33
OPEN ACCESS IN THE WORLD AND LATIN AMERICA
Open access in the world and
Latin America: A review
since the BOAI
Acesso aberto no mundo e na América
Latina: uma revisão a
partir da BOAI
Michelli Pereira da COSTA1
Fernando César Lima LEITE1
Abstract
In 2012, the Open Access Movement to scientific information celebrated ten years of existence. The period, which represents the
first stage of consolidation of the movement, has been analyzed to allow the planning of new phases. With the purpose of providing
tools and contributing to these discussions, the article addresses the historical aspects of the international and regional constitution
of Open Access Movement. The approach was developed from a descriptive temporal narrative of the main events and initiatives
identified in the scientific literature on the subject. The elements discussed in the present study work were organized under two
parameters. The first refers to a temporal perspective, defined from the publication of Budapest Open Access Initiative. The second
is related to brief discussion of the participation of Latin America. As result, we present a timeline of open access in the world and
in Latin America, showing the main aspects covered in the study. The goal of the study is achieved by the proposed systematization
as we analyze the open access initiatives in Latin America and establish how they influenced and were influenced by other regions
of the world.
Keywords: Latin America. Open access. Scientific information.
Resumo
Em 2012 o Movimento de Acesso Aberto à informação científica comemorou seus dez anos de existência. O período, que representa a
primeira fase de consolidação do movimento, tem sido analisado de forma a permitir o planejamento das novas fases. Com a finalidade de instrumentalizar e contribuir para essas discussões o presente trabalho aborda aspectos históricos da constituição do Movimento
de Acesso Aberto em nível internacional e regional. A abordagem foi desenvolvida a partir de uma narrativa descritiva temporal dos
principais fatos e iniciativas apontadas pela literatura científica sobre o tema. Os elementos tratados neste trabalho foram organizados
sob dois parâmetros: o primeiro é referente a uma perspectiva temporal, definida a partir da publicação da Budapest Open Access
Initiative; o segundo diz respeito a um recorte regional que destaca a participação da América Latina. Como resultado é apresentada
uma proposta de linha do tempo do acesso aberto no mundo e na América Latina, expondo os principais pontos abordados no estudo.
A sistematização proposta permite o cumprimento do objetivo desta pesquisa na medida em que analisa as iniciativas de acesso
aberto na América Latina e como elas influenciaram e foram influenciadas por outras regiões do mundo.
Palavras-chave: América Latina. Acesso aberto. Informação científica.
1
Universidade de Brasília, Faculdade de Ciência da Informação, Curso de Biblioteconomia. Edifício da Biblioteca Central, Entrada Leste, Mezanino, Campus
Universitário Darcy Ribeiro, 70910-900, Brasília, DF, Brasil. Correspondence to/Correspondência para: M.P. COSTA. E-mail: <michelli@unb.br>.
Received in 10/25/2014, resubmitted on 2/26/2015 and approved in 3/25/2015.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/2318-08892016002800003
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Introduction
The process of scholarly communication is
constantly changing. The changes mainly occur due to
social contexts and technological advances. According
to Meadows (1999), the most significant changes
occurred as the result of the emergence of journals in
the mid-seventeenth century, scientific societies in the
eighteenth century, professionalization of research and
expertise in areas of knowledge in the nineteenth century
and, more recently, the emergence of the electronic
world in the twentieth century.
Together with the factors that caused changes in
the previous centuries, two other combined elements
caused significant changes in the system of scholarly
communication in the twenty-first century. The first one
is related to the dissatisfaction of researchers with the
traditional model of scholarly publication that limits
access to their research outputs. The second, in turn, is
the emergence of opportunities for expediting and
streamlining communication processes, provided by the
latest technologies, which had already been incorporated
into the world of scholarly communication since the last
century. These two factors, the dissatisfaction of researchers
and technology, fueled the emergence of open access
initiatives.
34
Open access initiatives are related to two
strategies. One of them, known as the gold road,
encourages the scholarly publishing in open access
journals. The other, called “green” road, aims to develop
digital open access repositories from which the
publications, or papers accepted for publication, are
alternately distributed. Both strategies have been
strengthened through the establishment of Open Access
(OA).
