Walt at Random

Journals scanned so far: 18,400. Articles: 1,317,670 for 2023, 1,348,422 for 2022. 6 065 have fees of some sort; 12,335 do not (diamond OA). I’ll have to look at 2,868 again, including all of the ones below.

Special Cases

• bi [Inactive: no articles since 2021]: 449
• xd [Defunct, no articles since 2018]: 205
• xj: [Apparently removed from DOAJ since 1/1/2024]: 97
• xm [Malware and certificate problems]: 836
• xn [Not an OA journal, including ones that now require login]: 19
• xx [Unavailable or unworkable]: 818

The scan will not be finished next week, but, barring unforeseen problems with real life, it will be done some time during the following week.

MODIFIED LATER ON 3/24: It would appear that a whole bunch of “refusals” from one Indonesian university were a temporary outage–so I’m resaving this with modified, and better, numbers

MODIFIED 3/31: This was, of course, week twelve, not week thirteen.

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17,000 journals scanned, with 1,285,602 2023 articles and 1,315,137 2022 articles. While 5,619 journals have fees, 11,381 are diamond: no fees. Some 2,556 will need to be rechecked.

A tough week in some ways, as you may see if you compare special case numbers with the previous week (which I am deliberately not going to do!)

Special cases

• bi [no articles since 2021]: 424
• xd [no articles since 2018]: 191
• xj [apparently removed from DOAJ since 1/1/2024]: 86
• xm [malware and certificate/ssl problems]: 642
• xn [not an OA journal, including journals that seem to require login]: 19
• xx [unavailable or unworkable]: 785

I’m out of the universidad/e range and into Indonesian journals. So far, it seems as though some of the malware cases in Indonesian universities may be better.

Stopping a bit early today to work on April requirements some more. Should need about 2.5 weeks to do the remaining 3,296 or so journals…but that rapidly-growing number of  “recheck’ cases is a bit discouraging.

15,500 journals scanned, with 1,242,676 articles in 2023 and 1,265,241 articles in 2022. That leaves 4,794 journals still to scan. Of the 15,500 journals, 4,004 have fees and 5,996 do not–they’re diamond OA. Unfortunately, 2,219 will need rechecking, a slow process.

Special cases

• bi (inactive: nothing since 2021): 384
• xd (defunct): 179
• xj (apparently removed from DOAJ): 66
• xm (malware and certificate issues): 596
• xn (not OA journals, including those requiring login): 13
• xx (unreachable or unworkable): 649

While there may be more slowdowns to take care of other issues, “u” publishers (mostly universities, and mostly Hispanic so far) are going well. So it’s likely to be around four weeks to finish the first pass–which is very good.

If I had to guess, most of the “xx” cases will go away (that is, become “a”–ordinary), and with luck a third or more of the “xm” cases also will, but that’s just a guess.

Growth

It may be worth noting that I’ve already scanned almost as many journals as the total size of DOAJ as of January 1, 2020; 15,500 compared to 15,666.

Total to date: 14,100 journals, with 1,207,684 2023 articles and 1,226,734 2022 articles. 5,436 have fees; 8,664 do not. 1,952 will be rescanned.

Special cases

• bi [No activity since 2021]: 358
• xd [No activity since 2018]: 173
• xj [Removed from DOAJ since 1/1/2024]: 57
• xm [Malware/certificate issues]: 527
• xn [Not an OA journal]: 12
• xx [Unavailable/unworkable]: 550

Timing

I reduced my daily goal from 225 to 200 journals this week to get started on some other issues. The coming week, I’ll reduce it to 150 to make real headway elsewhere–and 100 (or zero) if needed. With luck, the “other issues” will be mostly resolved in another week or at most two.

I’m now in “the U’s” of publishers–which can be extremely unpredictable. Around 60 done so far, and a mere 5,100 or so left to do…

Maybe not.

At the moment, it seems like it is, with 225 journals a day–which would mean the first scan would be done in 27 more days, that is, on April 1 or 2nd. That’s quite unlikely. Life intervenes: medical appointments, unexpected emergencies, and an expected annual event that has to be completed by mid-April and may take several days to complete.

Today would have been closer to 100 journals had it not been for SpringerOpen, which was very fast to handle (as was Sage last week). I’m guessing that The Big U–the several thousand university-based journals–may slow things down. Expect some days with 100 or fewer and, possibly, one or two with zero. (If anybody else is actually following #goa9 on Mastodon or the weekly summaries here–both admittedly done as a self-incentive).

I’ll be reasonably happy if the first pass is complete by the end of April (quite plausible) and delighted if it’s done by the same time as last year (with a lot fewer journals). Then comes the probably-slow second pass, and a week or so of data massaging, and finally the fun part, putting together the two books. [“Writing” may be the wrong term given that tables make up the bulk of both books.]

If all goes reasonably well, I’ll finish both in the spring (that is, by June 30). Barring major problems, it’s at least fairly likely that the main book and uploaded spreadsheet will be done by then.

We shall see. [Is anybody out there?]

12,265 journals scanned (about 8,030 left!), with 1,120,731 articles in 2023 and 1,142,072 in 2022. 4,784 have fees of some sort; 7,841 do not (diamond OA). 1,832 will be rescanned, for various reasons.

Special cases

• bi (inactive since 2021): 309
• xd (dead/defunct): 153
• xj (no longer in DOAJ): 50
• xm (malware or certificate problems): 494
• xn (not OA): 11
• xx (couldn’t open or too problematic to use): 514

Perhaps worth noting that xx included one set of university medical journals that just didn’t respond: chances are, they’ll come back (as will most xx journals with any luck).