Vibrant scholarly communities are sustained by publishing outlets that allow researchers to address diverse audiences. Whereas, attention is often focused on international publication, much of this work is supported by publications that address national and regional audiences in their own languages. In this post, Elea Giménez Toledo, Emanuel Kulczycki, Janne Pölönen and Gunnar Sivertsen explain the importance of bibliodiversity to sustaining knowledge ecosystems and argue that bibliodiversity is essential to ensuring that the transition to an open book future continues to support the creation of situated knowledge. … Read More →
Interview and Tribute to Charles Pessanha [Originally published in DADOS’ blog in January/2020]
Charles Pessanha is not only a key name in the history of DADOS, a journal he edited for more than three decades and still helps editing, but also from every one of the Brazilian scientific publishing body. In 2019, our former Editor-in-Chief and active Editor Emeritus was doubly honored, first with the “Prêmio da ANPOCS de Excelência Acadêmica em Ciência Política” and, second, with an interview for the organizing team in charge of the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the graduate program of IESP-UERJ, where Charles has worked and obtained his master’s degree. Next, there is a video of the interview in which he talks about his personal history, his life as a journal editor, the inception of SciELO and the current challenges of Brazil’s Social Sciences. … Read More →
The Importance of Scientific Publications in Times of Pandemic Crisis [Originally published in Clinics, vol.75]
Though we are accustomed to the concept of scientific evidence that is preferably based on large clinical trials that take years to complete, we must now rely on case studies, single cohort studies, and even the opinions of experts. However, we know that we cannot lose sight of the criteria for evidence-based medicine, and must remember to evaluate all potential biases existing in this type of scientific information without limiting its dissemination. … Read More →
Why does reform of scientific communication seem so difficult and slow?
The world faces global problems for which science is needed as part of the solution. Yet the scientific communication system is not nearly as quick and open as necessary for efficient worldwide collaboration. The powers that are in a position to reform the system are too timid. Will crises like COVID-19 shake them awake? … Read More →
The Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak highlights serious deficiencies in scholarly communication [Originally published in the LSE Impact blog in March/2020]
As research and government responses to the COVID-19 outbreak escalate in the face of a global public health crisis, Vincent Larivière, Fei Shu and Cassidy R. Sugimoto reflect on efforts to make research on this subject more widely available. Arguing that a narrow focus on research published in high ranking journals predominantly in English has impeded research efforts, they suggest that the renewed emphasis on carrying out open research on the virus presents an opportunity to reassess how research and scholarly communication systems serve the public good. … Read More →
Brazilian Journal of Nephrology: trajectory and internationalization
With 40 years of uninterrupted publication, Brazilian Journal of Nephrology traces the path towards its internationalization, based on professionalization and without constant improvement of its editorial processes and scientific quality. It is now in a new phase, where reaching its greatest indexing potential and strengthening its presence in Latin America represent its main challenges. … Read More →
Posting preprints before peer review is associated with increased visibility and citation of published articles
The communication of research results through preprints has been increasing significantly, as by the increasing number of manuscripts deposited on bioRxiv, the preprint server for biology and life sciences. However, only a small fraction of the research papers indexed in PubMed started as preprints in bioRxiv. But what would undecided authors about preprints say if they knew that articles that have associated preprints have a 49% higher Altmetric index and 36% more citations? This is what shows a recent study published in eLife. … Read More →
The SciELO publication model as an open access public policy
This post shares the brief description of the SciELO open access publication model presented by Abel L Packer, Director of SciELO, at the 14th Berlin Debate on Science and Science Policy which was themed “Who Owns Science? Reshaping the Scientific Value Chain in the 21st Century”. The description highlights the SciELO Program as a framework for the development and implementation of national policies to support quality journals and as an international cooperation program. The debate was held in the context of the Falling Walls Conference commemorating the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. … Read More →
Registry of [Open] Scientometric Data Sources – a collaborative directory of scientometric data sources [Originally published in the TIB Blog in May/2019]
This post introduces the development of an open accessible registry of data sources for scientometric information envisaging to get feedback and collaboration of the information science communities towards a global coverage. … Read More →
What is Plan U: Universal access to scientific research via preprints?
Plan U proposes that funding agencies require recipients of research funds to publish scholarly communications on preprints servers, regardless of the alternative publication forms that researchers may subsequently make. The initiative could be carried out with a fraction of the current costs and would produce a significant acceleration of the pace of discoveries in the forthcoming years. … Read More →
Web presence and social media metrics from articles shared on Twitter – Interview with Stefanie Haustein
Knowing how and by whom articles are shared on social media can help the challenging task of qualifying alternative metrics indicators. In this interview, Stefanie Haustein, assistant professor at the University of Ottawa’s School of Information Studies in Canada and co-director of the ScholCommLab, addresses the role of social networks such as Twitter as a data source for altmetrics. She also looks at the role journals play in the dissemination of their articles on Twitter and investigates how scholarly articles from Brazil and Brazilian Twitter users tweet about scholarly outputs. … Read More →
Perspectives on the open access discovery landscape [Originally published in the Jisc Scholarly Communications blog in April/2019]
Open access discovery tools enable users to find scholarly articles that are available in open form, whether on a publisher’s website or elsewhere. This is a technically-challenging endeavour and also requires a deep understanding of the scholarly communications landscape, the underpinning infrastructure and the needs of widely different stakeholder groups such as researchers, publishers, service providers and the general public. … Read More →
Pirates of the medical literature – a worldwide bibliometric study
A large volume of medical literature is being illegally downloaded in almost every country in the world. There is a significant relationship between the scientific output of these countries and the density of illegal downloads, especially in middle-income countries. This unequal pattern of legal access to medical literature requires the attention of both the publishing industry and policy makers. … Read More →
Find out everything about the WG Institutional journal portals and the transition to Open Science that took place in the SciELO Network Meeting [Originally published in Periódicos de Minas’ blog in October/2018]
The SciELO Network Meeting took place on September 2018, in celebration of SciELO’s 20 years. At the occasion, eight working groups met to discuss topics related to scientific journals. Working Group 7 discussed Institutional Journal Portals and the transition to Open Science. Check out how went the WG experience. … Read More →
Implications of SciELO in the history of science coverage in LA&C
Historical data on the presence of America/Latin America in bibliographic sources were used as references to review the implications of SciELO in the recent coverage of scientific journals in the region. Three scenarios were mentioned. Expansion of modern science (journals and catalog of the Royal Society, XVII-XIX centuries); hegemony of the Anglo-Saxon citation indexes (20th century); diversification of coverage and type of indexes (21st century). Through the citation geography visible in SciELO, signs of changes can be seen in the specialization of regional journals as cited sources; we believe that this trend will continue in journals covering regional issues. Text available only in Spanish. … Read More →
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