M.P. COSTA & F.C.L. LEITE
The movement began with the articulation of
researchers and institutions mostly in northern countries.
However, the perspective is timely for countries socially
and historically excluded from the center of science.
Among the benefits of open access, the most significant
one is that researchers from institutions that cannot afford
to pay for the subscriptions to commercial journals and
databases can access the literature. In addition, it is
expected that initiatives increase the visibility of open
access literature.
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Regarding production, dissemination and access
to scientific knowledge, when compared with other
regions, Latin America has unique characteristics that
favor the adoption of open access. This relationship has
been pointed out by authors such as Chan and Costa
(2005), Alperin et al. (2008) and Babini (2011).
Chan and Costa (2005) highlight the importance
of access to Science and Technology (S&T) to reduce the
problems of developing countries, as it is the case of Latin
American countries. According to these authors, these
countries are on the fringe of S&T production due to low
investment in research and the difficulties to access
international scholarty literature because of the high cost
of subscriptions to main journals. The authors, Chan and
Costa (2005) presented data from 2004, published by the
World Health Organization (WHO), showing that 56% of
countries with Gross Domestic Product (GDP) below
$1,000 did not subscribe to the main journals from 1999
to 2004. Given this reality, according to Chan and Costa
(2005), open access has been the key element for
significant changes in scholarly communication, as it
provides more equitable access to scientific publications
and includes the participation of researchers from
developing countries in the “global knowledge
commons”, i.e., a global public good.
Alperin et al. (2008), in turn, draw attention to the
amount of open access journals published in Latin
America, particularly in Brazil. According to the data from
Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) in October
2013, Brazil is the second country with the highest
number of open access journals (Directory of Open
Access Journals, 2013). However, the authors point out
that the reasons that led to the growth of open access in
the region are different from those from the northern
countries. This is because journals are traditionally free in
the region, not having large commercial publishers such
as those in North American and European countries. Thus,
for Latin America, the advent of information technology
and open access initiatives means a chance to establish
the necessary infrastructure to expand the dissemination
of scientific production as it has never focused on profit.
Babini (2011) points out, among other things, the
development of Institutional Repositories (IR) in the
region. According to this author, in Latin America,
institutions producing scientific knowledge, universities
http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/2318-08892016002800003
Open access contributes to scientific development
through the optimization of some of the processes and
promotes opportunities for other regions to participate
in international scholarly communication. Among the
new regions, Latin America has shown a strong inclination
for open access. Therefore, considering the characteristics
and opportunities discussed so far, the aim of the present
study was to analyze the open access initiatives in the
region and discuss how they have influenced and were
influenced by initiatives from other regions of the world.
Methods
We adopted the bibliographic research method
to meet the research objective as suggested by Lima and
Mioto (2007, p.38). According to these authors, this type
of research “implies an ordered set of procedures to find
solutions, respecting the object of study” (our
translation)2. To conduct the study, the authors propose
the four following parameters to analyze the literature:
the subject, linguistic, chronological parameters, and
parameter of the sources.
For the subject and linguistic parameters, we
selected studies written in English, Portuguese and
Spanish that dealt mostly with the historical elements of
the Open Access and that presented evidence of the
participation of Latin America. Scopus and Google
Scholar were used as the source to collect the data. We
choice these two databases because they are widely
used as new sources for bibliographic metrics, as
discussed by Meho and Yang (2006). According to these
authors, both databases have been considered alternative
and complementary tools to the traditional and inflexible
tools such as the Web of Science.
We conducted a keyword search for the terms
“history” + “open access” + “Latin America” in Portuguese,
English and Spanish in the two databases. In Google
2
Scholar we added the parameter filetype:pdf, so that the
recovery system gave preference to PDF files. The
application of search strategies resulted in 4,914
documents in Google Scholar and 56 in Scopus.
A preliminary reading of the selected texts
allowed the identification of citations from other relevant
authors whose studies were included in the analysis. The
studies considered as data source for the research
included the following documents: Harnad (1994),
Harnad (2001), Odlyzko (2002), Sarmento et al. (2005),
Askey (2006), Civallero (2006), Bailey (2007), Alperim et
al. (2008), Murray-Rust (2008), Ten… (2012), Suber (2012),
Mishra (2012), Barros (2012).
