Open Access Indicators and Scholarly Communications in Latin America (original) (raw)

Scientific Output from Latin America and the Caribbean – Identification of the Main Institutions for Regional Open Access Integration Strategies

Latin America is a region in which two thirds of the investment in research and development are funded by State resources. It can be foreseen that in the near future governments in the region will encourage and promote, or require by law or mandates, that scientific output from the region become visible and accessible in open access repositories and portals. This paper presents the results of a survey to identify the institutions of the region with the largest volume of scientific output and most exposure of their output on the Web, in order to help make those institutions visible to national, regional and international organizations involved in open access strategies and programs in Latin America and the Caribbean. The results show a leading position by universities from Brazil; a strong presence of universities from Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Chile and Venezuela, and some presence of universities from Ecuador, Peru, Costa Rica, Cuba, Puerto Rico and Uruguay.

Mapping the development of Open Access in Latin America and Caribbean countries. An analysis of Web of Science Core Collection and SciELO Citation Index (2005-2017)

Scientometrics, 2018

Open Access (OA) initiatives and knowledge infrastructure represent vital elements for both producing significant changes in scholarly communication and reducing limitations of access to the circulation of scientific knowledge in developing countries. The spreading of the OA movement in Latin America and Caribbean (LA&C) countries, exemplified by the growth of regional and national initiatives, such as the creation of OA digital journal libraries and the establishment of supportive governmental policies, provides evidence of the significant role OA is playing in improving the participation of LA&C countries in the so-called "global knowledge commons". In this paper, we map OA publications in LA&C countries through a bibliometric analysis of OA publications indexed by the Web of Science Core Collection and SciELO Citation Index during the period 2005-2017. Searches were done in the fields "Country", "Publication Year", "Language", and "Research Area" using WoS analytical tools, in order to map the evolution, distribution , and characteristics of OA publications in the LA&C region. The analysis is conducted on both the sub-regional and national levels. On the sub-regional level, trends in the four LA&C sub-regions (Southern Cone, Central America and Mexico, Andes, and the Caribbean) are identified and compared. On the national level, the analysis identifies as most representative and focuses on nine countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, and Peru. By doing so, it enriches the existing literature on the subject, where the prominent role played by some of these countries in supporting OA has been already underlined.

Growth of Open Access Scholarly Communication in Brics Countries

2021

This paper aims to investigate the present status of open access (OA) scholarly communication from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) countries from 2011 to 2020 and compare their performance in terms of scholarly communication. Articles contributed by the scholars of BRICS countries, the data collected from Scopus database. The retrieved results are limited to the "all open access, Publisher full Gold OA, Publisher Hybrid Gold OA, Publisher Free to read Bronze OA and repository Green OA", "articles" published in the "English language" from 2011 to 2020. Total 13,943,979 papers were published from BRICS countries, out of which 1578902 articles were published in Open Access sources. Brazil has published the highest number of OA publications (21%) regarding its total Publications. China has the highest contribution (65%) in OA publications in comparison to other BRICS countries. Although, there has been a constant growth in OA publications in BRICS countries from 66,481 in 2011 to 280,150 in 2020. China has the highest publications in all open access models. Brazil, India and South Africa have contributed more OA publications in Medicine discipline than other disciplines. The PLOS One open access scientific journal is at the top with 43,532 OA publications from Brazil, China and South Africa. This paper also includes the ranking of institutions of BRICS countries based on their OA publications from 2016 to 2019, i.e. CWTS Leiden Ranking 2021. The study is limited to BRICS countries and may increase the awareness of OA publications from BRICS countries.

Improving access to research literature in developing countries: challenges and opportunities provided by Open Access

2005

The Open Access movement has grown from pockets of regional initiatives to an increasingly coordinated world wide movement, facilitated by common technical standards and open source software. While debates on open access have focused on the so-called "serial crisis" and copyright issues, relatively little attention has been paid to the myriads of benefits OA provide, particularly to researchers in the developing countries. In this paper, we highlight important developments and experimentations in knowledge sharing enabled by different modes of open access, and point to collaborative and sustainable models that will be highly beneficial to research institutions in the developing world in the long term. The recommendations in this

Made in Latin America : open access, scholarly journals, and regional innovations

2015

Latin America distinguishes itself from other regions of the world by considering the scientific information as a common good. All the above initiatives are publicly funded and managed by the same academic community that publishes scientific journals, unlike in Europe and the United States, where much of the scientific communication mainly journals has been outsourced and commercialized. The book presented here provides the results of exploratory research and different perspectives on achievements, detected problems and challenges the region will be facing in the future, in relation to access, visibility, and scientific and social impact of research published in journals in Latin America, the evaluation of these journals by assessment systems and incentives for academic and scientific careers in the region

Putting Local Knowledge Online: does it become international?

2004

Access to scientific information and knowledge in the framework of the Internet has steadily grown in recent years, with special advantages for the information generated in developed countries. In other parts of the world a number of factors are influencing the capacity to generate and use scientific information online, i.a. connectivity problems, lack of financial resources, weak institutional support and infrastructure, and poor training in the electronic publishing and dissemination tools. Latin America (including the Caribbean) has been relatively slow in adopting the Internet: our users represent today 3.6% of the world’s total, against 36.9% from North America, 30% from Europe and 27% from Asia and the Pacific. The Internet infrastructure shows even lower figures: only 1.6% of the world’s total corresponds to Latin America, with 2.4% of the domains. As a result, only 3% of webpages offer contents in Spanish and 1% in Portuguese, against 75% in English. Against this background,...

Participation in the global knowledge commons : Challenges and opportunities for research dissemination in developing countries

New Library World, 2005

Due to improving Internet connectivity and a growing number of international initiatives, knowledge workers in developing countries are now getting access to scholarly and scientific publications and electronic resources at a level that is unmatched historically. This is highly significant, particularly in areas of medicine, agricultural and environmental sciences, and development literature that are much needed if developing countries are to meet the Millennium Development Goals. At the same time, the Open Access movement and the growing number of Open Archive Initiative (OAI) compliant institutional repositories promise to provide even greater access to resources and scientific publications that were previously inaccessible. These low cost technology and interoperability standards are also providing great opportunities for libraries and publishers in developing countries to disseminate local research and knowledge and to bridge the South-North knowledge gap. This article reviews these recent trends, discusses their significance for information access in developing countries, and provides recommendations for knowledge workers on how to actively participate in and contribute to the global knowledge commons.