How to Find Open Access Journals

How can you find reliable and quality-checked open access journals online?

A good overview is provided by the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), which includes over 20,000 entries, nearly 14,000 of which are journals without APC fees.

Quality Open Access Market (QOAM) is a useful tool for finding open access journals. Based on community ratings, it evaluates experiences with the peer review process, editorial quality, and value for money, resulting in a quality indicator.

B!SON, a recommendation service developed by TIB Hannover and SLUB Dresden, helps researchers find suitable open access journals and indicates the available funding options for the listed journals. The journal information is sourced from the aforementioned DOAJ.

Another search tool for academic publication places is the oa.finder. You can select your publication type (journal article), your role in the submission process, and your affiliated institution. The oa.finder displays over 57,000 journals where you can publish open access. By applying various filter criteria, you can narrow the results by open access status, subject area, APC costs, publisher, and many other factors. With certain filters applied, oa.finder also provides a list of the most-cited open access journals.

In the Electronic Journals Library (EZB), a freely accessible bibliographic database for academic e-journals, you can display different journal lists by category, such as Diamond Open Access Journals, Indexed in DOAJ, Journals without APC, and Open Access. The OA rights tool allows you to check which publications could potentially be republished, for example, in a repository.