Based on these studies, we prepared a historical
description of the main relevant facts that contributed
to the establishment of open access in the world,
highlighting the actions in Latin America. The global and
regional parallel is illustrated in the Open Access Timeline
in the world and in Latin America, shown at the end of
the article. Next, we report the results.
Historical perspectives of open access
Open access is free and unrestricted availability
of complete scholary publications on the Internet. Its
consolidation in the world has been favored by
international open access endeavors. The expression
‘open access’ was first used for this purpose by the
Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) (Read…, 2002)
which will be used, therefore, as a framework for the
discussion of open access in the paper. For this reason,
the historical perspective of open access will be
organized into three periods: before BOAI, BOAI and after
BOAI.
Before BOAI: Despite the BOAI being considered a
landmark document for OA, it was not the first initiative
to discuss the nuclear idea of open access. Sarmento
et al. (2005) highlight three previous documents that are
the result of meetings held at the World Conference on
Science for the twentieth century. The first one, the “Santo
Domingo Declaration” (Acordo…, 2002), points out that
science should be available to everyone and that,
therefore, the infrastructure capacity of information
“implica em um conjunto ordenado de procedimentos de busca por soluções, atento ao objeto de estudo“.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/2318-08892016002800003
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OPEN ACCESS IN THE WORLD AND LATIN AMERICA
and research institutes consider these systems an
“adequate choice” to manage and give visibility to
institutional scientific production. In addition, some
governments, such as those in Argentina, Brazil, Peru and
Mexico, have supported IR.
technologies and communication of science need to be
increased to be accessible to the society. The second, the
“Declaration on science and the use of scientific
knowledge” and third documents, “An agenda for science”,
emphasize the need for sharing scholarly information,
especially when produced with public funds, recognizing
that access to this information is essential for the
advancement of science itself. According to Sarmento et
al. (2005, p.3, our translation), these documents are
relevant when considering the context in which the
movement arised, as they emphasize the creation of “a
new social contract for science, highlighting the
components of science and society, and innovation to
ensure the development of concrete initiatives for
international scientific cooperation”3.
Referring to the years before 1999, Civallero (2006)
also points out other initiatives. The author considers the
ArXiv repository as the first relevant attempt developed
in 1991. According to Ramlo (2007), the repository was
developed by Paul Ginsparg under the name LANL
Preprint Archive, referring to the institution, the Los
Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), that hosted it. When
Ginsparg left the LANL, the repository was then hosted
at Cornell University, storing open access literature in the
field of physics and related sciences.
36
the web for scientific information systems to promote
greater dynamism and speed in communication. This
meeting resulted in the organization of the Open Access
Initiative (OAI), whose essence lies in the use of the Open
Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting
Protocol (OAI-PMH). This communication protocol allows
systems to share metadata (data describing the information
resources) without intermediate processes. This initiative
was important for the development of open access
information systems because it established standards and
a protocol to guide and ensure interoperability between
systems, one of the building blocks for the promotion
and visibility of scientific literature in the open access
environment.
Between 2000 and 2001 other meetings including
scientists and information professionals were held to
discuss the issue of science and access to their results. As
a result of these events, the declarations were published
and we discuss them below. The open letter from the
Public Library of Science (PLoS) and the document
“Declaring Independence”, published by SPARC, were the
most outstanding because these were related to
important institutions that promote open access.
M.P. COSTA & F.C.L. LEITE
Following the development of ArXiv, Civallero
(2006) points out the meeting held in 1992, organized
by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) through
the initiative Scholarly Publishing and Academic
Resources Coalition (SPARC), which discussed literature
in the electronic format. On this occasion, the new context
of treatment and use of scientific publications in
electronic media were discussed. Given the development
of open file systems and the new scenario, Stevan Harnad
published a study entitled “The subversive proposal” in
1994, which systematized the idea of self-archiving. The
development of this idea resulted in what the OA later
called the “green” road strategy.
The PLoS declaration is an open letter from some
academic institutions in the field of Biomedical Sciences.
