Health emergencies such as those we face today reveal the importance of opening scientific knowledge; something that not-for-profit open access publishing has permanently and organically allowed for a long time. The expansion of Plan S, a research funder led initiative to promote a global transition to open access to scholarly research, to Latin America has … Continued
Category: Latin America
Opportunity or threat? What Plan S can contribute to Open Access in Latin America
Concerns about the threat from the Global North to Latin America’s exemplary tradition of open access publishing are understandable but ultimately misplaced. Renegotiation of subscription agreements and the stipulation that article-processing charges should be covered by funders or institutions are examples of the ways in which Plan S presents new opportunities for the region, even if there is still work […]
Research assessments based on journal rankings systematically marginalise knowledge from certain regions and subjects
Many research evaluation systems continue to take a narrow view of excellence, judging the value of work based on the journal in which it is published. Recent research by Diego Chavarro, Ismael Ràfols and colleagues shows how such systems underestimate and prove detrimental to the production of research relevant to important social, economic, and environmental issues. These systems also reflect the biases […]
Embedding open science practices within evaluation systems can promote research that meets societal needs in developing countries
Researchers’ choices are inevitably affected by assessment systems. This often means pursuing publication in a high-impact journal and topics that appeal to the international scientific community. For researchers from developing countries, this often also means focusing on other countries or choosing one aspect of their own country that has such international appeal. Consequently, researchers’ activities can become dislocated from the […]
Low visibility of Latin American repositories in Google Scholar: technical incompatibility or lack of web strategy?
The content in many repositories in Latin America fail to come up in systematic searches largely due to the inadequate use of domain names and metadata schema, find Enrique Orduña-Malea and Emilio Delgado-López-Cózar. Institutional repositories are ultimately websites and concepts such as usability, information architecture, search engine optimization, among others, should be considered in their primary design. In a context like Latin […]
Open access initiatives in the Global South affirm the lasting value of a shared scholarly communications system.
Developing countries stand to benefit greatly from a more open and equitable international scholarly communication system, but Dominique Babini argues new commercial enclosures to access are also emerging. The international community would do well to follow the examples of initiatives in Latin America, … Continue reading →