Study highlights academic journal publication models in Brazil and Spain | SciELO in Perspective

abernard102@gmail.com 2014-04-26

Summary:

" ... The academic community and society itself, primarily in developing countries, are benefitting from this movement, while authors are looking for visibility and impact when choosing a journal for the publication of their research results. Both of these objectives can be attained by means of the green road. Nevertheless, according to Houghton and Swan, the benefits which come from the golden road far exceed those of the green road. In spite of this, authors consider that in the current transitional stage, repositories continue to be more viable both strategically and economically.  The articles cited in the above paragraph form part of a recent publication authored by Rosangela Rodrigues and Ernest Abadal¹ which provides an overview of open access publication models in Brazil and Spain by an analysis of journals from both of these countries which are indexed in the Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus databases, according to their publication format – online or print, the type of access – open access or subscription, and the technology platform used.  Many developing countries do not possess a commercial academic publisher industry, and the majority of quality journals are produced on a not for profit basis since they are operated with public funds by learned societies and research institutes. On the other hand, Southern European countries have few commercial publishers and less funding when compared to the leading countries in the region. In spite of this fact, both of these countries – Brazil and Spain – have developed successful open access models. This post gives an outline of these programs and the reasons behind their success ... In Brazil the number of journals indexed in international databases such as WoS and Scopus was relatively small in the period up to 2005. Since then, driven by the SciELO Program, journals have been gaining visibility and improved quality, perpetuating a virtuous circle right up to the present day. The vast majority (90%) of Brazilian journals indexed in the WoS and Scopus databases are also part of the SciELO collection and are issued in open access by learned societies and institutes of research and education. These institutes are run on a not for profit basis and their editors are also respected and productive researchers in their respective fields of activity. The use of the Open Journal System platform (OJS) made available by the Brazilian Institute of Information in Science and Technology (IBICT) is also contributing to the support of publishers in the management and operation of journals by means of online resources and training activities. Ten percent of Brazilian journals run on publication fees which are used to cover publishing costs which range from US$ 60 to US$ 500 per article.  Publications produced in Spain have been studied by many authors. In the most recent article dealing with this issue, Rodríguez-Yunta and Giménez-Toledo (2013) highlighted the low level of representativeness of the country’s journals in the fields of humanities and social sciences. It may be that these subject fields have a low impact and low level of representativeness because of poor management. Another study analyzed 30 articles in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) focusing on the type of publisher, international presence on the editorial board, and the impact and profiles of their citations. At the time, the research revealed a predominance of 60% in the field of health, with 40% of this figure managed by commercial publishers. Research into the number of journals administered by universities in Spain (25% of the total) showed that numerous initiatives are necessary to improve the quality, visibility and impact of these journals ..."

Link:

http://blog.scielo.org/en/2014/04/25/study-highlights-academic-journal-publication-models-in-brazil-and-spain/#.U1xiB61dWwE

From feeds:

Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » abernard102@gmail.com

Tags:

oa.new oa.comment oa.studies oa.brazil oa.spain oa.scielo oa.gold oa.indexing oa.ojs oa.citations oa.impact oa.journals oa.latin_america oa.south

Date tagged:

04/26/2014, 21:52

Date published:

04/26/2014, 17:52