It states its support to the development of an online
public library that provides full texts of scientific
publications. To this end, the signatories commit
themselves to publish only in journals that allow free and
unrestricted redistribution of publications in PubMed
Central (PMC) or other similar information services. The
PMC is a repository that was developed in 1999 by the
National Institutes of Health (NIH) to store and disseminate
manuscripts and published research in the field of Health
Sciences (Pontika, 2011). This is another example of
successful open access initiative whose genesis precedes
the BOAI.
In 1999, the Santa Fe Convention was held in the
United States in the same year as the declarations were
published on Science. The goal, according Lagoze and
Sompel (2001), was to discuss the opportunities for using
The document “Declaring Independence”, in turn,
is a letter addressed to researchers, but signed by only
one of them: Michael Rosensweig. Although the letter
was signed by a single researcher, it was published by
3
“um novo contrato social para a ciência, destacando os componentes de ciência e sociedade, e de inovação de forma a garantir o desenvolvimento de iniciativas
concretas para a cooperação científica internacional”.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/2318-08892016002800003
Pre-BOAI initiatives in Latin America shared
concerns about the limited access to scientific
information and the interest in using the Internet to speed
up and democratize the dissemination of information.
We highlight three of these initiatives. The first, in
chronological order, is the “Declaración of San José hacia
la Biblioteca Virtual en Salud”, 1998. In this document, the
Latin American and Caribbean Center of Health Sciences
were committed to developing the Virtual Health Library
(VHL) to increase access to information in the field. The
VHL, which was established in the same year as the
declaration, according to its own conception, is a
scientific and technical information system to promote
the production and use of information sources in
electronic format through the Internet to promote direct
and universal access.
In 2001, the “Declaration of Havana towards
equitable access to Health Information” again highlights
the responsibility of the state regarding the access to
information. In this declaration, the participants of the
VHL meeting classified the scientific information in the
field as a global public good and highlighted the need
for national and international policies to ensure access
and dissemination. Thus, it reiterated its commitment to
the development of the VHL.
In addition to the VHL, the development of the
Scientific Online Electronic Library (SciELO) was released
in 1997. SciELO indexes journals supported by the
Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo
(FAPESP, State Research Support Foundation) and Bireme.
The indexed journals consist of full texts from journal
http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/2318-08892016002800003
collections that are available for free. According the data
from SciELO in 2013, the system has journal collections
from eleven countries, among which eight are from Latin
America.
All these events, documents and systems were
important for the initial consolidation of OA. Therefore,
the number of initiatives and the arguments that were
used at the time to discuss alternatives to ensure broad
access to scientific publications were present during the
preparation of the BOAI.
Budapest Open Access Initiative: Based on the
aforementioned discussions and initiatives, a meeting
was held in Budapest in 2001 and the BOAI document
was published in February 2002 (Read…, 2002). The
document raises the issue of scientific communication
in the contemporary context and considers that the
processes of traditional communication through journals
must be influenced by new technologies and the
Internet. The positive influence in this context is
understood as the electronic distribution of full texts from
peer-reviewed journals through the Internet and without
access restrictions. By discussing the concept of open
access, it is claimed, from prior experience, that this model
is possible. Experiences are not individually listed, but it
is pointed out that the different initiatives were still
providing an “extraordinary power” to readers as they
could find and use the relevant literature. Moreover,
according to the Declaration, the studies available in
open access systems and the authors gain more visibility,
readership and impact.
The advantages cited by the BOAI are recurrently
used to demonstrate the benefits of open access. In the
document available on the Internet, the advantages
(visibility, readership, and impact) are hyperlinked to other
texts that discuss the issue. The first text that received a
hyperlink in BOAI was Harnad’s article (2001), which
addresses issues related to access, impact and
assessment of publications. The author states that the
purpose of researchers is to publish their articles to
impact their research and not the sale of publications, as
they are ‘rewarded’ by universities and funding agencies
that assess the impact of what they produce. Thus, when
the results of their studies are publicly accessible, it
increases the impact factor, which is the interest of
researchers and institutions.
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OPEN ACCESS IN THE WORLD AND LATIN AMERICA
SPARC and the Triangle Research Libraries Network
(TRLN), major international organizations of the scientific
community. One of the key arguments is the discussion
of access to scientific information related to the serial
crisis. The author first draws attention to the fact that their
research is being sold by commercial publishers, with
increasing for-profit plans, and states that subscriptions
are far too costly for libraries. According to Figure 1,
provided between 1986 and 1998, a journal subscription
in evolutionary ecology increased approximately $800.00
per year, reaching a 75% profit margin. Based on this
argument, the author cites the experience of developing
an ‘independent’ journal in the field, created as an
alternative to the commercial model.
