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Centering the Knowledge Periphery through Open Access. ARL Membership Meeting: The International Dimensions of Digital Science and Scholarship Ottawa, Canada May 17-19, 2006. Leslie Chan Bioline International International Studies and New Media studies
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Centering the Knowledge Periphery through Open Access ARL Membership Meeting: The International Dimensions of Digital Science and Scholarship Ottawa, Canada May 17-19, 2006 Leslie ChanBioline International International Studies and New Media studies University of Toronto at Scarborough
Issues • Current state of knowledge production and access to knowledge in the developing world • Will Open Access bridge the knowledge gap between the North and the South? • Lessons from Bioline International
Arthur J. Carty National Science Advisor to the Prime Minister International Association of Technological University Libraries, Quebec 31 May 2005
Challenges “African countries need to have in place appropriate mechanisms and infrastructure for training and exploitation of knowledge. This will enable them to make meaningful evidence-based policy, in order adequately to address local needs and participate in the international community on science and technology issues.” Network of the African Science Academies and the science academies from the G8 countries (2005) http://www.scidev.net/pdffiles/jointstatement.pdf
Disparity in scientific output • The G8 countries account for ~85% of most cited articles indexed in ISI • The other 126 countries (mostly in the developing world) account for ~2.5 % (King, 2004) But ISI’s Science Citation Index has serious biases
Dominant Model of Knowledge Dissemination From the Centre to Periphery HINARI/ AGORA invisible knowledge Perpetual the cycle of poverty and dependence
The 10-90 Gap • 10% of the global health research spending is allocated to diseases affecting 90% of the world population • So how relevant is scientific knowledge generated in the North for health and development in the developing world?
Flow of information • North to South is important for South • South to South is also important as contexts are more relevant • Is South to North important for North? • Definitely yes: • Tropical and infectious diseases including HIV/AIDS, malaria, etc. • Alternative including herbal medicine • Epidemiological data • Epidemics and new diseases • Biodiversity for global understanding
International collaboration • International collaborations result in higher citation impact • What about researchers in the developing countries?
Journals from developing world Limited circulation Fewer authors and subscriptions Circle oflimitedaccessibility Poor visibility and readership Limited recognition Fewer citations
Dominant Model of Knowledge Dissemination From the Centre to Periphery invisible knowledge Stopping the cycle of poverty and dependence
Open access enable Peer-to-Peer sharing … and new model of Knowledge creation, Sharing, and Dissemination
But need to better understand Barriers to access Modes of knowledge creation Cultures of sharing
Bioline Internationalhttp://www.bioline.org.br “… the small deal”
What is Bioline International? • Electronic aggregator of full text journals from developing countries • OAI data provider • Serve as open access platform for journals without the necessary infrastructure • A South-North collaboration
Bioline International • Development - using open source software and open standards • Advocacy - Aims to influence scholarly communication practices and access to research literature • Research - Will open access improve the visibility and impact of journals from developing countries? How effective are research libraries in enabling international collaboration?
Core Partners EPT, UK UT, Canada CRIA, Brazil http://www.cria.org.br
Funding Support • University of Toronto Libraries • Department of Social Sciences, U of T at Scarborough • Open Society Institute, Information Access Program
Publishing Partners • Scholarly and Scientific societies from 17 countries • Research centres in biology and medicine, university-based publications, • All non-profit and willing to experiment with free online access • Most are supported by local subsidies and international aids
Meta-data exchange and dissemination partners • Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) - http://www.doaj.org/ • The eGranary Digital Library - http://www.widernet.org/digitalLibrary/index.htm • Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative (HINARI) - http://www.who.int/hinari/en/ • OAIster.org - http://www.oaister.org/ • Scientific and Technical Information System - http://sist-prototype.sist-sciencesdev.net/ • University of Toronto Libraries - T-Space - https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/ New Partnership with SPARC!
Recent additions • International Journal of Environment Science and Technology (Iran) • Iranian Journal of Environmental Health, Science and Engineering • African Health Sciences (Uganda) • Health Policy and Development Journal (Uganda) • Brazilian Journal of Oral Sciences • VITAE Academia Biomedica Digital (Venezuela) • Medical Journal of The Islamic Republic of Iran • Iranian Journal of Pharmacology and Therapeutics • Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition (Bangladesh) • African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development (Kenya)
Key events: June 2003, full open access Jan 2005, full OAI compliant
Increased visibility • Traditional directories and indexes ( e.g. EBSCO’s A-Z service, Ulrich’s Serials Directory), ISI Web Content • Directory of Open Access Journal (DOAJ), African Journal Online (AJOL), Virtual Health Library of Latin America and Caribbean (BRIME), Latindex, Africa Index Medicus, eGranary Digital Library • Accessibility from library catalogs through OpenURL • Also accessible through HINARI and AGORA
Journal of Postgraduate Medicine • Quarterly journal • Based in Mumbai, India • Print circulation <400 • Limited to school • Paid subscription ~100 • Majority from India • 50-80 articles published / year
Making more accessible JPGM at Bioline
JPGM at OAI server Archived at multiple places
Circle of Accessibility Bioline International SearchEngines OAI services e.g. OAIster.org OAI servers T-Space PubMed JPGM SearchEngines Library catalogues Directories e.g. DOAJ
Downloads and visitors Data: D.K. Sahu
Circle ofaccessibility OA as a tool for dissemination Open access More authors and other benefits Increased visibility Larger readership Wider recognition Increased citations
Conclusions • OA is increasing the visibility, accessibility and impact of some of the journals from developing countries • Collaboration is key and low cost • Open linking is crucial • Need to develop value-added services with OA databases and open standards • Alternative and more inclusive measures of research impact is emerging but OA is the foundation • Long term funding is uncertain
Thank you! Questions? Please visit: http://www.bioline.org.br