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

[Bo-Christer Björk]

Dear Heather and list followers,

The inclusion in Web of Knowledge does not in itself help dissemination 
much. The key question to my mind if this means that all Scielo journals 
after a couple of years will get impact factors. If that is the case the 
number of OA journals in JCR will double. And being indexed in this way 
will help the journals in attracting better manuscripts.

I'm speculating, but it seems to me that this is a very cost-effective 
way for Thomson-Reuters to get "regional" journals.

Bo-Christer Björk





On 10/7/12 2:31 AM, Heather Morrison wrote:
> Very interesting, thanks for sharing this, Bo-Christer!
>
> Two questions:
>
> 1. Does, or will, Thomson Reuters offer free searching for open access content?
>
> 2. Will authors and institutions contributing to Scielo and/or Redalyc get free access to Web of Knowledge? If this is not the case, this may illustrate a fairly major deviation from the original BOAI vision of "sharing of the rich with the poor and the poor with the rich" to just "sharing of the poor with the rich".
>
> It is good to see Latin American authors get more visibility and impact, however unless reciprocity is built in, I would argue that this kind of development is more problematic than helpful, and ultimately may result in erosion of support for these leading open access initiatives.
>
> best,
>
> Heather Morrison
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Bo-Christer Björk <bo-christer.bjork at hanken.fi>
> To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) <goal at eprints.org>
> Sent: Sat, 06 Oct 2012 11:27:25 -0700 (PDT)
> Subject: [GOAL] Re: A special issue on Open Access in Latin America
>
> The following news item should be of interest. It also demonstrates the
> importance of national and regional portals like Scielo, Redalcy and
> others for promoting access.
> "Thomson Reuters Spotlights Emerging Research Centers with the Addition
> of SciELO Database to Web of Knowledge"
>
> http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/25/idUS160209+25-Jul-2012+HUG20120725
>
> Bo-Christer Björk
>
> On 10/6/12 8:42 PM, Jean-Claude Guédon wrote:
>> 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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>
>
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