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M.P. COSTA & F.C.L. LEITE
Figure 1. Timeline of open Access in the world and Latin America.
Source: The authors (2014).
Note: ArXiv: e-print service in the fields of physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance and statistics; BOIA:
Budapest Open Access Initiative; BDTD: Brazilian Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations; BVS: V irtual Health Library; COAR: Confederation of
Open Access Repositories; ECHO: Cultural Heritage Online; OJS: Open Journal System; PL: Projeto de Lei (Brasil); PLS: Projeto de Lei do Senado (Brasil)
SNRD: National System of Digital Repositories (Argentina) SPARC: Scholarly Publishing and Academic R esources Coalition.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/2318-08892016002800003
The second and third hyperlinks in BOAI (Read…,
2002) lead to an error page, which does not allow the
identification of the texts. Attempts to access the
hyperlink were held in July and August 2013. The term
‘impact’ is the fourth hyperlink to paper of Odlyzko (2002),
which addresses the evolution of scholarly communication.
The trend towards the use of online content is one of the
factors addressed by the author to demonstrate the
impact that the new dynamics of communication could
have. According to the data presented in the article, the
use of these contents has steadily increased. As an
example of this trend, the author cites the emergence of
electronic theses and dissertations and the experience
of SciELO, whose visibility increased from 5,000 pages in
1999 to 64,000 in 2000. Despite the high growth rates of
access to this system, the author argues that this does
not represent the same quantity of access when
compared to printed publications, even though it was
close.
After discussing the advantages of open access,
BOAI (Read…, 2002) invites individuals and institutions
to cooperate by making academic literature available in
open access. Therefore, the declaration determines which
licenses should be granted for publications in this
context, considering that the only restriction that should
be given to authors is the control of integrity of their work
and the right to be duly cited.
In order to achieve the goals, the BOAI (Read…,
2002) proposed two strategies: self-archiving and the
development of open access journals. Self-archiving
means that the authors can upload a copy of their peerreviewed publications in open access repositories, which
must in agreement with the OAI standards. This
4
suggestion was later known as the “green” road strategy.
The second strategy suggests a change in the business
model of existing journals and the development of open
access journals, which should seek other forms of revenue
instead of charging for access to their content. The
implementation of these guidelines regarding the
journals was later known as the “golden” road to open
access.
The BOAI (Read…, 2002) raises the problem of
access to scholarly communication and points out
strategies for a joint action. To validate the document,
the declaration was signed by 17 university researchers,
research centers and publishers in North America and
Europe and therefore, according to Sarmento et al. (2005),
the scientific community became committed to open
access.
Furthermore, BOAI was, according to its new
statement published ten years later (Ten…, 2012), the
first international action to receive significant funding for
the development of strategies. However, the document
does not specify how much funding it was received or
who provided it.
All these factors show how BOAI was a key
element for the OA discussions. According to Sarmento
et al. (2005, p.4), “as the document presents some
principles, strategies and a statement of commitment, it
has become the most important document in the open
access movement” (our translation)4. In addition, the BOAI
is widely cited in documents that succeed it and its
guidelines are observed when developing open access
systems.
After BOAI: The following year after the publication
of BOAI in 2003, two other declarations with significant
importance to OA were published, as pointed out by
Sarmento et al. (2005). The importance of these two
declarations together with BOAI are also highlighted by
other authors who discuss the issue such as Askey (2006),
Bailey (2007), Murray-Rust, (2008), Mishra (2012) and
Suber (2012).
One of these documents was the Bethesda
Statement on Open Access Publishing (Bethesda…,
2003). which was prepared during a meeting of the
“esse documento por apresentar alguns princípios, estratégias e uma afirmação de compromisso, torna-o um dos mais importantes documentos do movimento
acesso livre”.
