Catalina Estrada-Mejía and Clemente Forero-Pineda The quest for visibility of scientific journals in Latin America 237 Learned Publishing, 23:237 252 doi:10.1087/20100306 The quest for visibility of scientific journals in Latin America Introduction Scientific journals do not exist in isolation; instead, they are part of a complex system comprising editors, publication registry databases (directories or catalogues), and scientific information services delivering indexes and citation counts. This system is supported by libraries, the Internet, citation alert systems, library exchange agreements, and other interacting mechanisms of access to scientific information. Although bibliometric studies of the international publications of Latin American scientists are relatively numerous, not much is known about the local media in which they publish. There are some relatively old inventory studies of Latin American scientific publications, and some analytical writings have recently appeared that describe successful experiences of scientific communication in Latin American countries and take stock of the state of these publications. 1 5 The Latin American tradition in scientific journals LatinAmericanscientistsofthe18thcentury published their academic work in Spanish journals. In 1771, the Extractos de las Juntas Generales published texts by scientists living in the Americas. The Extracts were the main instrument linking European friends and the residents of America and Asia. 6 The first scientific journal in Latin America appeared in 1772 in Mexico: Mercurio Volante was a weekly publication, specializing in health topics, that circulated on 12 occasions until 1773. 7 Other publications, oriented towards general audiences, occasionally published scientific articles in various Latin American countries; these journals often emerged as a personal initiative of some prominent academic, who would compile the works discussed at gath- RESEARCH ARTICLE The quest for visibility of scientific journals in Latin America Catalina ESTRADA-MEJÍA and Clemente FORERO-PINEDA ABSTRACT. This article studies the strategies for visibility of some of the most outstanding publications from Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, and Colombia, and the relationship between open access and the visibility of these journals. By means of in-depth interviews with the editors, we explored their indexing and circulation strategies and examined certain organizational and contextual variables that may have helped them to remain in circulation. We also considered whether a combination of electronic publication and open access to the contents of the journals have increased the visibility of science from these developing countries. When these journals were not available electronically, even if they were distributed at no cost, their distribution was necessarily selective, and one could not properly speak of open access; once they were put on the Web, however, they became widely available at no cost to the reader. The editors views on open access are also explored. Catalina Estrada-Mejía and Clemente Forero-Pineda 2010 Catalina Estrada-Mejía Clemente Forero-Pineda
The quest for visibility of scientific journals in Latin America 239 Figure 1. Latin American journals in 1962 (by type of publication) Source: Union Panamericana (1962) 1 erings of scholars and combine these works with political news and editorials. In the 19th century, there was an explosion in the creation of scientific societies and academic journals. In countries such as Mexico, Brazil, Cuba, Colombia, and Venezuela, dozens of societies were founded, of which very few currently remain. During this period, 35 scientific societies and 140 academic journals were registered in Mexico alone. 8 Figure 2. Latin-American journals in 1962 (by country) Source: Union Panamericana (1962) 1 One of the first Argentine scientific publications dates back to 1802, when the Telégrafo Mercantil published the article Virtues of the herbs of Paraguay signed by the Jesuit doctor and priest Segismundo Asperger. As the century advanced, publications increased. In succession there appeared La Gazeta de Buenos Aires and Correo de Comercio, inspired by Mariano Moreno and Manuel Belgrano, and later El Censor, El
240 Catalina Estrada-Mejía and Clemente Forero-Pineda the journals published by academic societies or university departments typically suffered from poor visibility, low circulation, irregular publication, and a very local character Argos and La Abeja Argentina, which each had a permanent section on medical topics. 9 In Colombia, the Semanario del Nuevo Reino de Granada was published for the first time in 1808, edited by Francisco José de Caldas. It followed the style of European publications and the principle of spreading knowledge that would be useful for the development of the economy. This journal was published until 1812. 10 The emergence of academic journals in Brazil started with the medical journal Folha Medicinal do Maranhão, whichbegantocirculate on 10 March 1822. In the following years other publications were developed, led by José Francisco Xavier Sigaud, a French doctor resident in Brazil. In 1827, the journal Propagador das Sciencias Medicas ou Annaes de Medicina, Cirurgia e Pharmacia entered circulation. In 1831, the Diário de Saúde and the Semanário de Saúde Pública (renamed Revista Médica Fluminense in 1835) were founded. In their early phase, these journals mainly reproduced European medical articles, but they gradually began to incorporate original articles dealing with more local concerns. 11 In Cuba, the Anales de la Real Academia de Ciencias de la Habana published articles on health, physics, and natural sciences. Between 1864 and 1898 it published more than 2,000 academic articles. 12 From the beginning of the 20th century, another type of journal began to appear. These journals, known as department journals, were associated with universities and institutes; they reflected the process of professionalization of science, and were linked to the emergence of a new, specialized kind of scientific society. In 1940 there were 200 titles in this category in Latin America. 