This text proposes an analysis of transformative agreement policy, considering three dimensions: the international context of criticism, the experiences of countries and institutions that have opted for alternative paths, and Brazil’s unique position as a historical leader in non-commercial open access through the SciELO Network.
… Read More →
Transformative agreements in Brazil: necessary progress or increased dependence?
The rise of ‘predatory’ publishing
Over the past two decades, scientific publishing has undergone a technological and economic transformation that has opened the door to more unorthodox models and, unfortunately, predatory practices. Predatory publishing refers to journals and publishers that charge authors (very high fees) to publish, claim peer review and indexing practices that do not exist or are fraudulent, and prioritize quick revenue over scientific quality. … Read More →
Open Science between Promises and Paradoxes, democratization or new dependency?
Open science promises to democratize knowledge but faces deep paradoxes. Open data do not guarantee equity when the capacity to process them remains concentrated. We must rethink openness in light of global power asymmetries so that it does not become a new form of dependency. … Read More →
Plan S – quo vadis?
By late 2025, Open Access has become mainstream in rhetoric but fragmented in practice. The path forward likely lies not just in enforcing compliance but in diversifying infrastructures—combining global principles with networked regional, scholar-driven implementation. … Read More →
On preprints, journals, open access and research evaluation: the repercussions of the Gates Foundation’s decision
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation recently announced that it will no longer fund APCs for open access journals and is prioritizing the adoption of preprints. A series of recent posts discusses how the Gates Foundation’s announcement has resonated with the scientific community, prompting considerations about open access and its forms of funding, peer review and ultimately, how these changes influence the evaluation and integrity of research. … Read More →
One of the great dilemmas for editors of scientific journals: to charge or not to charge, that is the question!
The issue of charging publication fees has been haunting editors and authors. Contrary to what it may seem, there doesn’t seem to be any appreciation or recognition on the part of researchers in favor of journals that have made a great effort not to charge any fees and to make articles available free of charge. … Read More →
Open Access and Closed Research. Who benefits from the APC?
Recent research published in Scientometrics raises questions about unforeseen consequences of the spread of Open Access scientific publishing that have to do with the growth of total expenditures and who would be the economic beneficiaries of this paradigm shift. … Read More →
Accelerating Plan S: open access agreements with smaller publishers
Open Access (OA) agreements between consortia, libraries and smaller independent publishers are increasingly being used around the world, reflected by the growing number of published OA articles. A recent report from the Association of Learned & Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP), of which SciELO is a member, shows the progress being made in other regions of the world. On the other hand, Latin America, a pioneer in OA journals, does not suffer from these limitations, but for small publishers in many countries there is still a long way to go. … Read More →
Open but Unfair – The role of social justice in Open Access publishing [Originally published in the LSE Impact blog in October/2020]
Stage one of the Open Access (OA) movement promoted the democratization of scholarly knowledge, making work available so that anybody could read it. However, publication in highly ranked journals is becoming very costly, feeding the same vendor capitalists that OA was designed to sidestep. In this Q&A, Simon Batterbury argues that when prestige is valued over publication ethics, a paradoxical situation emerges where conversations about social justice take place in unjust journals. Academic freedom and integrity are at risk unless Open Access becomes not simply about the democratization of knowledge, but the ethics of its publication too. … Read More →
Transparency: What Can One Learn from a Trove of Invoices? [Originally published in the Scholarly Kitchen blog in November/2019]
A new dataset from the Gates Foundation offers insights into author choices and APC pricing. … Read More →
Open Science and the new research communication modus operandi – Part II
The adopting process of open science modus operandi involves all phases, actors, and political and institutional research instances. In research projects, openness is organized and pervasive throughout the entire research cycle. This post provides an overview of the openness process, content, and research outcomes in light of the SciELO Program’s priority lines of action. It is divided into two parts. See Part I here. … Read More →
Open Science and the new research communication modus operandi – Part I
The adopting process of open science modus operandi involves all phases, actors, and political and institutional research instances. In research projects, openness is organized and pervasive throughout the entire research cycle. This post provides an overview of the openness process, content, and research outcomes in light of the SciELO Program’s priority lines of action. It is divided into two parts. See Part II here. … Read More →
Open Access Plans — S, T, U, so far
Things do seem to be moving in Open Access (OA). First there was Plan S, proposed by science funders in the European Union, then a proposal to fund OA from submission fees rather than article processing charges, (perhaps flippantly) called Plan T, and now, in alphabetical sequence, Plan U. All three have strong merits, but Plan U has the best chance of succeeding and offers the most to the scientific community. … Read More →
The gold rush: Why open access will boost publisher profits [Originally published in LSE Impact of Social Sciences blog in June/2019]
An important justification for transitioning from a subscription based journal publishing system to an open access journal publishing system, has been that whereas printing and distributing physical copies of journals is an expensive process, the cost of digital publication and dissemination are marginal. In this post Shaun Khoo argues that whilst a shift to gold (pay to publish) open access would deliver wider access to research, the lack of price sensitivity amongst academics presents a risk that they will be locked into a new escalating pay to publish system that could potentially be more costly to researchers than the previous subscription model. … Read More →
Journals that increased their APC value received more submissions
One of the expected contributions of Open Access (OA) was to resolve the disproportionate increase of scholarly journals’ subscriptions. Nevertheless, one of the major business models for commercial journal publishing is to charge authors a publication fee known as Article Processing Charge (APC). This rate, in the last five years, has risen more than inflation. However, counterintuitively, it seems that the authors are far from reducing their submissions due to increase of APC values, rather, submissions are increasing, and the more expensive the APC, the more articles the journals have been receiving. … Read More →
Recent Comments