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OPEN ACCESS IN THE WORLD AND LATIN AMERICA
In addition to the advantages of open access,
Harnad (2001) also shows that online self-archiving of
peer-reviewed production in institutional systems is
strategic. However, the author emphasizes that the
institutions must be determined to be successful. Harnad
raises the discussion about the need for institutional open
access policies, which are formal instruments that states
the institution’s position regarding the treatment of its
scientific production.
Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Maryland, United
States. The objective was to stimulate a debate on open
access in the research community of Biomedicine and
try to come to an agreement on the issue by involving
all parties of the scientific communication process. In
addition to the proposed activities, the statement
establishes two conditions for a publication to be
understood as open access. The first is the author’s
permission granting the users a license to copy, use,
distribute, transmit, display and to make and distribute
derivative works. The second is the immediate filing of a
copy of the publication in an online digital repository of
a research institute or organization so that it is agreement
with the standards of interoperability and preservation.
Under these conditions, the statement highlights the
PMC repository as the repository for the area of
Biomedical Sciences.
The second document is the Berlin Declaration
on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and
Humanities (Berlin…, 2013), signed by research
organizations and researchers from different countries.
An important aspect of the Berlin Declaration is the
explicit expansion of benefits and the need for open
access in areas of knowledge related to social sciences
and humanities. The statement claims to be in agreement
with the BOAI, the ECHO Charter and the Declaration of
Bethesda. Its goal is to encourage researchers to publish
in open access, support the transition to a new paradigm
in scientific communication, encourage open access
publications and advocate for them to be recognized for
academic evaluation purposes. The latter objective
emphasizes the significance of funding agencies to
consolidate the actions of open access.
40
M.P. COSTA & F.C.L. LEITE
In addition to the above-mentioned declarations,
other ones were released, strengthening the OA
movement. These new documents followed the pattern
of the previous declarations: they were documents of
researchers who were participating in an academic event
and that is why they received the names of cities or
regions that hosted these meetings Valparaiso Declaration
for Improved scientific Communication in the Electronic
Medium, 2004 (Valparaiso…, 2004); Washington DC
Principles for Free Access to Science, 2004 (Washington…,
2004); Brussels Declaration on Open Access, 2012
(Brussels…, 2012); Croatian Open Access Declaration,
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2012 (Croatian..., 2012). Other documents were related
to the commitment of institutions to the issue (Scottish
Universities Declaration on Open Access, 2005 (Scottish…,
2005); OECD Principles and Guidelines for Access to
Research Data from Public Funding, 2007 (Organisation
for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2007);
IFLA Statement on open access - clarifying IFLA’s position
and strategy, 2011 (International…, 2011); COMMUNIA
International Association on the Public Domain
Position on EC Horizon 2020 Open Access policy, 2012
(Communia International Association on the Public
Domain, 2012); Recommendation for Open Access and
Online Content in LILACS, 2012 (Recommendation…,
2012). The documents mostly presented open access and
provided an explanation of the reasons why it is
important to develop actions that promote broad access
to scientific information and they all ended with the
commitments and strategies to achieve the goal.
In 2012, the BOAI celebrated ten years of existence
and published a new document, “Ten years on from the
Budapest Open Access Initiative: setting the default to
open” (Ten…, 2012, online). In this edition, they reaffirmed
the strategies proposed by BOAI: the green road to open
access archives and the golden road to open access journals.
Additionally, they presented new recommendations for
the next ten years for the use of open access policies by
institutions producing scientific knowledge, licensing of
open access content, sustainability, coordination of
initiatives and the promotion of open access systems.
In the same year that the BOAI celebrated ten
years, a new great movement of scientists took place
worldwide to demand open access to scientific literature.
This movement began with the proposition of the
researcher Timothy Gowers to boycott Elsevier, which by
the end of 2014 would have a total of 15,000 subscribers.
The purpose of the boycott, according to Barros (2012),
was due to the support given by the publisher to the US
bill that reversed the NIH’s access policy, failing to
promote open access to publications that report the
results of research funded with public funds. As a result
of the boycott, according to the author, ten publishers
resigned from Elsevier, the support for the bill was
withdrawn, and a new bill promoting open access has
been gaining momentum in the United States.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/2318-08892016002800003
Open access in Latin America
In 2005, the “Salvador Declaration on Open
Access: the perspective of developing countries”
(Declaração…, 2005) was published. It was prepared by
the participants of the International Seminar on Open
Access. The document emphasizes the expectation of
increase in open access in developing countries and, as
a result of this, the possibility of researchers to access
literature and science. Further, they present the claims of
the signatories for the scientific policies.
