The specialized literature abounds in recommendations about the most desirable technical ways of answering reviewers’ comments on a submitted manuscript. However, not all publications mention authors’ and/or reviewers’ feelings or reactions about what they may read or write in their respective reports, and even fewer publications tackle openly what may or may not be said in a set of answers to a reviewer’s comments. In answering reviewers’ comments, authors are often attentive to the technical or rational aspects of the task but might forget some of its relational aspects. In their answers, authors are expected to make every effort to abide by reviewers’ suggestions, including discussing major criticisms, editing the illustrations, or implementing minor corrections; abstain from questioning a reviewer’s competence or willingness to write a good review, including full and attentive reading and drafting useful comments; clearly separate their answers to each reviewer; avoid skipping, merging, or reordering reviewers’ comments; and, finally, specify the changes made. Authors are advised to call on facts, logic, and some diplomacy, but never on artifice, concealment, or flattery. Failing to do so erodes the trust between authors and reviewers, whereas integrity is expected and highly valued. The guiding principle should always be honesty.
Purpose This study aims to analyze the digital standards of Asian journals registered in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) which has been recognized as an index of quality for open access journals.
Methods Data including 54 fields of each journal listed in DOAJ were provided by the DOAJ team in June 5, 2018. We focused on 11 fields including digital standards, content licensing types and digital archiving policy.
Results Based on raw data from DOAJ from June 5, 2018, there are 11,534 journals registered in the directory. Among all journals in the directory, Asian journals comprise 1,972 journals from 18 countries. Indonesian journals rank at the top for Asian journals, with 1,322 journals originating from that country. Other major Asian countries’ registration status includes India (238), South Korea (82), China (80), Malaysia (45), Pakistan (39), Taiwan (30), Thailand (27), Japan (20), and Hong Kong (20). Eighty percent of journals (1,584) are using PDF-only as their full-text format, and DOI is adopted in 852 journals (43%). Almost 98% of journals (1,936) are having a Creative Commons license; however, 85% of journals (1,689) do not have a digital archiving policy.
Conclusion Generally, digital standards are well implemented in South Korea, and digital archiving/deposit policy is well accepted in Indian journals. Many Asian open access journal editors can refer to this study result when they digitalize their journals in order to meet global standards.
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