often heard at conferences and generally anywherethat university teachers may gather. Although the sentiment is still expressed
today, the phrase itself is close to a century old (Case, 1928). Furthermore,
the trend shows no signs of reversing, and publication requirements will only72

Using the Directory of Open Access Journals, OnCUE 14(1), pages 72-79

become stricter as jobseekers move on from term-limited employment to tenuretrack positions (McCrostie, 2010). Therefore, university-level teachers seeking toadvance their careers should publish as much as possible.
In the Japanese teaching context, the Japan Association for Language
Teaching ( JALT), its special interest groups (SIGs), some prefectural chapters,
and major conferences offer a plethora of publishing opportunities. JALT’s
own data indicate that its chapters, SIGs, and conferences produce a total of 20
journals, not all of which require JALT membership ( JALT, n.d.). Publishing in
post-conference proceedings also has the added benefit of allowing presentersto add an article onto their résumé, in addition to presenting research results.
However, some writers do not research and write on a schedule that coincides
with conferences, and busy lives may mean that responding to a call for papers
gets overlooked. The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) can help toremedy some of these issues by helping researchers find journals which fit their
publishing needs.

New Way to Find Journals

The DOAJ is a free search engine which indexes thousands of peer-reviewed
academic, open-access journals from around the world covering all academic
disciplines. According to the directory’s main page, it indexes over 17,000
journals—about 12,000 of which feature no article processing charges (APCs)—and features journals written in 80 languages as of August 2021 (Figure 1). This
free service is made possible by virtue of the DOAJ being a non-profit organization
which receives some financial support through sponsors like open-access group
PeerJ and academic societies like the Royal Society of Chemistry. The DOAJ is
not unlike other search engines such as Google or Bing. Writers who are familiar
with academic search engines like Journal Storage ( JSTOR) will have little
trouble using the DOAJ. According to the DOAJ’s mission statement, it strives
to “increase the visibility, accessibility, reputation, usage and impact of quality,
peer-reviewed, open access scholarly research journals globally” (Directory ofOpen Access Journals, 2021a, para. 4). A team of over 100 volunteers is tasked
with reviewing and vetting possible new journals to be indexed by the DOAJ, and73

Duartethere are no fees to apply to have a journal indexed.
In fact, creating an account—a staple of almost every online interaction
these days—is only mandatory for publishers whose journal is indexed by the
DOAJ. Otherwise, is it voluntary. For users who are often locked out of journal
directories stored behind paywalls or who feel uncomfortable using their Google
account to log in to everything from news sites to online shops, the DOAJ offers
its users a free and anonymous research resource.
There are only two settings to configure on the directory’s front page (Figure1). Users can choose to search through either journals or articles, and searches
can be narrowed down by title, ISSN, subject, and publisher.
When wishing to find a journal suitable for their manuscript, users can
simply type in the kind of journal they are looking for in the search bar. A
search of “teaching” brings in 498 results across all represented disciplines andlanguages. The search results page lets users narrow search terms down evenmore. Academic discipline, language, license, publisher, country of origin, peer
review type, and date added can all be customized. A search for double-blind,
peer-reviewed education journals written in English, for example, returns 280
results. After a search has been conducted, clicking on the name of a journal will
open a new tab, where more information about that journal will be displayed.
Information about that journal’s publication fees, its aims and scope, average

Figure 1. The DOAJ’s front page.
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Using the Directory of Open Access Journals, OnCUE 14(1), pages 72-79

turnaround time from submission to publication, author copywrite information,and journal keywords will be displayed. This information can help a researcher
decide where to send a manuscript for publication based on, for example, howmuch time will be invested from submission to publication and whether thescope of the journal aligns with the research of that researcher.

Avoiding Predatory Journals

Jobseekers looking to build their résumé can fall prey to several traps. Newcomers
to higher education may not know which conferences are reputable andacademically rigorous, which can lead some to present at so-called pay-to-present
conferences (McCrostie, 2018). Such conferences are held with the goal ofturning a profit and can result in a damaged reputation for presenters. Part-timeor contracted teachers without access to a robust source of research funds willfind themselves unable to travel further afield to international conferences. Yet
presenting at academic conferences and publishing in scholarly journals is essential
to building a competitive résumé. This practice has reached the publishing world,
as well, in a trend that Beall (2012) calls predatory publishing, in which journals
charge fees for either submission or publication. Although Beall’s work focuseson the sciences, the humanities are not immune to the problem of pay-to-publish
journals. With that in mind, one important search function to switch on whenusing the DOAJ is the Without article processing charges (APCs) option (Directoryof Open Access Journals, 2021a, top left button after accessing “Journals Without
APCs on the homepage). This will ensure that any journal which appears in the
search results will not charge authors for submitting or publishing an article. At
the time of writing, the DOAJ contained 11,933 journals without APCs acrossall represented disciplines, languages, and countries.

The DOAJ Seal

While the DOAJ indexes thousands of journals, it saves its seal for those whichmeet certain publishing and copyright conditions. According to its site, “TheDOAJ Seal is awarded to journals that demonstrate best practice in open accesspublishing. Around 10% of journals indexed in the DOAJ have been awarded75Duartethe Seal” (Directory of Open Access Journals, 2021b, para. 1). The criteria forreceiving the DOAJ Seal include digital preservation, persistent article identifiers,
metadata supply to DOAJ, license type, license information in articles, copyrightand publishing rights, and self-archiving policy (Directory of Open Access
Journals, 2021b). While journals do not need to receive the DOAJ Seal to beindexed in the directory, it may be worthwhile for researchers to also switch on
the With a DOAJ Seal option from the search results page. Doing so will ensurethat the journals which appear on the search results page meet these strict criteria.
While the DOAJ Seal is not an indicator of the quality of a journal per se,users who may be interested in reproducing their research on ResearchGate, theirpersonal websites, or across social media could find it worthwhile to look for
DOAJ Seal journals when browsing the site, so as to avoid infringing copyrightor other publishers’ rights.