Later in 2005, the “São Paulo Letter” was published,
which is a manifestation of support for OA. The Letter
presents arguments that support the open access
proposal, among them the idea that access to scientific
literature is essential to scientific and social advancement.
In order to assure access, sixteen recommendations are
suggested for consideration and include the strategies
proposed by BOAI and its progress.
The Declaration of Florianópolis was drafted in
2006 by Brazilian researchers in the field of psychology
to express their support for open access to peer-reviewed
literature. This document makes a reference to the
concept of open access of Bethesda (2003) and several
recommendations are suggested to reach their goals.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/2318-08892016002800003
The Bill nº 1120, from 2007 (Brasil, 2007), was
submitted to the Brazilian Congress. The bill proposes the
creation of a national law for mandatory development
of IR by the higher education institutions and public
research centers. The goal of the bill was the
development of IR and the mandatory publication of a
copy of the studies produced by researchers who
received public funding. The bill received a favorable
committee report, with some observations, but in 2011
it was filed because it had been in Congress for four years
and did not come up for consideration on the floor (Brasil,
2007). In the same year, it was replaced by the Senate Bill
nº 387, 2011 (Brasil, 2011). Its main content is identical to
the 2007 bill (Brasil, 2007), but it has further specifications
such as the type of documents to be deposited and the
time between the publication and deposit. The bill has
not yet been approved, but according to the Portal of
Legislative Activity of the Senate, it is in progress in various
agendas of the committees.
A similar initiative was identified in Argentina. In
2011, the National System of Digital Repository (SNRD)
was created through a ministerial resolution. Its purpose
was to create an interoperable network of digital
repositories, through the establishment of policies,
standards and common protocols (Argentina, 2011). In
the same year, a bill was drafted, which was sanctioned
in 2012, to ensure the development of IR in institutions
that receive public funding and the deposit of copies of
peer-reviewed published or non-published works. The
novelty of this bill in relation to the Brazilian one is the
specification for the treatment of primary data of the
research.
In Mexico, also in 2011, the Red Mexicana de
Repositories Institucionales (ReMeRI) was created, which
has an integrated search system among the IR and offers
training workshops and development tools. As the
TransInformação, Campinas, 28(1):33-45, jan./abr., 2016
41
OPEN ACCESS IN THE WORLD AND LATIN AMERICA
In Latin America, discussions and systems have
taken place around the issue long before the BOAI
(Read…, 2002), as previously explained. In the post-BOAI
period, the strongest initiative in favor of open access
was the Brazilian Manifesto to Support Open Access to
Scientific Information (Instituto Brasileiro de Informação
em Ciência e Tecnologia, 2005). The manifesto was
released by the Instituto Brasileiro de Informação em
Ciência e Tecnologia (IBICT, Brazilian Institute of Information
in Science and Technology) in 2005. The terms of the
Berlin Declaration were used in the manifesto, referring
to ways of publication and conditions for open access.
That said, the Manifesto highlights the need for the
participation of academic institutions, researchers,
funding agencies, commercial and non-commercial
publishers. After citing the actions that each of those
involved should take into consideration, the Manifesto
ends by pointing to the importance of creating a national
policy to ensure the compliance with these actions.
Many other documents were released in Latin
America with the same purpose. We highlight the
Declaración de Cuba en favor del acceso abierto, 2007
(Declaración..., 2007). The document refers to the terms
used by BBB, Salvador and Florianópolis. The declaration
invites researchers to make their work available in
institutional repositories and open access digital libraries
and highlights the Biblioteca Virtual de la Unioìn
Latinoamerica de Entidades de Psicologiìa (BVS ULAPSI).
Argentine system, some standards are required to join
the Mexican network, which are diagnosed through a
validation instrument (Jiménez, 2013).
In 2012, the Red Latinoamericana de Red
Federada Latinoamericana de Repositorios Institucionales
de Documentación Científica en América Latina (LA
Referencia) was launched, with the support of RedCLARA
and the sponsorship of the Regional Fund of Public
Goods of the Inter-American Development Bank (BID).