13 Atthesametimescientificjournals of government institutes also began to emerge, mainly in health and agricultural sciences and nutrition. In 1962, a study by the Pan-American Union identified 950 scientific publications in Latin America. Of these, 365 were the journals of scientific societies, 204 were classified as department (university) journals, 127 were published by governmental institutions, and 127 were classified as other types of publication (see Figure 1). 1 The journals published by academic societies or university departments typically suffered from poor visibility, low circulation, irregular publication, and a very local character, since they accepted very few contributions from non-members or from international authors. Nevertheless, basic sciences journals referenced almost exclusively publications from the industrialized countries. The distribution of journals was very limited, especially at the international level. The societies journals were distributed among their members, and only a few copies would be sold to the public. In the case of the publications of university departments, they circulated through exchanges with other universities, both foreign and local. The scientific societies, whose main activities were the publication of the journal and periodically organizing conferences, financed their journals through their members contributions. Department journals wouldbefinancedbytheuniversity,mainly in the cases of public universities. 8 In 1962, the publications were geographically concentrated in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico (60%), Colombia, Peru, and Venezuela (18%), and other countries (32%). Most of them dealt with topics in medicine (51%) or agriculture (13%), and 85% contained original material. 1 The second half of the 20th century saw a dynamic expansion in the creation of scientific journals in Latin America. By 1997 there were 15,049 ISSNs registered in Latin America, and no fewer than 2,488 scientific journals were included in the Latin American Journal Collection (Hemeroteca Latinoamericana). The characteristics of these journals were not very different from the publications of the 1960s. They were still notable for their infrequent and irregular publication, their local character (many did not accept contributions from non-members of the society or from foreigners), their weak international distribution channels, and their low profile in international indexes, although many of them appeared in Biological Abstracts and Chemical Abstracts. 8 Changes in the 1990s In the early 1990s Latin American scientists,
The quest for visibility of scientific journals in Latin America 241 libraries, and governments were facing three related problems with scientific information: the high cost of foreign journals, the low visibility of Latin American science in international scientific circles, and the low levels of communication and recognition inside national communities and in the LatinAmericanregion. To tackle the problem of scientific journal costs, the solution available to affected libraries in developing countries (as elsewhere) was to establish consortia to negotiate better prices and to share the cost of journal subscriptions/licenses. International visibility was stimulated both by the use of strong incentives for international publication, and by a wave of reforms in the science and technology infrastructure, aiming to strengthen institutions and to develop a consistent medium- and long-term policy. Scientific communication within the region was more within the control of regional actors; this problem was addressed through the creation of databases and indexes that had an important impact on scientific journals in Latin America. Open access The so-called open access movement originated in the 1990s. The two strategies to achieve open access were the use of repositories where authors would deposit versions of their articles (preferably after peer review) in central subject-based repositories or in institutional repositories (the green route ), and open access journals whose contents are availableonlinefreeofcharge. The open access movement had a strong effect on Latin American journals. The main reason was not ideological, but economic there was no market for scientific journals, especially in basic sciences. Many Latin American scientific journals had in effect been open access since their creation: the small size of the market for scientific journals forced a quasi-free distribution, centered on library exchanges and courtesy subscriptions. The costs of these publications were usually covered by subscriptions bundled with society memberships, university budgets or government subsidies. Local policies intended to make scientific knowledge widely available appeared in the 1990s, and subcontinental meetings of the academic community and journal publishers to promote both electronic publishing and open access have taken place in recent years (e.g. the Second Latin American Workshop: Resources and Possibilities for Electronic Publication, held in Valparaíso, Chile in January 2004; and the International Seminar on Open Access for Developing Countries, held in Bahía, Brazil in September 2005). Scielo (Scientific Electronic Library Online, www.scielo.org) has been the most important Latin American initiative to encourage both open access and electronic publication of academic journals. Scielo enables the electronic publication of complete editions of scientific journals, the organization of searchable bibliographical and full text databases, the preservation of electronic archives and the production of statistical indicators of the scientific literature usage and impact. 14 Developed jointly by FAPESP (http://www.fapesp.br), the State of São Paulo Science Foundation, BIREME (http://www.bireme.br), the Latin America and Caribbean Center on Health Sciences Information, as well as national and international institutions related to scientific communication and editors, the project has been operating since June 1998. It currently indexes 573 journals from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Spain, Portugal, and Venezuela. Methods In-depth interviews, mostly personal and some virtual, were conducted with 92 editors of the most important journals from Table 1. Distribution of journals indexed at Ulrich s database Search in April 2005 Mexico 8 22 Venezuela 25 24 Brazil 70 99 Chile 16 19 Colombia 3 7 Argentina 0 10 Magazine total 122 181 Search in January 2007 the open access movement had a strong effect on Latin American journals
