Consultative Forum on Open Access: Towards high level interventions for research and development in Africa Network of African Science Academies - NASAC Nairobi, Kenia, 29-30 January 2015

1. Towards global cooperative
noncommercial open access -
contributions from Latin America
@dominiquebabini
Consultative Forum on Open Access: Towards high level
interventions for research and development in Africa
Network of African Science Academies - NASAC
Nairobi, Kenia, 29-30 January 2015

2. vision
The International Council for Science (ICSU)
advocates the following goals for open access
(2014):
The scientific record should be:
• free of financial barriers for any researcher to
contribute to;
• free of financial barriers for any user to access
immediately on publication
http://www.icsu.org/general-
assembly/news/ICSU%20Report%20on%20
Open%20Access.pdf

3. Pay to publish (APC): a new enclosure for
contributions from less privileged
countries/institutions/researchers:
USD 2.097/2.727 per article,
for article processing charges
(APCs) by “subscription
publishers”
USD 1.418 average per article
by “non-subscription
publishers”
Source: Björk B-C, Solomon D.(2014). Developing an effective
market for open access article processing charges.
http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/About-us/Policy/Spotlight-
issues/Open-access/Guides/WTP054773.htm
The risk of open
access becoming
integrated into
existing
commercial
publishing

4. secure global basic open access
(no fee for users, no fee for publishing)
• Research output in shared
interoperable open access digital
repositories:
– Institutional repositories
– National rep.
– Regional rep.
– International rep.
– Thematic rep.
– journal collections (63% journals do not
charge APC´s)
Value-added
services with
diversity of
business
models:
overlay journals,
megajournals,
additional
services for
repositories, as:
peer-review,
impact
indicators, etc.

5. “By making available research generated in poor
countries in addition to knowledge created in well-
endowed institutions, institutonal repositories could
play a role in bridging the global knowledge gap.
Research institutions and universities have the primary
mission of creating, sharing, and disseminating
knowledge, which are public goods. Open access
through institutional repositories is a low-cost and low-
barrier strategy for achieving this mission”.
Leslie Chan (2014, p.295)
http://cjc-online.ca/index.php/journal/article/view/1455/1579

6. towards a global noncommercial
cooperative open access ecosystem -
contributions from Latin America

7. Latin American context
• largest gap between rich and poor
• research+dissemination: mainly
government-funded + int. cooperation
• subsidized scholarly publishing - not
outsourced to commercial publishers
• evaluation process rewards publishing
in international IF journals
• output in local language, in local
publications: lacks international
visibility, access and recognition
• output in English, in int. journals: lacks
local visibility and access for non-
subscribers+civil society+policy makers
22 countries
Population: 600.000.000
Map source: Wikipedia
Main languages:
Spanish/Portuguese
Scientific output (main
countries): Brazil, México,
Argentina, Colombia, Chile

8. research output poorly represented in
international indexes
Source: Juan Pablo Alperín (2014). World scaled by number of documents in Web of Science by
Authors Living There. LSE Impact Blog
.
.
16 % quality journals from Latin America in Scopus (841
Journals) and 5 % in WoS (294 journals)

9. regional Open Access declaration (2005)
Salvador de Bahía (Brazil) Declaration on Open Access: The
Developing World Perspective (promoted by SciELO)
We urge governments to make Open Access a high priority
in science policies including:
• requiring that publicly funded research is made available
through Open Access;
• considering the cost of publication as part of the cost of
research;
• strengthening the local OA journals, repositories and
other relevant initiatives;
• promoting integration of developing countries scientific
information in the worldwide body of knowledge.
We call on all stakeholders in the international community
to work together to ensure that scientific information is
openly accessible and freely available to all
http://www.icml9.org/meetings/openacces
s/public/documents/declaration.htm

10. Latin America: regional cooperative approach
to open access
1. regional subject digital
repositories
2. regional open access
journal portals
3. regional network of
institutional repositories

11. agriculture
health
Social sciences
Environmental health
public administration
labour
REGIONAL
SUBJECT
REPOSITORIES

12. Latin America open access journals
3.500 quality journals in the region (945 from Brazil), subsidized by academic
and scientific institutions
76% are OA
No APC tradition in the region
 Benefits of OA wide adoption
Visibility + access
More possibilities of citations to research results
 Trends in Latin America
• Journals improve quality and multiply visibility, access, indicators,
participating in journal portals
– Regional journal portals
– National portals of quality journals
– University journal portals

13. Regional Latin American OA peer-review
journal Portals
.
• Started 1997
• Network of national quality
journals focal points
• Today 1.064 journals Latin
America
• Aprox. 500.000 articles
• Bibliometric indicators
• Scielo Citation Index WoS
.
• Started 2003
• In collaboration with journal
editors from the region
• Today 780 journals LA
• Aprox. 280.000 articles
• Indicators of scientific
output (institutions,
countries, subjects)
Regional journals harvester: Portal de Portales Latindex www.latindex.ppl.unam.mx/

