The negotiations between the Dutch universities (VSNU – the Association of Universities in The Netherlands) and three large publishers (Springer, Wiley, Sage) have been concluded and significant steps to include open access in the deals with those publishers have been made. With Elsevier, however, the negotiations are in deadlock, according to the VSNU. They have called for a boycott, but the real question is, of course, why it is that Elsevier, the largest, and Dutch (!) academic publisher, can’t – or won’t – do what other large publishers can – and will. I have no answer to that, but in trying to sketch the situation in some detail, I hope to add some clarity to it. The outcome of the negotiations is surely going to influence other countries. … Read More →
The SciELO in Perspective blog celebrates its second anniversary
This July, the blog SciELO in Perspective celebrates its second anniversary in communicating, analyzing and discussing innovations and advances in the field of information science, in increasing the visibility of the journals indexed by SciELO, and in sharing the developments of the SciELO Program which is guided by its priority action lines concerning the professionalization, internationalization and sustainability of the journals. … Read More →
SciELO adopts CC-BY as main Open Access attribution
From 1st July 2015 the SciELO Program will adopt the Creative Commons license CC-BY as a standard of Open Access attribution to SciELO Brazil Collection. By this decision, SciELO aligns to the Open Access policies adopted by the leading journals and international publishers with the main purpose to increase and the options of access and reuse of the published articles. … Read More →
Can monies spent globally on journal subscriptions be completely transitioned to an OA business model to free the journals?
The recent rapid growth in open access publishing, and the clear benefits that open access presents to society as a whole leads to the question: can all subscription based scientific journals in the world be transitioned to open access in a sustainable way? Is there enough money currently in the system for such a transition, and would there be any economic impact? A recent eye-opening study published by the Max Planck Digital Library delves into this issue and provides some very concrete answers based on real expenditures in subscriptions and on the real costs of open access services. … Read More →
Dealing with information overload
Information overload is a major barrier researchers face to capture and ingest the knowledge that is being discovered and created by science. The challenge is how to develop ways to create overviews of the knowledge that has been published related to specific areas of interest. The Lazarus initiative is introduced. … Read More →
Peer review: The pleasure of publishing – originally published in the journal eLife in January/2015
When assessing manuscripts eLife editors look for a combination of rigour and insight, along with results and ideas that make other researchers think differently about their subject. … Read More →
The Elsevier you know is not the only Elsevier
The current science publisher Elsevier may have the same name as the venerable publishing house that published the work of great scientists in the 16th and 17th century, but there is in fact no historical connection other than the name. … Read More →
350 years of scientific publication: from the “Journal des Sçavans” and Philosophical Transactions to SciELO
Is has been 350 years since the first numbers of the first journals of scientific nature were published – Journal des Sçavans and Philosophical Transactions. With the support of the new printing technology handwritten letters used in the communication between researchers and scholars have been replaced. There is much to celebrate in these 350 years in which scientific journals contributed to the record and memory of the advancement of science. Online Web publishing is the most important transformation of scientific journals since that year 1665. … Read More →
The SciELO Network publishes more than 500,000 articles in open access during its 17 years of operation
With more than 500 thousand articles indexed and published in open access, the SciELO Network begins 2015 having achieved a notable milestone. On the eve of the completion of 17 years of continuous operation, this milestone is a result of the ongoing operation of 13 certified journal collections that adopted the SciELO Model between 1998 and 2009, inclusive. This post presents SciELO as it is today, and highlights the commitment of SciELO in advancing the professionalization, internationalization and financial sustainability of journals. … Read More →
Principles for the citation of scientific data
The Joint Declaration of Data Citation Principles was recently approved by the international group FORCE11. It marks a milestone in the advancement of scholarly communication in the online world. This Declaration is being signed and endorsed by the world’s leading publishing groups and universities, and will in the future be incorporated into SciELO’s procedures as part of its ongoing improvements in management overall. … Read More →
Internationalization of RAE-Revista de Administração de Empresas
With more than half a century of continuous publication, RAE is a reference journal nationwide in the Administration area and since 2010, it has been investing to position itself internationally as well. In addition to the publication of articles in Portuguese, English and Spanish, RAE has been dedicated systematic efforts in expanding and strengthening its network of relationships via internationalization of its scientific committee and promotion of international calls for paper. … Read More →
The Rise of China – a special issue of the Revista Brasileira de Politíca Internacional
Over the past few years, the Revista Brasileira de Politíca Internacional – RBPI has published a number of special issues dealing with burning issues in contemporary international politics, and those with special relevance for Brazil. These special issues are always published in English, and consist of content which has been brought together as a result of calls for international papers, and which have, as invited editors, specialists in the topics being discussed. The special issue for 2014 entitled “China rising – strategies and tactics of China’s growing presence in the world” (special issue – Vol. 57), available in the SciELO Brazil Collection, is published entirely in English and brings together 15 previously unpublished articles dealing with the complex rise of that country to the top level of international structures. … Read More →
The winds of change are buffeting Alfa
With more than 50 years in existence as an academic journal, Alfa–Revista de Linguística achieved academic all-inclusiveness without stagnating. With the innovations promoted by the Editorial Executive, Alfa became a quarterly publication in 2014 and, in 2015, it will become bilingual, an important step towards the internationalization of its content. … Read More →
The visibility of journals of Brazil
The increase in visibility of journals and the research they communicate is an expectation that permeates journals of quality, the policies and programs of funding agencies and, in particular, of the SciELO Program. Throughout its 16 years in operation, and always in partnership with the journals, SciELO achieved outstanding results that are reflected in the performance of the journals. SciELO plans important advances for the coming years, such as the increase in the percentage of articles in English, and by authors with foreign affiliation. … Read More →
Latin-American repositories have little visibility in Google Scholar
A recent study concerning the visibility of Latin American scholarly output in open access repositories reveals their poor indexing in Google and Google Scholar. The technical reasons for these problems, which affect the visibility of Latin-American research which, for the most part, is not indexed in either in WoS or Scopus, are explained in this post. … Read More →
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