Day/time: May 5, 2025, 1:15 p.m. to 2:15 p.m. EDT
Title: Ensuring diversity in open access databases: the DOAJ Ambassador Programme Review
Presenter: Ivonne Lujano, DOAJ Community Manager & Ambassador, Directory of Open Access Journals
Description: In 2016, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) launched the Ambassador Programme to increase outreach activities and ensure the inclusion of journals produced in the Global South in DOAJ. Ambassadors are volunteers who dedicate their time to outreach activities in Asia, Africa and Latin America. They help DOAJ engage with open access communities worldwide to increase open access awareness, understanding of best practices in scholarly publishing, and to raise the number of journals indexed in DOAJ from the Global South. With the Ambassador Programme, DOAJ has sought to ensure the broad participation of the international community and ultimately promote a fairer, more inclusive, global open scholarship ecosystem, as stated in the DOAJ’s strategic goals for 2023-25.
We reviewed the Ambassador Programme in 2024, collecting quantitative and qualitative data using a survey, focus groups, and structured interviews. Findings showed that the Programme has significantly benefited the DOAJ, the Ambassadors, and the publishers in the regions they represent. In this presentation, we will share some lessons learned from the review.
Title: Creating Inclusive OERs: Weaving Accessibility into Publishing Workflows
Presenters: Karen Meijer (she/her), Scholarly Communication Librarian, Kwantlen Polytechnic University; Amanda Grey (she/her), Open Education Strategist, Kwantlen Polytechnic University
Description: In recent years, Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU) has made significant strides in ensuring that the OERs we publish are accessible to most learners. This presentation outlines our efforts, challenges, and strategies to weave accessibility into all stages of our publishing process.
Participants will explore how accessibility considerations are woven into all stages of KPU’s OER publishing workflows. Attendees will learn about KPU’s proactive steps, including creating an explicit accessibility statement, training student assistants, adding accessibility questions to grant applications, and revising project agreements. The presentation will also touch on the use of an accessibility rubric based on WCAG standards to identify common accessibility gaps within OERs. This session will empower participants with practical knowledge, tools, and a deeper understanding of how they can actively address accessibility in their own OER publishing workflows.
Title: Implementing DEIA Training for Editors in a Library Publishing Program
Presenters: Charlotte Roh (she/her), Publications Manager, California Digital Library, University of California; Catherine Mitchell, Director of Publishing, Archives, and Digitization, California Digital Library, University of California; Amanda Karby (she/her), Publications Manager, California Digitial Library, University of California
Description: Established in 2002, eScholarship Publishing is a comprehensive open access publishing program for the University of California (UC) academic community with almost 100 open access journals. eScholarship publications often traverse standard disciplinary boundaries, explore new publishing models, support under-represented voices within the scholarly record, and reach communities and/or professionals in applied fields beyond academia. We believe that supporting a diverse community of scholars and researchers is fundamental to our publishing program, to our academic institution, and to the advancement of knowledge.
In support of these values, the eScholarship team is working to embed diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) in its training materials, starting with a required webinar for all journal editors that provides an overview of major DEIA topics in scholarly publishing. These topics include diversifying editorial boards, staff, author pools, and peer reviewers; implementing inclusive language and style guides; and meeting accessibility standards.
In the process of creating this training webinar for editors, we addressed questions such as
-Who has access to publishing opportunities?
-Who is making the decisions about who can publish and where?
-Who is reviewing publications and determining their worth and relevance to the field?
-Which disciplines and topics are given a voice within the scholarly record?
We used related resources from the Office of Scholarly Communication (OSC) at the University of California, C4DISC , and the Library Publishing Coalition, aligning our training with efforts across the UC system and the broader academic publishing profession.
In this informational session, we will describe our goals for creating and conducting this DEIA webinar for eScholarship journal editors, the level of editorial participation in the training, the opportunities and challenges we have encountered, feedback we have received, and the impact of this program so far.