![\"\"](\"/assets/images/openalex_diamondOA_UM_articles.png\")
We need a lot more than diamond open access\nto really improve the publishing models. That said, but there are examples that\ndiamond open access publishers actually want to\nimprove more just the access to the knowledge dissemination infrastructure.\nBut infrastructure is not only technologies; it also includes the many social aspects that are involved in adoption.\nAnd we saw enough of that in the open access transition.
\n\nOne aspect that limits the uptake of diamond open access models is that the scholarly community needs to change\ntheir trust model. We have seen a transition from societal publishers to commercial publishers, from scholarly-led\nto publisher-led. And commercial publishers certainly breached my trust\n(see also doi:10.5281/zenodo.4926030).
\n\nMany scholars prefer the certainty of a scholarly journal where they can trust that the editorial board and\ntheir reviewers take their job seriously. This matters. The notion that peer reviewers may reject your work is an\nextrinsic motivation for at least some researchers to do a better job (personal communication). And that feature\nworks well: there are indications that research published as preprint sees limited change after the formal\npeer review process (doi:10.1038/d41586-026-02167-3 and\ndoi:10.64898/2026.06.30.735556):
\n\n\n\n\n“For most scientists, reputation is important, and they would not upload something they would not be comfortable\nwith publishing in a journal later.”
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In an ideal situation, reputation would not be part of the whole equation: researchers never submit anything they think\nis not scientifically sound. Journals would never desk-reject an article that is scientifically sound. The question\nis mostly how to reach that. Everyone is busy, and it has not been so long ago that the journal impact factor was\nby many as indicator of scientific quality. The reality is far more complex than that.
\n\nSo, let’s assume you are interested in the idea, and want to know what diamond open access journals exist in your\nresearch field, before you can even consider the quality of that journal, you need to know which journal is diamond\nopen access. Therefore, I asked yesterday on Mastodon about databases that list\nwhich journal are diamond.
\n\nIt actually turns out that the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) does not indicate\nif a journal is diamond. You can filter on zero APC, but that is not the same. In fact, zero APC is routinely used\nby big publishers to launch new journals. One they have critical mass, they will start charging non-zero APCs.
\n\nI already received some replies about possible options:
\n\nAll pieces of the puzzle.
\n\nWhen I grew up as a scholar, I learned to publish in journals where you respect the research, where you see important\nresearch in your field get published. Nowadays, this is changing. In fact, young researchers (tho many older scholars alike)\nfear to publish in predatory journal by accident (really! [citation_pending]). The big publishers and the new\npublishers have been adding so many new journals, and academia has really pushed the “publish as many articles\nas you can” model, that it kind of makes sense why things are different now.
And, a central database with trustworthy information about the quality of diamond open access journals\nis just needed.
\n\nA final note, while I have not been able to create a list of diamond open access journals with OpenAlex,\nalready in February 2025 I found a way to list articles tagged with a diamond status.\nThis query lists over three thousand of such annoated articles for Maastricht University:
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(Interestingly, the journal where the three most cited articles were published turned diamond already in 2004\nand was discontinued about half a year go “Due to recent changes in operational resources”,\naccording to Wikipedia.)
\n\nSo, while the above solution do allow you to increase your success rate or finding a diamond open access journal\nin your field, the next question is: what can you learn about this journal. For example, what does Wikipedia\nsay about the journal (if anything)? Do you know people that have published in that journal? The OpenAlex\nscreenshot shows
\n\nThat make me wonder what Wikidata has to offer. After all, as one of the largest\nlinked open data sources, they must have some information.
\n\nI am not disappointed. The type diamond open-access journal is actively\nused, and there is plenty of other of useful fields for these journals. I came up with\nthis SPARQL query (with some QLever sugar for labels):
\n\nPREFIX wdt: <http://www.wikidata.org/prop/direct/>\nPREFIX wd: <http://www.wikidata.org/entity/>\nPREFIX rdfs: <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#>\nSELECT DISTINCT ?diamondJournal ?diamondjournalLabel\n # (SAMPLE(?url_) AS ?website)\n (SAMPLE(?issnl_) AS ?issnl)\n (GROUP_CONCAT(DISTINCT STR(?issn_)) AS ?issn)\n (SAMPLE(?lang_) AS ?language)\n (SAMPLE(?doaj_) AS ?doaj)\n (GROUP_CONCAT(DISTINCT STR(?subject);separator=\", \") AS ?subjects)\nWHERE {\n ?diamondJournal wdt:P31 wd:Q108440863 .\n OPTIONAL { ?diamondJournal wdt:P236 ?issn_ }\n OPTIONAL { ?diamondJournal wdt:P7363 ?issnl_ }\n OPTIONAL { ?diamondJournal wdt:P856 ?url_ }\n OPTIONAL { ?diamondJournal wdt:P407 / @en@rdfs:label ?lang_ }\n OPTIONAL { ?diamondJournal wdt:P5115 ?doaj_ }\n OPTIONAL { ?diamondJournal wdt:P921 / @en@rdfs:label ?subject }\n ?diamondJournal @en@rdfs:label ?diamondjournalLabel .\n} GROUP BY ?diamondJournal ?diamondjournalLabel\nThis lists more than 1,500 diamond open access journals:
\n\n![\"\"](\"/assets/images/wikidata_diamondOA_journals.png\")
With Wikidata we can then list UM authors that published in diamond journals.\nThat list is remarkably short, however, if you compare it with the earlier results from OpenAlex. That is because\nWikidata only contains a subset of scientific literature and not all articles are correctly linked to the items\nabout their authors. But I also spotted journals in the OpenAlex list that are not really diamond.
\n\nClearly, we need better metadata, but things are not looking that bad either! We have something to work with.\nWhat is your favorite diamond open access journal?
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