Arquivos Brasileiros de Cardiologia - How to broaden the debate and utility of scientific communications: the open access journals

"The new communication technologies applied in the academic environment are revolutionizing the way the relationship between scientists from different scientific areas. Open access to a particular journal and its articles in electronic version has expanded and facilitated this access. Brazil, in the area of Cardiology, has researchers with significant results regarding their participation as authors of scientific knowledge in the country. In turn, the increasing availability of publications regarding their evaluation raises new arguments, especially on the issue of quality assessment that the paper presented. We discuss the use of quantitative indicators such as the impact of publications as measured by their impact index or H factor. However, if we are facing a new paradigm for that scientific communication, we shall consider other ways to assess these publications and their benefit to the scientific community...."