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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.<BR>
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<A HREF="http://ess.iesalc.unesco.org.ve/index.php/ess">http://ess.iesalc.unesco.org.ve/index.php/ess</A> <BR>
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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.<BR>
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One article is in English and Spanish. The rest is only in Spanish.<BR>
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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).<BR>
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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.<BR>
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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.<BR>
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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.<BR>
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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: "<I>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."</I> 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.<BR>
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Good reading.<BR>
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Jean-Claude Guédon<BR>
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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.<BR>
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