242 Catalina Estrada-Mejía and Clemente Forero-Pineda Table 2. Distribution of interviewed open access journals (by country and subject area) Argentina Brazil Chile Colombia Mexico Venezuela Area total Agricultural sciences and 4 2 2 1 2 3 14 nutrition, Basic sciences 2 4 2 3 3 3 17 Engineering and 1 2 1 1 2 7 technology Health sciences 3 3 1 6 2 4 19 Social sciences 3 4 3 3 3 9 25 Country total 12 14 10 14 11 21 82 cluster analysis was used to classify the journals Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, and Colombia. Of these 92 journals, 82 are open-access, online publications, though most of them also circulate in paper versions. Ten important journals that do not offer open access were included in the analysis in order to ascertain their reasons for not providing open access, and to compare their characteristics with those of the rest of the group. The rest of the analysis was made only for open access online journals. Cluster analysis was used to classify the journals, in terms of two variables related to their visibility strategies: scientific indexing and geographical range of their circulation. The predictive power of this classification on other variables that characterize the journals was then analyzed. From this exercise, we derived a set of profiles, recognizing the diversity of journal models and their visibility strategies. The 82 open access journals analyzed were a 16.7% sample of the 490 journals which met the following three criteria: the journal is refereed, indexed, and offers open access to its contents. The initial search for these journals was done using Ulrich s15 in April 2005. The same search was repeated in January 2007, when the number of journals meeting these criteria in each country had increased (see Table 1). Searches using the same selection criteria were also carried out in other databases, which indicated that in 2005 Mexico had at least 40 journals, Brazil more than 200, Argentina close to 40, and Colombia more than 30 journals meeting the criteria. This suggests that scientific publishing in Latin America is underrepresented in the international directories that are taken as a point of reference in many bibliometric studies. In Mexico and Colombia, which operate their own quality indexes for scientific journals, called Índice de Revistas Mexicanas de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica (http://www.conacyt.mx/indice/index_indic e.html) and Publindex (http://scienti. colciencias.gov.co:8084/publindex/), respectively, the most highly rated journals in such indexes were included in the analysis, in addition to the publications referenced in Ulrich s. One journal from Mexico and three from Colombia were indexed in the national index but not in Ulrich s. In total, 490 journals met the selection criteria. For 82 of these (16.7 % of the total Table 3. Distribution of interviewed non-open access journals (by country and subject area) Argentina Brazil Chile Colombia Mexico Venezuela Area total Agricultural sciences and nutrition Basic sciences 1 1 Engineering and 1 1 technology Health sciences 2 1 3 Social sciences 2 3 5 Country total 2 7 1 10
The quest for visibility of scientific journals in Latin America 243 number identified), and for 10 other refereed and indexed closed-access journals, interviews were conducted. The journals were then grouped into five broad subject areas: social sciences; basic sciences; health sciences (clinical and public health); agricultural sciences and nutrition; engineering and technology (see Tables 2 and 3). Some of the interviews did not provide enough information for cluster analysis, so that this analysis was performed with 57 interviews with editors. The analysis of attitudes towards online publication and open access was carried out with 82 interviews. The selection of the journals in the area of engineering and technology proved problematic, because of their scarcity in the databases that were consulted; only four journals in this area met the selection criteria in Ulrich s; these were located in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Venezuela. On the other hand, in the Latin American index Scielo one publication on engineering and technology was found from Argentina, 12 from Brazil, one from Colombia, and 4 from Venezuela. Seven open access and one closed access publications were finally included in the study. Aparallelsurveywith80ofthemostcited researchers, in the same subject areas of these countries,16 produced complementary results about the attitudes of scientists towards electronic and open access publications. Researchers from these countries were ranked by the number of citations received between January 1999 and November 2003. In-depth interviews were conducted with scientists who were among the top five of their research field (Thomson-ISI classify research fields in 22 categories which were grouped in the five mentioned above) in each country, and a segment of these interviews dealt with these attitudes. Results Cluster analysis In order to identify any patterns among the Latin American journals, a cluster analysis was performed.17 After a broad exploration of possibilities, where the predictive capacity of clusters was the criterion, two clustering variables were chosen: one indicator of the participation of the journal in registry and classification systems, and one indicator of the geographical range of the journal s circulation. These two indicators reflect the journals strategies for scientific visibility and internationalization, and turned out to have a strong predictive capacity for many characteristics of these journals. The number of those indexes and databases which have a selection committee in the country of publication which listed each journal was used as an indicator of its participation in registry and classification systems. As an indicator of the geographical range of circulation, a scale measuring the number of largeregionsoftheworldwherethejournal circulates was used. For this, editors were in-depth interviews were conducted with scientists who were among the top five of their research field Figure 3. Cluster analysis
