The characteristics of the 123 Latin American journals found in DOAJ that charge to publish (APC) are shown in this study. More than half of these journals charge very low prices and most belong to public universities and scientific societies. Finally, the author recommends that universities develop collaborative models for journals and warns that these APC outbreaks fail to spread across the subcontinent.

(Article in Spanish)

LA Referencia’s partner country, Argentina, has generated national initiatives in the area of Repositories and Open Access, among which stand out the Sistema Nacional de Repositorios Digitales en Ciencia y Tecnología (National System of Digital Repositories in Science and Technology). This interinstitutional initiative aims to form an interoperable network of digital repositories in science and technology, from the establishment of policies, standards and protocols common to all members of the System.

Learn more about the Argentinian portal of Digital repositories.

The past two decades have witnessed accelerated demand for open access (OA) to scholarly publications propelled by the progress in digital technologies. The government of India new policy “one nation one subscription” aims to facilitate larger access to journal articles generated from publicly funded research. However, OA experts argue that this will promote a subscription-based culture rather than providing a sustainable alternative to move away from it. The Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore has been a strong advocate for OA and recently organised a series of discussions to shed light on the roadblocks to OA route especially in the Indian context. India can learn from the early adoption and successful journey of local OA publishing in Latin America.

On 1st January 2021, the government of India released the ambitious draft policy for Science, Technology and Innovation Policy (STIP) to the public for comments. The policy aims to bring about changes in the research ecosystem of India by encouraging innovation to make the Indian science and technology ecosystem one that can survive global competition. As part of such an endeavour, the government proposed a ‘One Nation, One Subscription’ plan which would make thousands of journals freely available to Indians.

This White Paper – produced in collaboration with the STM Association – provides an evidence base, supporting practical recommendations towards the equitable and inclusive shift towards open access publishing in countries eligible for Research4Life participation.

This OPERAS workshop took place on 17 November 2020 as part of the 15th Munin Conference on Scholarly Publishing 2020. The discussion showed that overviews over Open Access publishing possibilities, especially for journals, have strongly evolved and are already of good quality in many countries. Yet, this is not true for all European countries and particularly for Open Access publishing of monographs and books. During the discussion it became clear that the community-debate should now focus on building the “house” for Open Access.

Read the full report.

This report explains the origins of the open access movement, gives a timeline for its development, but most importantly, Simba Information quantifies open access’ position as a fast growing subsegment of scholarly journal publishing.

In its report—Open Access Book Publishing 2020-2024—Simba reports on an open access book market that declined for the first time since tracking was initiated in 2013. It concludes that title output declined 18.7% in 2019 with 2,801 open access books published against 3,445 in 2018, according to titles listed by publication year in the Directory of Open Access Books.

Jisc, the research and education not-for-profit, is launching a new multi-content repository for storing research data and articles that will make it easier for university staff to manage the administration around open access publishing.

The new repository offers simple, cost-effective ways to manage, store and share digital research outputs, and will allow institutions to meet all Plan S mandatory requirements and other funder and publisher mandates for open scholarship.

In response to a recent blog post on the OASPA website authored by several representatives, COAR would like to underscore the critical role of Open Access repositories in accelerating innovation in scholarly communications and the adoption of Open Access and Open Science.