[GOAL] A special issue on Open Access in Latin America

[Jean-Claude Guédon]

I would like to point out a recent issue of Educación Superior y
Sociedad that was put together by one of the finest observers of Latin
American science policy, Dra. Hebe Vessuri, that deals with Open Access.

http://ess.iesalc.unesco.org.ve/index.php/ess 

The issue includes articles by members of the OJS team, among others. it
also gives an interesting glimpses into the level of discussions on OA
as it evolves in latin America.

One article is in English and Spanish. The rest is only in Spanish.

The Latin American scene is interesting in that it foregrounds an issue
that has not been discussed often in OA circles: while OA helps promote
the visibility of researchers (the "OA advantage") as studied in the
case of repositories), it can also help promote research that has been
placed in a peripheral and invisible position by the present two-tier
system of science communication (inside or outside the web of science
and Scopus, for example).

Quality of research is related only partially to inclusion in these
bibliographic tools and citation trackers, despite some claims to the
contrary. There is quality, a lot of it, outside these citation
trackers. Much research of quality is thus forgotten or neglected. It is
lost science.

Promoting research from regions such as Latin America, but also Africa,
Asia, etc., is another benefit of open access, but it must be designed
in a different and complementary way: research in these regions should
be made sufficiently visible and prestigious as to prevent it from being
safely ignored by labs and researchers in countries that produce most of
the research in the world. Repositories help insofar as visibility is
concerned, but they are not sufficient because peripheral research, so
to speak, lacks branding (not quality, but rather branding). Journals
can provide this, and OA journals do it best.

This is not a statement against repositories; they too are needed, very
needed. But in peripheral (so-called) regions, the problem is compounded
by a lack of prestige and branding ability. OA journals try to respond
to this need. How best to achieve this is still a matter of discussions
and explorations, but SciELO and RedALyC are attempts aiming straight at
these problems.

I cannot refrain concluding with a statement from an African novelist
who, while dealing with literature, says things that can be easily
transposed in the area of knowledge and science: "As for now, caught
between condescendance and generous curiosity, African literatures find
it difficult to insert their mediocrity inside the others' mediocrity,
and their magnificence inside the others' magnificence. They are
condemned to living among each other." Sami Tchak, Désir d'Afrique
(Paris, Gallimard, 2002), p. 312. Thanks to Alice Le Filleul who,
unwittingly, attracted my attention to this splendid analysis. My own
translation.

Good reading.

Jean-Claude Guédon

PS I have not read and checked every last article of this collection as
I became aware of it recently, so that I cannot be sure that I agree
with all the content. But I am sure the content is relevant to OA
advocates and can help shape their strategic thinking in this particular
arena.




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