Mapping the development of Open Access in Latin America and Caribbean countries. An analysis of Web of Science Core Collection and SciELO Citation Index (2005–2017)

Abstract

Open Access (OA) initiatives and knowledge infrastructure represent vital elements for both producing significant changes in scholarly communication and reducing limitations of access to the circulation of scientific knowledge in developing countries. The spreading of the OA movement in Latin America and Caribbean (LA&C) countries, exemplified by the growth of regional and national initiatives, such as the creation of OA digital journal libraries and the establishment of supportive governmental policies, provides evidence of the significant role OA is playing in improving the participation of LA&C countries in the so-called "global knowledge commons". In this paper, we map OA publications in LA&C countries through a bibliometric analysis of OA publications indexed by the Web of Science Core Collection and SciELO Citation Index during the period 2005-2017. Searches were done in the fields "Country", "Publication Year", "Language", and "Research Area" using WoS analytical tools, in order to map the evolution, distribution, and characteristics of OA publications in the LA&C region. The analysis is conducted on both the sub-regional and national levels. On the sub-regional level, trends in the four LA&C sub-regions (Southern Cone, Central America and Mexico, Andes, and the Caribbean) are identified and compared. On the national level, the analysis identifies as most representative and focuses on nine countries: Argentina,

Open Access uptake by universities worldwide

“…This is a paradigmatic case, arguably the result of a long-standing OA policy commitment promoting national OA journals via the SciELO programme ( Meneghini, Mugnaini & Packer, 2006 ). Furthermore, it goes beyond Brazilian universities and includes other South American countries such as Colombia or Chile ( Packer, 2009 ; Minniti, Santoro & Belli, 2018 ), not necessarily fully covered in this study, due to the restrictions on the set of institutions included (only those present in the Leiden Ranking). United Kingdom, Netherlands, Austria and Sweden show similar levels of gold and hybrid OA, a surprising pattern as the levels of OA awareness and the types of mandates implemented in these countries is quite different ( Schmidt & Kuchma, 2012 ).…”

Coronavirus mapping in scientific publications: When science advances rapidly and collectively, is access to this knowledge open to society?

“…Open Access is an essential instrument based on the new strategies to share knowledge and cooperative work using digital technologies showing the world that investigators are achieving attempts that otherwise would not be possible without collaborative networks and technological tools combined together . The spreading of the OA movement in several countries, exemplified by the growth of regional and national initiatives, such as the creation of OA digital journal libraries and the establishment of supportive governmental policies (Abadal et al 2015;Minniti et al 2018), provides evidence of the significant role OA is playing in reducing the scientific gap between countries and improving their participation in the so-called "global knowledge commons" (Chan et al 2020).…”

Evolución de la edición científica en revistas de Ciencias Sociales y determinación de Latinoamérica como ecosistema característico

“…Agrupa a 373 revistas con casi 400.000 documentos. Su selección para integrarse en Web of Science a partir de 2014 (dentro del plan de incluir bases de datos nacionales y regionales de ámbitos poco cubiertos, como China, Rusia, Corea o Latinoamérica) supuso un salto cualitativo en la visibilidad internacional de las revistas latinoamericanas, incluyendo el SciELO Citation Index (Minniti, Santoro, & Belli, 2018). D) RedALyC (2003): La "Red de Revistas Científicas de América Latina, el Caribe, España y Portugal" es una hemeroteca virtual de alcance regional que nació en la Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México (UAEMEX).…”