SCIELO, OPEN ACCESS AND THE PUBLICATION OF SCIENCE IN LATIN AMERICA: IS THERE REASON FOR HOPE?

Abstract

Background: Latin America is responsible for 3.2% of the World's scientific output published in periodicals indexed by the Institute for Scientific Research (ISI), 43% of which originates from Brazil, where scientific production is increasing at rates comparable to those of China and India. However, practically all of this high quality Latin American research is published in periodicals edited in USA and Western Europe. In contrast, local periodicals traditionally receive lower quality articles. As predicted, such periodicals have followed a positive feedback down-spiral: bad papers reduce journal impact > low impact journals repel good papers > bad papers reduce journal impact. Moreover, complete articles published in Latin American journals were invisible to the first world readers, reinforcing the ill-effects of the feedback. Over the past 10 years in synchrony with the establishment of PUBMED, Latin American countries created the (SCIELO - www.scielo.org), sponsored by the World Health Organization and local grant-giving Institutions. SCIELO follows basic PUBMED indexing criteria but all SCIELO indexed journals must be free open access from the moment of publication. Results: Over the 1997-2006 period, SCIELO has indexed 280 regional journals (Brazil = 115), 62% of which are also PUBMED indexed. Full article downloads per year from the SCIELO site increased from <500,000 in 1999 to over 40,000,000 in 2005. The average impact factor of SCIELO and ISI indexed journals rose by 53% over the same period in contrast to an average 5% drop in the preceding 10 years. In contrast, the impact of ISI indexed but not SCIELO indexed Journals continued to recede. A bibliometric analysis of factors relevant to this improved performance (Table 1) shows that increase in impact factor for selected countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, Czech Republic, Hungary, India, Mexico, South Africa, South Korea) correlates with the number of newly ISI indexed Journals, but not with total ISI indexed journals, with Commercial publishing and International Journal Titles (i.e., titles which do not "betray" the country of origin). Somewhat surprisingly, impact increase does no correlate with % of articles in English, nor with % of articles originating in foreign countries. A case study of one Brazilian Journal (CLINICS) will be presented. Table 1. Impact increase of ISI indexed journals from selected developing countriescorrelations. r: correlation coefficients between increased impact (1997-2005) and each of the designated parameterTable 1Conclusion: SCIELO and free open access have changed the prospect and is in the process of revolutionizing the Scientific Editorial process in Latin America. It is suggested that similar indexing systems should be organized for all developing areas.