Its goal was to promote the creation of a regional strategy
for IR. Toward that end, issues related to agreements,
regional policies and the definition of standards were
established (Babini, 2011). In May of that year, Latin
America, through the LA Referencia, joined the
Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR), as
disclosed on their website (Inicia…, 2014). The
confederation is an association of academic institutions
and research of European, Asian, North American and
Latin American countries that aims to strengthen the
global networks of open access repositories.
The following year, in 2013, a bill for open access
was approved in Peru. The bill Nº 30035 (Peru, 2013),
regulates the Repositorio Nacional Digital de Ciencia,
Tecnología y Innovación de Acceso Abierto. The repository
in question is characterized as a ‘central site’ where digital
information related to the production of science,
technology and innovation in the country is stored. Its
use is intended for researchers affiliated to state agencies,
researchers who have received public funding and
researchers who wish to make their production available
for open access.
42
M.P. COSTA & F.C.L. LEITE
National laws such as these are certainly powerful
allies to ensure the establishment and/or consolidation
of mechanisms that promote open access. In the case of
the bills in Latin America, the green road strategy was
preferred. Some OA scholars, such as Suber (2009), argue
that the institutional performance is better if green road
strategy is used. This is because the right of researchers
to publish wherever they want is ensured, with the
later commitment to deposit a copy in open access
repositories, according to the agreement with the
publishers.
In Latin America, performance networks were
developed to implement IR that complies with
international standards of interoperability and
TransInformação, Campinas, 28(1):33-45, jan./abr., 2016
preservation. The development of works in repository
networks can facilitate resource sharing, allow higher
quality for the exchange of data and provide more
visibility of the scientific production. The IR networks
identified in the region were as follows: Comunidade
Colabora, LA Reference, SNRD and ReMeRI.
The performance of Latin America in regional
networks can be explained due to the specific characteristics
of the region, which differs from countries in North
America and Europe. When discussing these specificities,
Alperin et al. (2008) present data showing the growth in
the infrastructure of the region in comparison with other
regions. However, the growth has not been enough to
ensure a good infrastructure for information systems, as
the Internet was available to only 22.1% of the population
until 2008.
In addition to the issue of infrastructure in the
region being an obstacle to building stronger mechanisms
of dissemination of science produced here, the historical
and social formation is marked by challenges. These
elements must be considered when dealing with science
produced in the region, as they are the structure of the
system. According to Zuñiga (1986), in developing countries,
and particularly in Latin America, the reality of S&T is
closely tied to its historical entirety. Therefore, to
understand the context one needs to see the wider
picture, which includes the resources available and the
historical and cultural aspects.
Conclusion
The development and consolidation of open
access has been occurring differently in developed
countries and the rest of the world, particularly in Latin
America. This difference is due to, among other things,
the characteristics of the scholarly communication
system established in Latin America over time. On the
one hand this system was not capable of enhancing
scientific development, on the other hand, open access,
especially the golden road - due to the low presence of
prestigious scientific commercial publishers - has
significantly advanced in the region. This finding comes
from successful initiatives such as SciELO and widespread
adoption of the Open Journal System (OJS). The
experience of SciELO is cited in one of the BOAI
http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/2318-08892016002800003
Despite this Latin American reference, the
consolidation of the ‘golden’ road in Latin America, due
to the non-commercial nature of most of the scientific
publishers in the region, has not been enough to boost
the ‘green’ road. Now, we suppose that because most of
the scientific publishers are oblivious to the market logic,
most scientific journals do not impose barriers to
redistribution of scientific literature by them in alternative
media, such as institutional repositories.
We observed that the development of
43
institutional repositories in some countries in the region
OPEN ACCESS IN THE WORLD AND LATIN AMERICA
documents, showing that the initiative was in the
forefront and influenced the development of OA.
has been accompanied by debates and bills in the public
sphere and thus, a parallel of open access initiatives in
Latin America can be traced with other regions of the
world. However, despite the recent advances of the ‘green’
road, particularly the increase in the number of
institutional repositories and the intensification of
cooperative work in the region, there is still much to be
achieved in this area.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/2318-08892016002800003