244 Catalina Estrada-Mejía and Clemente Forero-Pineda differences in visibility strategies were more discriminating than country or discipline asked to mention a list of countries where they had subscriptions or library exchanges of the paper version, and those countries from where they had received comments or citations to the articles they publish. This cluster analysis allowed the classification of the journals into four categories. The correlation of these clusters with other strategic variables was then explored, allowing a characterization of the profile of each group. It is notable that few significant differences were found among the journals published in different countries or by disciplines. Differences in visibility strategies were more discriminating than country or discipline. The formal cluster analysis was performed on standardized values of these two variables, and used the squared Euclidean distance 17 as a measure of similarity among the journals. From the 82 open access journals, 25 were excluded for the cluster analysis because they had incomplete or non-validated responses. 57 questionnaires were thus analyzed, and the procedure yielded four clusters. Clusters of strategies The count of regions of the world where the journal circulates (Circulation) and the number of indexes and refereed databases where the journal is registered (Database/Index Coverage) jointly define a visibility strategy of each journal. These two indicators reflect the orientation of the visibility efforts of the editors. The first cluster comprised 21 journals that appear in few indexes or database systems, and whose international circulation is relatively narrow; we described them as specialized journals of continental circulation. Those 29 journals that circulate in a substantial number of continents but that have not chosen an aggressive indexation and database registration strategy were placed in the second cluster, described as global circulation-oriented journals. The third cluster comprised five journals that, in addition to circulating internationally, seek high visibility in indexes and refereed databases. These were described as high international profile journals. The fourth cluster contained only two journals; while their circulation is restricted to Ibero America and North America, they appear in a significant number of indexes and databases. We described these as scientific visibility-oriented journals. The small size of this cluster does not allow its inclusion in some of the statistical analyses. However, their characteristics merit comparison with the other clusters when possible. The analysis is presented graphically in Figure 3. There are significant differences among these clusters of journals in age, presence in open access portals and funding sources. Date of first appearance and date of conversion to open access The clusters showed significant differences in many variables. One of them is the averageageofthejournals(seetable4). These differences in date of first appearance are not significant by country or subject area. Open access publication is determined not only by the willingness of the editors to share the contents free of charge, but also by the availability of the platforms and technologies Table4. Dateoffirstpublication,bycluster n Mean Standard Median Range deviation Specialized journals of continental circulation 21 1978.7 20.4 1984 1936 2002 (Cluster 1) Global circulation-oriented journals (Cluster 2) 29 1972.4 20.5 1975 1917 1998 High international profile journals(cluster 3) 5 1956.6 33,0 1966 1909 1993 Scientific visibility-oriented journals (Cluster 4) 2 1933.0 50.9 1933 1897 1969 Total 57 1971.9 24 1976 1897 2002 P-value 0.025
The quest for visibility of scientific journals in Latin America 245 Table 5. Journals indexed in Scielo, by cluster Indexed (%) Not indexed (%) Specialized journals of continental circulation (Cluster 1) 24 76 Global circulation-oriented journals (Cluster 2) 68 32 High international profile journals(cluster 3) 100 0 Scientific visibility-oriented journals (Cluster 4) 100 0 Total 55 45 needed to do so. Hence no journals could realistically become open access until the late 1990s, though many journals, especially in basic sciences, circulated exclusively among society members or through library exchanges. Although no statistically significant differences are found for the date at which the journals became open access, it is notable that the journals in Cluster 2 have been open access since, on average, 1998. The journals in Clusters 3 and 2 became open access publication on average in 2000 and 2001, respectively. Those in Cluster 4 became open access in 2002. Open access portals Electronic publication of Latin American journals is provided via portals which allow access to their contents. The publisher provides the contents and the portals provide the structure to store, search and access the articles; in addition, some of them also provide bibliometric tools and report usage statistics. Some portals provide open access and some do not. Electronic versions of the journals that participated in the study can be consulted via three types of portals: their own portal, the portal of their sponsoring institution (scientific society or university), and/or the portal of another specialized institution. The Cluster 2 journals (global circulation-oriented journals) tend to be registered in twice as many portals as those in Cluster 1 (specialized continental journals); these differences are statistically significant (P = 0.03). These results, and the positive correlation between the number of portals and the regions where the journal circulates, allow us to conclude that those publications that make an effort to be available to a diversenumberofportalsarealsoableto circulate outside the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries. Evaluating by subject areas, significant differences were not found in the number of portals in which the journals were registered. Comparing by country, the Brazilian journals were found on average in approximately twice as many portals as the publications from other countries (P = 0.004). In addition to the number of portals in which the journals are registered, another way to evaluate visibility is to count usage statistics. 68% of the journals collected usage statistics. Here, too, the differences between clusters were interesting. The Cluster 2 publications (global circulationoriented journals), in addition to being regis- electronic publication of Latin American journals is provided via portals which allow access to their contents Table 6. Percentage of funding through market sources n Median (%) Standard deviation Specialized journals of continental circulation (Cluster 1) 14 19 0.26 Global circulation-oriented journals (Cluster 2) 21 10 0.18 High international profile journals(cluster 3) 3 60 0.20 Scientific visibility-oriented journals (Cluster 4) 2 50 0.42 Total 40 19 0.26 P-value 0.002
