The Open Access Journals Toolkit aims to help the scholarly community start and manage open access journals.
Topics are organised according to the following six sections:
A brief history of the Toolkit
In 2022, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and the Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA) held a consultation with a group of international open access experts, journal managers and editors, with support from Research Consulting. This investigative work looked into the potential need for an online resource to support new and established open access journals in navigating the rapidly changing landscape of open access publishing. A majority of contributors agreed that this would be a valuable asset, and helped define the early shape of the Open Access Journals Toolkit.
Following the initial consultation, DOAJ and OASPA set out to fully scope out and develop the Open Access Journals Toolkit. This included the formation of a diverse Editorial Board (see below) and the preparation of all contents available today, as well as web and branding design and content architecture testing. The Open Access Journals Toolkit design process began in November 2022 and ended in June 2023, when the website went live.
Since then,the Toolkit has had a series of minor revisions plus one major revision in 2025 where new content was added, creating sections on AI and accessibility, and including new material in reading lists. The independent and specially commissioned Editorial Board reviews and updates all the content every two years. This allows our users to have confidence that what they are reading is current and objective. The open access publishing landscape develops and changes quickly and we want to ensure that this is reflected in the Open Access Journals Toolkit on a regular basis.
Our Editorial Board
DOAJ and OASPA are very grateful for the ongoing support provided by the Editorial Board in keeping the Open Access Journals Toolkit up to date. We recognise the input and insights provided by the following experts representing a range of languages, territories, roles and organisations:- Alex Mendonça, Scielo
- Andy Byers, Open Library of Humanities
- Andy Nobes, INASP
- Clarissa França Dias Carneiro, Berlin Institute of Health (BIH)
- Haseeb Irfanullah, Independent consultant
- Ivonne Lujano, Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
- Katie Foxall, Bristol University Press and Policy Press
- Ramiro Santa Ana Anguiano, Mexican Academy of Language, Mexico
- Rebecca Wojturska, University of Edinburgh
- Solange Santos, Scielo
- Susan Murray, African Journals OnLine (AJOL)
- Tom Olijhoek, Independent consultant
- Wendy Patterson, Beilstein-Institut
Contact us
To get in touch for anything other than content suggestions or updates, please contact helpdesk@oajournals-toolkit.org.Acknowledgements
DOAJ and OASPA gratefully acknowledge the initial support provided by the Research Consulting team (Lucia Loffreda, Andrea Chiarelli, Elle Malcolmson, Frances Palmer, Ellie Cox, Rob Johnson) in managing the Open Access Journals Toolkit design and implementation process, as well as the work done by Studio Seventeen (Gareth Roberts, Chloe Morris, Ed Walsh) in building and maintaining the website. We also acknowledge the support of the organisations on our Supporter page.
All toolkit contents have been proposed, curated and drafted by Editorial Board Members. We acknowledge that AI-based tools have been used in the copyediting process alongside extensive human editing, to ensure consistency in readability, presentation and coverage of topics.