Adoption of open access in social science journals: An analytical study of DOAJ

Abstract

The present study is based on data taken from the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), which is the recognized database of fully open access peer-reviewed scholarly journals. The objective of the study has been to explore through a quantitative approach, the inclusion of Library & Information Science (LIS), Sociology, Political Science, History, and Geography journals from various perspectives. It is found that there are 177 LIS journals, 198 Sociology Journals, 123 Political Science Journals, 232 History Journals and 206 Geography Journals indexed in DOAJ published from 65 countries in 41 different languages. English is the dominant language of publication for 604 journals. On the basis of the total journals published in DOAJ of select Journals of the Social Sciences Brazil is ranked 1 with 157 Journals followed by Spain (104). Only one Journal of LIS is covered by DOAJ. The maximum number of Journals used CC BY licensing i.e., 361. The study found that the year 2017 and 2020 can be marked as most significant years because the highest number of (135 each) journals were added in DOAJ. Many journals do not charge article processing charges and most of the journals did not fulfill the guidelines for the DOAJ Seal and also discuss about different types of peer review.