14. UNESCO supports development of open access regional strategies, national policies,
consultations, open access indicators, e.g.:

15. national policies for identification of quality
journals
Trends
 national lists/portals of quality journals
 managed by national research funding agency
 In charge of evaluation of scientific and academic journals
 quality certification (related with regional quality
requirements from Latindex, SciELO and Redalyc
 Journals quality certification related to evaluation of
researchers pubishing in local journals
Examples: Qualis/CAPES (Brazil), NB/CONICET (Argentina),
CONACYT (México), Publindex (Colombia), CONICYT (Chile)

16. University journal portals in Latin America
e.g.: universities with more than 100 journals each, in
Open Journal System (OJS) platforms
revistas.unam.mx
UNAM, México Univ. Sao Paulo, Brazil
http://www.revistas.usp.br
Univ. Chile
http://www.revistas.uchile.cl/

17. Institutional repositories
289 repositories Latin America

18. From national to regional: high level interventions
for aligning national repository networks
• Since: 2012
• Members: governments (national networks of digital repositories)
• Started with government agreement of 9 countries:
Argentina,Brasil,Chile,Colombia, Ecuador, México,Perú,Venezuela,
El Salvador
• Regional harvester: initial 800.000 digital objects (full text peer-
review articles + doctoral and master theses, reports).Driver 2.0
• Support from: governments, initial support IADB USD 1.000.000
(regional public good)
• Managed by RedCLARA and funded by governments
• Challenges: institutionalization, metadata quality, working with
COAR and OpenAIRE for global alignment
http://www.slideshare.net/OpenAIRE_eu/3
-open-airecoarsession1carmengloria
Contact: cabezas.alberto@gmail.com

19. Open Access policies in Latin America
Institutional
• Few (29 registered in ROARMAP)
• Weak (recommendations more
than mandates)
• Partial (Mainly for thesis)
– A good example of
mandatory institutional
policy: University of São
Paulo, Brazil
http://www.producao.usp.br/page/politicaAc
essoEnUS
National
• AO legislation approved by
Congress in
– Peru (2013)
– Argentina (2013)
– Mexico (2014)
Requires creation of OA digital
repositories for gov.-funded
research results
• OA legislation proposal in
Congress
– Brazil (since 2007)

20. high level interventions for national cooperation of
open access repositories – the case of Argentina
Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MINCYT)
– Digital Repositories Experts Committee (since 2009) to:
• Select and adapt international standards for digital repositories
• Definition on contents to be considered for national harvester
• Requirements for institutions that need financial support for digital
repositories – evaluation of funding requests
• Draft for OA national legislation proposal
• Guidelines for institutions to be members of the:
– National System of Digital Repositories (SNRD/MINCYT)
• Membership benefits: training, funding, technical support
• Promotes regional networks of repositories within country
• National harvester
• Open access week event
• National focal point of La Referencia (regional network of digital
repositories) and COAR

21. Argentina´s national legislation approved in 2013
Main concepts - http://repositorios.mincyt.gob.ar/recursos.php
• Research institutions which receive government
funding shall develop individual or shared
interoperable open access institutional repositories
for research output financed by public funds (journal
articles, scientific reports, theses, research data, etc.)
• Those institutions will
have to issue policies for
open access to primary
research data in repositories

22. Argentina´s national legislation approved in 2013
main concepts (2)
 Researchers, technologists, faculty, postdoctoral fellows and
master and doctoral students whose research activity is
financed with public funds, shall deposit or expressly
authorize the submission of a copy of the final version of its
scientific and technological production published or accepted
for publication and/or that has gone through an approval
process by a competent authority or jurisdiction in the matter,
in the open access digital repositories institutions
 Maximum embargo: 6 months (5 years for research data) or
expiration of the term of protection of industrial property
rights or the termination of previous agreements. During
embargo, metadata will be provided in open access.

23. Regional strategy for Latin America and the
Caribbean
Recommendations from Regional Consultation on
Open Access to Scientific Information, sponsored by
UNESCO, Kingston, March 2013 - 23 countries
represented
• Gold and Green routes are suitable form of OA for
the region
– For Green routes, inclusive and cooperative OA
solutions should be promoted to avoid new
enclosures
– the Gold OA route in the region should continue
its present emphasis on sharing costs.
http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MU
LTIMEDIA/HQ/CI/CI/pdf/news/report_open
_access_en.pdf

24. Dominique Babini – CLACSO, Open Access Program
University of Buenos Aires/IIGG – Open Access Project
@dominiquebabini
dasbabini@gmail.com
Thank you!!!!