246 Catalina Estrada-Mejía and Clemente Forero-Pineda all of the journals use a mix of market and subsidized sources tered in more portals, are also more likely to collect usage statistics than those in Cluster 1 (specialized continental journals). This difference is statistically significant (P = 0.035). One very important finding was the difference between the clusters with regard to their participation in Scielo (see Table 5). 68% of the journals in Cluster 2, and 100% of the publications in Clusters 3 and 4, are registered in this system, compared with only 24% of those in Cluster 1. The differences between Cluster 1 and Cluster 2, and between Cluster 2 and Cluster 3, are statistically significant (P = 0.003 and 0.004, respectively). As the journals in Cluster 1 are younger, this result may reflect the time lag for registration in databases, such as Scielo, that offer citation counts. It may also reflect a strategic decision by these journals to maintain a more local character and not to compete with the more international journals registered in such systems. Funding sources Six main funding sources for the journals were identified. These can be divided into market sources and subsidized sources. By market sources we mean both author-side publication charges, and subscriptions to the paper version of the journal. The subsidized sources were university or government subsidies, grants from other countries, subscriptions bundled with scientific society memberships, and personal contributions by the editors. All of the journals use a mix of market and subsidized sources. However, the proportions between the two sources are significantly different between clusters. As shown in Table 6, specialized journals of continental circulation (Cluster 1) and Global circulation-oriented journals (Cluster 2) include more journals with subsidized funding; in fact, the funding of the journals in these clusters comes mainly from a mixture of subsidized sources. In contrast, the older journals in Clusters 3 and 4 ( high international profile journals and scientific visibility-oriented journals ) do not depend to such an extent on subsidies, and raise more of their funding through subscriptions to their paper versions. No significant differences in the ratio of market and subsidized funding were found between countries or subject areas. Based on the comments of the editors who were interviewed, it can be concluded that government subsidies vary between 0% and 50% of annual costs, with an average close to 15%. However, in most of these countries, open access journals do not receive preferential treatment in subsidy schemes and must compete with all types of publications. In Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela government institutions provided support for inclusion in the open-access Scielo database, and have authorized other occasional subsidies. Nonetheless, the editors pointed to a lack of continuity in some cases. None of the publications interviewed had received international funding. Payment of author-side publication charges is common in Chile, but very rare in other countries. Of the journals that participated in the study, only 15% use this practice. Payment varies from US$12 to US$50 per page. A frequent comment from the editors refers to the difficulty of ensuring these payments. In general, a negative attitude was perceived among other editors toward the possibility of charging a fee, since many of them feel that an important reason for authors to publish in their journal is the absence of author fees, whichareverycommoninopenaccessjournals from other parts of the world. 18 Patterns of journals This section goes into more depth on the characteristics of each of the four clusters of journals. The specialized continental journal model (Cluster 1) The journals in this cluster are usually registered in only one index and in one database. They circulate mainly in Ibero-American countriesand,insomecases,inuslibraries. They are the youngest of the journals interviewed, and many of them are in the social sciences. They are mostly published every three or six months; none is published monthly. These journals are accessed mainly
The quest for visibility of scientific journals in Latin America 247 via the portals of their sponsoring institutions. Only half collect usage data to measure the demand for their articles. The predominantly local character of their contributions, and the almost exclusive access via the portal of their institution, are accompanied by a low proportion of market funding; they are funded mainly through subsidies from the institution or a state source. Very few editors of these journals are familiar with the open access declarations of Budapest and Berlin (28.6%). More than those in the other clusters, these journals have policies in which the authors retain the copyright in their articles. The global circulation-oriented journal model (Cluster 2) On average, these journals are registered in one index and two databases with selection committee. They have a strong interest in disseminating their knowledge globally. Thus they circulate in Ibero-America, the United States, Europe, and some even in Asia and Australia. This is also manifested by their efforts to belong to regional or global systems that give them international scientific visibility, such as the portals of Scielo, Directory of Open Access Journals, or Redalyc. Through these portals they also collect usage statistics. These journals are the most likely to be electronic-only. The cluster is made up predominantly of journals on agricultural sciences and