Under the auspices of the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS, Leiden University), QOAM has set up a freely available list of
For now, BFJ will be a subdomain of QOAM. Eventually, BFJ will have its own domain.
The 42.000+ listed journals (27.000 fully OA plus 15.000 hybrid) come from JournalTOCs
The list of bona fide journals will include:
These journals will be coloured blue in the complete list of journals. Journals trusted by just one or two libraries are light blue (see below). The remaining journals are listed in grey.
Clicking a grey journal produces the following line: “If you want to express your trust in this journal on behalf of your library, please register (new user) or log in (returning user) with your academic email address.” Once you are logged in the following text box pops up.
The library of *your institution* confirms the trustworthiness of this journal. Date *date*. Contact *your name*.
The text between asterisks is machine generated. Ticking the square suffices.
Clicking a light blue journal shows this table (with one or two institutions):
This journal is trusted by the following libraries:
Library of | Date | Contact |
Institution 1 | dd-mm-yyyy | Name |
Institution 2 | dd-mm-yyyy | Name |
If you want to express your trust in this journal on behalf of your library, please register (new user) or log in (returning user) with your academic email address. |
Clicking a blue journal leads to a new window with metadata of the journal plus one of the following phrases:
Library of | Date | Contact |
Institution 1 | dd-mm-yyyy | Name |
Institution 2 | dd-mm-yyyy | Name |
Institution 3 | dd-mm-yyyy | Name |
If you want to express your trust in this journal on behalf of your library, please register (new user) or log in (returning user) with your academic email address. |
When considering to express trust in a journal, the first reference of a library might be its embedded professional knowledge. Most libraries are familiar with some university journals; they may know of journals of (small) societies or charities in their own discipline, etc. The only thing they have to be certain of in this step is that these are not malafide journals. In case of doubt, the Compass to Publish might offer some practical criteria. And at the end of the day, library competence determines the authority of the list.
BFJ’s infrastructure is pretty simple and in part based on QOAM, making maintenance light.
Data maintenance remains the main portion of BFJ’s workload.
BFJ is fit to purpose. Predatory (or otherwise dubious) journals will not make it to the blue list, and consequently remain obscure. Indeed, potential frauds would have to take the following hurdles: (1) obtain three email addresses of different academic institutions, (2) tick three times the box “ I am submitting this expression of trust on behalf of my library.”, (3) anticipate that their email name will be visible on the web site, and (4) that other academics may contact them at their registered institutional email address. Ultimately, BFJ’s administrator may be alerted and delete improper expressions of trust. Thus, the list is community controlled.
BFJ is an open list of trusted journals, based on public data sources and expressions of trust coming from academic libraries. Such expressions can only be submitted by people with an academic email address. In practice this means that BFJ collects the institutional email addresses of the submitters. Their email names are publicly visible, but not the email adresses, and only registered colleagues will be able to contact them. Underlying this policy is the view that (1) anonymous expressions of trust are prone to misuse and should be avoided, and (2) academic colleagues should be able to contact each other for dialogue. No other uses of these data are foreseen. This code of conduct is in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Finally, BFJ uses the https protocol for secure exchange of data. Its data are stored in the Netherlands and governed by Dutch law.
The current version of Bona Fide Journals is the minimal viable product. Feedback is solicited here, and will be used for a community driven development of BFJ