Publishing Outside of Japan

Language teachers and researchers in Japan may be aware of JALT and some ofits publications. However, a DOAJ search for “JALT” returns zero results. The
reason behind this is that the DOAJ does not actively seek out journals to index.
Instead, journal editors or staff must petition the DOAJ staff to include theirjournal in the DOAJ database. What this means for users of the DOAJ is thatthey will be able to find previously unfamiliar journals which can help expand
their professional network. Japan-based researchers can have their name andwork seen and read by entirely new groups of people in countries where JALT is
not the largest English-teaching organization. Potentially, this kind of branchingout of a professional network can lead to new opportunities for researchers interms of collaboration with other professionals in their discipline.
Writing for and submitting articles to various journals can also help
researchers become familiar with varied formatting requirements and citationstyles. The Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning,for example, follows the American Psychological Association style guide.
Researchers who have published in any of the JALT journals will be familiar withthis reference style. Learning and Teaching, published by Berghahn Books in the76

Using the Directory of Open Access Journals, OnCUE 14(1), pages 72-79

United States, however, uses the New Oxford Style Manual and adopts British
English spelling and punctuation. Having this kind of writing and publishingexperience can give writers more confidence when updating their résumé andapplying for jobs. How many researchers or job applicants can claim an in-depth
familiarity with a range of bibliographic styles? Having this kind of publishingexperience can also help university teachers advance their career by leading toediting or proofreading duties in their own university publications.

Demographic Challenges and the Need to Stay
Competitive

Using the DOAJ to find and publish in academic journals can be one method ofstaying competitive in a shrinking job market. Demographic data gathered fromvarious sources (Harada, 2015; Hollingworth, 2008; Terada, 2007) indicate Japan’s
population of 18-year-olds has fluctuated since 1966 but “has remained basicallysteady over the last several years” (Harada, 2015, para. 2). Harada (2015) also
notes that while the number of high school graduates entering some type of postsecondary institution is as high as 80%, Japan’s slowing birth rate means that eventhis high enrollment rate will not be enough to save universities, which are facing
a student shortage. This problem has affected universities in rural areas (Terada,
2007), as well as private universities across Japan (Crosby, 2016). It is simply notpossible to fill every student vacancy every year, and universities have been forced
to merge, cut departments, or close altogether. Harada (2015) goes on to mention
that even long-standing institutions, such as Tokyo Jogakkan College, founded in
1888, face the possibility of closure due to falling student enrollment. A static
number of college-aged students means a static number of teaching positions,since there is no expansion of the university system; universities that cannot
attract a sufficient number of students are at risk of closing. What this ultimately
implies for university teachers in Japan is that the number of universities will not
grow with time. There will be more competition for a static or dwindling numberof teaching positions at the university level, which means that jobseekers must
keep their résumés competitive by publishing their research in academic journals,
along with a range of other professional development and resumé-enhancing
77Duarteactivities. Using the DOAJ can help jobseekers stay competitive.

Conclusion

The purpose of this paper has been to show how the DOAJ can be used to search
for reputable journals to which users can submit their research when engaging
in professional development and improving their résumés. The need to publish
to gain stable employment within academia has been established and the usageof the DOAJ has also been described. Predatory journals were also discussed,
as well as the DOAJ Seal journals, which meet certain publishing criteria set by
the DOAJ. Demographic changes among college-aged individuals in Japan were
described and linked to school closures and consolidations, further making thecase that applying for university teaching positions will continue to be competitive
and necessitate having a strong résumé with publications in reputable journals.
Although the prospect of gaining full-time university employment can seem
daunting, especially for newcomers, using the DOAJ to find and publish in avariety of academic journals can help strengthen a candidate’s résumé.

References

Beall, J. (2012). Predatory publishers are corrupting open access. Nature,489(7415), 179. https://doi.org/10.1038/489179a
Case, C. M. (1928). Scholarship in sociology. Sociology and Social Research, 12,
323–340.
Crosby, A. (2016). The crisis facing the private Japanese university industry.
Kindai University Center for Liberal Arts and Foreign Language Education
Journal, 7(1), 159–168. https://kindai.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=repository_
action_common_download&item_id=18230&item_no=1&attribute_
id=40&file_no=1
Directory of Open Access Journals. (2021a). About DOAJ. https://doaj.org/
about/
Directory of Open Access Journals. (2021b). The DOAJ Seal. https://doaj.org/
apply/seal/
Harada, K. (2015, March 16). Universities struggle to cope with shrinking
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population and globalization. nippon.com. https://www.nippon.com/en/
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Hollingworth, W. (2008, February 28). Oversupply, falling birthrate threaten
implosion in higher education system. The Japan Times. https://www.
japantimes.co.jp/news/2008/02/28/national/oversupply-falling-birthratethreaten-implosion-in-higher-education-system/
JALT. (n.d.). JALT Publications. https://jalt.org/main/publications
McCrostie, J. (2010). The right stuff: Hiring trends for tenured university
positions in Japan. The Language Teacher, 34(5), 31–35. https://jaltpublications.org/files/pdf-article/art2_2.pdf
McCrostie, J. (2018). Predatory conferences: A case of academic cannibalism.
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Terada, S. (2007, August 17). Rural universities feel pinch of lower enrollments.
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Author bio

Armando Duarte has been living and teaching in Japan since 2011. After
working as an assistant language teacher for several years, he completed his MA in
TESOL from the University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education.
His research interests include computer assisted language learning and learnermotivation. mando.duarte@gmail.com
Submitted: June 26, 2021
Accepted: October 21, 2021

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