nutrition, probably because these areas of research are predominantly public in Latin America, and dissemination of the results has traditionally been free of charge. Asinthecaseofthefirstcluster,theyare mostly published three- or six-monthly; none of them is monthly. The journals in this cluster are the most heavily subsidized. They receive only 10% of their resources through market sources; in addition to subsidies from governments and their own institutions, they are funded through contributions from professional associations and scientific societies. Less than half of the editors of these journals are familiar with any open access declarations. In the great majority of cases, authors are required to transfer copyright in their articles to the journal. The high international profile journal model (Cluster 3) The journals in this cluster are registered in a large number of indexes and databases; on average, they belong to three indexes and four databases. They can also be consulted via a variety of portals and, unlike the publications of the two previous clusters, many have their own portal rather than being accessible only via the portal of their sponsoring institution. They are mostly in areas of health science or basic science. Yet they circulate around the world and many are published monthly or bimonthly. The journals in this cluster are funded mainly by market sources, and in particular through print subscriptions. This was closely Table 7. Reasons for converting the journal to open access Answer choice (n = 74) No. of editors selecting this answer % of editors Average score To achieve greater dissemination in general 65 88 1.6 To achieve greater international dissemination 61 82 1.4 The circulation of this type of journal would be narrow 39 53 0.6 without open access To contribute to the open access movement 35 47 0.5 To reach readers from other disciplines 29 39 0.4 It is a condition for access to national subsidies or other funding sources 23 31 0.3 Note: Multiple answer question. The average score is in a scale of 0 3.
248 Catalina Estrada-Mejía and Clemente Forero-Pineda the editors of the 82 open access journals were asked to explain the reasons for converting their publication to open access related to the fact that a majority of the publications had a time lag between print and electronic publication. This is one of the major differences from Clusters 1 and 2, where less than a third of the journals delayed publication of the electronic version. Paradoxically, the editors of these journals are the ones who are most familiar with the open access declarations. In all of these, the author is required to transfer copyright to the journal. The scientific visibility-oriented journal model (Cluster 4) The two journals in this group are special and atypical cases. In both cases their circulation is limited to Ibero-America and the United States, but they are included in a significant number of indexes and databases; on average, they belong to one index and three databases. These characteristics reveal a strategy that can be described as participating in the scientific information systems without aspiring to global coverage. Neither of these two journals charges for subscriptions. Approximately half of their funding comes from author-side publication payments. Both publish quarterly. As noted earlier, they are on average the oldest of the journals interviewed. Editors attitudes to online publication and open access The editors of the 82 open access journals were asked to explain the reasons for converting their publication to open access, and to rank those reasons in order of importance (see Table 7). The reasons most highly ranked and also most frequently were: to achieve greater dissemination in general; and greater international dissemination. Online publication definitely helped achieving this goal, but there was also an intention to make the journals accessible to low income groups. In the words of one editor, we aspired to reach all of Latin America, especially students, and it was not viable to do that with the paper version. Increased visibility may increase the likelihood of inclusion in the Thomson-ISI index or other indexes, and may also strengthen the impact factor of the journal. Alonso and Fernández-Juricic 19 carried out a review of five Brazilian publications which had been indexed by ISI for five years, and available on Scielo for two years. They concluded that the impact factor of these journals increased by 132.7% after their inclusion in Scielo. Packer and Meneghini,20 studying the performance of ten Brazilian journals indexed in both ISI and Scielo, concluded that the average increase in the number of citations per journal recorded by ISI for the 1998 2003 period was 128%, and that the average increase in impact factor was 65%. The editors from Argentina frequently mentioned economic reasons for their acceptance of open access. As Scielo requires journals to be open access as a prerequisite to be included in its database and portal, one editor explained: We converted to open access for budgetary reasons. At that time [1997] the University could not guarantee access to inputs for printing on paper. The lack of personnel in the university s print shop was also an obstacle to continuing. Both reasons would affect the frequency of the journal. That is why we decided to continue in digital format. One editor from Venezuela also reported that open access was a prerequisite for receiving a state subsidy from Fonacit. Editors from Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico mentioned that their objective was to be included in national indexes and to obtain more citations. While a few Latin American journals have paid electronic versions, most editors identify open access with electronic publication. One editor indicated that the conversion to open access was an act of subversion against the institutions of [his] country. In that editor s words, In that era [1997], the assumption was that [the journals] were of poor quality for being electronic. This was subversion against that preconception. We wanted to show that there could be quality journals that were electronic. In that era I did not visualize the possibility of getting a wider dissemination through publishing electronically.
