The state of metadata in open access journals: possibilities and restrictions

This paper reports on an inquiry into the use of metadata, publishing formats, and markup in editor-managed open access journals. It builds on findings from a study of the document architectures of open access journals, conducted through a survey of 265 journal web sites and a qualitative, descriptive analysis of 4 journal web sites. The journals’ choices of publishing formats and the consistency of their markup are described as a background. The main investigation is of their inclusion of metadata. Framing the description is a discussion of whether the journals’ metadata may be automatically retrieved by libraries and other information services in order to provide better tools for helping potential readers locate relevant journal articles.