Knowledge Base Indexing & Discovery DOAJ Requirements: How to Get Your Journal Listed
Indexing & Discovery

DOAJ Requirements: How to Get Your Journal Listed

DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) requires journals to be fully open access, have a valid ISSN, charge no fees for reading, have a peer review policy, and follow COPE publication ethics guidelines.

What Is DOAJ?

DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) is the largest curated index of peer-reviewed open access journals, maintained by Infrastructure Services for Open Access (IS4OA). Being listed in DOAJ is a standard requirement for:


  • Demonstrating open access compliance to funders
  • Qualifying for the DOAJ Seal (a quality mark for best-practice open access)
  • Meeting the open access requirements of some CrossRef metadata standards
  • Building author trust in the journal's legitimacy

Core DOAJ Requirements

Open access — All articles must be freely available online without embargo. The journal must state its open access policy on its website.


ISSN — A valid ISSN registered with the ISSN International Centre. Both E-ISSN and P-ISSN should be listed if applicable.


Peer review — The journal must conduct peer review (single-blind, double-blind, or open) and describe its peer review process on the journal website.


Publication ethics — The journal must have a visible publication ethics policy that covers plagiarism, authorship, conflicts of interest, and corrections/retractions.


No fees for readers — Readers must never be charged to access or download articles.


APC transparency — If the journal charges APCs, the amount must be stated clearly on the journal website before submission.


Journal website — Must include: aims and scope, editorial board with affiliations, author instructions, contact information, ISSN, and copyright/licensing information.

DOAJ Seal Requirements

The DOAJ Seal indicates best-practice open access. Additional requirements beyond basic listing:


  • Creative Commons license — Articles must use CC BY, CC BY-SA, or CC BY-NC (not CC BY-ND or CC BY-NC-ND for full Seal)
  • Author retains copyright — Authors retain copyright; the journal is granted a non-exclusive license to publish
  • Metadata deposit — The journal must deposit article metadata directly to DOAJ via API or manual upload
  • DOI registration — All articles must have DOIs registered through CrossRef, DataCite, or another DOI agency
  • OAI-PMH — The journal must provide an OAI-PMH endpoint for metadata harvesting

Frequently Asked Questions

DOAJ application review typically takes 3–6 months. Applications are reviewed by DOAJ editors who check every criterion manually. Incomplete applications or missing information will slow the process.
DOAJ listing means the journal meets basic open access and ethics criteria. The DOAJ Seal is awarded to journals that also use Creative Commons licensing, provide article-level metadata to DOAJ, and have CrossRef DOI registration — a higher standard of open access practice.
No. DOAJ only lists journals where all content is open access. Hybrid journals (subscription journals that make some articles open access for an APC) do not qualify.
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