The quest for visibility of scientific journals in Latin America 249 Other reasons mentioned by the editors have more to do with the need for dissemination of scientific knowledge, and the desire of researchers to disseminate their results internationally. In the words of an editor of a Chilean journal, [K]nowledge is a fundamental pillar for the progress of science and as such it should be freely accessible. Open access is also important for education. Since the creation of the journal one objective has been that the knowledge that would be published should be freely available for science and education. Moving to open access also led to an increase in both the quantity of articles submitted to the journals and the proportion of foreign authors. 87% of the editors responded that when they moved to open access they experienced an increase in the number of articles submitted; 80% also observed an increase in the number of foreign authors. The reasons most often given to explain these increases in submissions is that switching to open access went along with the inclusion in a regional index such as Scielo. Several editors expressed the view that inclusion in international indexes forces the journals to regularize their frequency of publication, to include in their editorial boards members from other countries and continents, and to reduce the handling time of manuscripts. According to those editors, this increases their recognition and also exposes them to a more demanding review of their work on the part of a broader academic community. The effect of moving to open access on print revenues was also explored. Four types of impact were observed: 1. For some journals, local print subscriptions declined but international subscriptions increased. 2. For others, total print subscriptions declined, but sales of single issues increased. 3. However, 72% responded that print revenues were unaffected by providing open access to the online content. 4.AsurveycarriedoutbyScielo-Brazilindicated that none of the journals that converted to open access when they joined Scielo reported economic losses.21 Joining Scielo requires meeting certain quality standards and converting to open access. Whenajournalinalowercategoryis admitted to Scielo, the Brazilian science agency CNPq immediately classifies it in the highest category and this implies larger subsidies for the journal. The editors did not perceive any direct discrimination by funding agencies against open access journals. However, some felt that the researcher ranking systems were prejudiced; some editors mentioned that, while this is not expressed as a formal policy, the evaluation schemes for the scientific activities of academics tended to consider online-only and/or open access journals to be of lower quality, even when they are indexed. In general, the editors interviewed felt that, apart from funding difficulties, journals published in developing countries face no greater obstacles than those produced in industrialized countries. Researchers attitudes to online publication and open access The parallel investigation with 80 of the most internationally cited researchers described in the methodology produced complementary results about the attitudes of scientists to open access. Only 20% of the researchers had ever published in e-only journals, even if these are indexed. 48% had cited articles from journals that offer open access, and 16% have ever cited articles available on Scielo. The researchers interviewed by Forero and Estrada 16 indicated that, even though they supported open access in principle, at present they choose not to publish in online open access journals, although they may do so in future. According to one of the editors, this is because of ignorance about the quality controls and guarantees of what is published, and ignorance of the functioning, platform, and inclusion or acceptance mechanisms of these services. Researchers in the basic sciences, health sciences, agricultural sciences and nutrition, the editors did not perceive any direct discrimination by funding agencies against open access journals
250 Catalina Estrada-Mejía and Clemente Forero-Pineda one interpretation of this result is that in Latin America two academic communities coexist and engineering rarely cited colleagues from their own country, except for members of their own group or laboratory. In an article in an international journal, on average 7% of the references are to work by researchers from the author s country, 7% to articles by academics from other Latin American countries, 45% to work by researchers from the United States, and 30% from Europe. The researchers interviewed felt that their own work, too, was more often cited by researchers from Europe and the United States than by academics from other Latin American countries or from their own country. In the social sciences academics were more likely to cite colleagues from their own country. According to the interviewed researchers the distribution of the number of cited works in a social science article was as follows: researchers from the same country 19%, from other Latin American countries 16%, from the United States 34%, and from Europe 22%. One interpretation of this result is that in Latin America two academic communities coexist, one oriented toward publishing articles in ISI-indexed journals and the other toward communicating with their local and other Latin American colleagues. Members of the former generally expressed the view that they are the only ones in their country working on their topic, and therefore tended to publish only in foreign journals (33% of the researchers interviewed in Forero and Estrada 16 only published in journals indexed in Thomson-ISI). Members of the latter community recognized that certain topics of a regional nature would not be acceptable in international publications. They considered publication in local journals to be a plus because it allowed researchers to participate in the national system that awards economic incentives for their research activity, enabling them to obtain prizes and recognition as researchers. The challenge for public policy on scientific information in these countries is to build communication channels between these two communities, without threatening the continued existence of either. There are both advances and difficulties in this process. An important group of journals that were recently added to the Latin American database Scielo are now being indexed by ISI. On the other hand, many researchers have pointed to biases in ISI22 