Thumbs up for electronic
publication
Much has been said and written in
recent years about the enormous potential offered by
information and communication technologies (ICTs) for
the speedy and efficient communication of scientific
research results. This potential is as promising for
developing as it is for developed countries. In both
instances, however, there has often been a substantial
gap between theory and practice.
It is therefore reassuring to find one
experiment that seems, even if only in a relatively
limited way at present, to be generating positive
results, with implications for the whole of the
developing world. This is a network of electronic
scientific publications that has been set up jointly by
the science foundation of the state of Sao Paulo (FAPESP),
and the Latin American and Caribbean Center on Health
Sciences Information (BIREME).
The purpose of the project, known as
the Scientific Electronic Library On-line (SciELO),
has been not merely to produce electronic version of
leading scientific journals from the region, but also to
try to raise their international profile within the
scientific community. This is done in two ways: firstly
by ensuring that access to the electronic journals
(including the downloading of individual papers) is free
of charge; and secondly by providing access through a
single electronic portal, avoiding the need to seek out
separate websites for each publication.
There is already substantial evidence
that — perhaps unsurprisingly — going electronic can
significantly increase the visibility a journal within
the regional and international scientific community. Now
comes further evidence showing that not only can its
profile been significantly raised, but so too can its
impact factor. This is the measure, based on the
citation rates of individual articles, that is widely
used to judge how scientifically important the journal
is seen to be. Indeed, a study carried out by Wladimir
J. Alonso and Esteban Fernández-Juricic, published in
this week's Nature, found that the impact factor
of five Brazilian journals has more than doubled since
their inclusion in SciELO.
Given this promising result, it is
tempting to draw the immediate conclusion that the
SciELO model should be rapidly adopted as widely as
possible, as a way of raising the visibility of
scientific activities carried out (and published in)
developing countries. Certainly it gives support to the
argument that raising the scientific prestige of
indigenous publications can start a 'virtuous circle':
the greater the international impact of such
publications, the more leading scientists from the
country (or region) involved will be tempted to publish
in them, and the more this will enhance the status of
such publications, etc.
Before getting too carried away,
however, two important caveats need to be remembered.
One is that the apparent success enjoyed by the journals
included in the SciELO project, of which there are
currently about 100, is partly due to the fact that
universities and research institutes in Latin America
enjoy a relatively high level of fast electronic
connectivity compared, for example, to similar
institutions in Africa or many parts of Asia. Where such
connectivity cannot be taken for granted, the results
are likely to be significantly more equivocal.
The second caveat is that, even
without traditional printing and distribution costs, the
process of producing electronic versions of scientific
journals and putting them together in a regional network
remains substantial. Which means that carrying this out
for even a limited number of journals, as well as
allowing free access to them, has to be heavily
subsidised. Other organisations may not be as fortunate
as SciELO in finding appropriate sponsors keen to
develop a model for regional scientific publication
that, to some extent, runs counter to various mainstream
trends in scientific publishing.
Even with these caveats, however,
there are good reasons for other nations and regions to
study the SciELO experience closely, and learn how it
might be adopted to their particular needs and
resources.
When the project was set up, a key
goal was to help overcome a phenomenon known as 'lost
science' — a description of the vast amount of research
that is carried out in developing countries but which,
for a variety of reasons (including linguistic and
economic ones) never finds its way into the mainstream
scientific literature. Even the most enthusiastic of
SciELO's supporters will agree that there is still a
long way to go; in Latin America, for example, the
number of journals covered by the project remains only
about 1 per cent of the total. But the results published
this week indicate that at least SciELO appears to be
moving in the right direction.
© SciDev.Net 2002
See: Electronic
network boosts Southern science
Link
to letter in Nature by Alonso and
Fernández-Juricic
See also:: SciELO