that are only slowly being corrected. The considerable increase in impact factors of journals once they are included in Scielo may in future attract some of the most internationally cited Latin American researchers to publish in local journals that belong to this and other similar networks. However, many researchers have their niches in very specialized journals, and it is improbable that these topics will soon find journals in the region interested in them. Conclusions A first conclusion of this analysis is that a journal cannot increase its visibility independently of the systems (indexes, databases, directories) in which it is included. Open access has been imposed as a condition of entrance by the most important regional systems of online publication. In order to take advantage of economies of scale that only those information systems can offer, journals have been stimulated to become open access. Print-only journals, even if they were distributed free of charge, could not really be described as providing open access. However, once the journals are put online in a wide system such as Scielo (requiring open access), they become effectively available; the increase in page visits and citations demonstrates the effect of this wider visibility. For scientific publications in Latin America, free print distribution has long been the norm, especially in the basic sciences. The traditional scientific journal was published by a scientific society, funded by its membership subscriptions, or in some cases by universities or research centers, and circulated mainly through library exchanges and membership-tied subscriptions. Sales of basic science journals were unimportant when compared to these unpaid channels. Aside from exceptional cases, this gratuitous distribution did not have an ideological reason: it was the result of the absence of a market. Library exchanges and membership-tied subscriptions are still important channels for the circulation of scientific
The quest for visibility of scientific journals in Latin America 251 journals in the subcontinent, but they have been complemented by online availability coupled with open access. Publications in the social sciences (economics, sociology, political science, and philosophy), however, face a different situation. In these disciplines, there is an important tradition of book and journal sales, especially in Mexico, Argentina, and Chile. Here a balance is possible between visibility and market-based economic sustainability. These journals have a demand from the general public, who prefer paper versions. Especially in Mexico and Chile, they are sold side-by-side with magazines and newspapers. That explains why moving to open access does not appear to have meant an economic loss for these journals. Today, combined print and electronic dissemination (with the online version being open access) is the predominant model for LatinAmericanjournals.Thisdualpublication is in part a response to pressure from the authors themselves. As one of the editors put it, Many authors value online dissemination, but also insist that their articles be printed on paper. While funding always combines market and subsidized sources, funding through scientific societies and university subsidies remains predominant. There are clear indications that online publication and participation in networks, together with open access, increases the visibility of science from developing countries. The editors views on open access varied. Only a few of them were familiar with the Budapest Declaration on Open Access. When asked about the convenience of some principles invoked in these declarations, they expressed their agreement, but the political meaning of this movement was not an important issue for the vast majority. Most of those interviewed felt that online availability, combined with open access, explained the considerable increase in the number of articles submitted, which was observed in all the countries studied, and particularly in those journals included in Scielo. Inclusion in Scielo can have direct benefits: in Chile, articles published in Scielo journals are taken into account in determining the Direct Fiscal Contribution (the state funding instrument) for universities, while in Brazil and Chile, articles in Scielo are taken into account in the evaluation of academic institutions and personnel. In other countries, Scielo journals are recognized by some universities as indexed journals. Researchers in these countries are now more willing to publish local journals in Scielo, because when their articles are online and open access, they are more widely read. In general, the Latin American editors did not feel that there was prejudice in the scientific community against open access journals, although some felt that there was still distrust toward these publications within some academic sectors. Nonetheless, the researchers interviewed by Forero and Estrada 16 indicated that, even though they supported open access in principle, for at present they choose not to publish in open access journals, although they may do so in future. The editors felt that government policies should focus on providing resources for improving information technology and guaranteeing faster access to the contents of those systems. In general, they indicated that the time lag between print and online publication was due more to technical problems than a policy decision. They felt that it would be appropriate for all journals to compete for subsidies in order to provide incentives for higher quality. There are divergent opinions about the ability of open access to democratize scientific knowledge and to make it available to the whole population. One editor of a health science journal, who had chosen not to move to open access, indicated that in biomedicine, if the general public has access but does not have the capacity to understand many things and distorts them, the patient challenges the doctor. However, other health journal editors disagreed, referring to the need to democratize knowledge. If the results of this investigation are correlated with those of Forero and Estrada, 16 it can be concluded that the development of the countries scientific information systems hasdrivenimportantchangesinacademic communities. The culture of citations has split the research community of each field of knowledge in these countries. A there are clear indications that online publication and participation in networks, together with open access, increases the visibility of science from developing countries