Centering the Knowledge Periphery through Open Access

Leslie ChanBioline InternationalInternational Studies and New Media studiesUniversity of Toronto at Scarborough

ARL Membership Meeting: The International Dimensions of Digital Science and ScholarshipOttawa, Canada May 17-19, 2006

Issues

• Current state of knowledge production and access to knowledge in the developing world

• Will Open Access bridge the knowledge gap between the North and the South?

• Lessons from Bioline International

Arthur J. CartyNational Science Advisor to the Prime MinisterInternational Association of Technological University Libraries, Quebec 31 May 2005

“African countries need to have in place appropriate mechanisms and infrastructure for training and exploitation of knowledge. This will enable them to make meaningful evidence-based policy, in order adequately to address local needs and participate in the international community on science and technology issues.”

Network of the African Science Academies and the science academies from the G8 countries (2005)http://www.scidev.net/pdffiles/jointstatement.pdf

Challenges

Disparity in scientific output

• The G8 countries account for ~85% of most cited articles indexed in ISI

• The other 126 countries (mostly in the developing world) account for ~2.5 % (King, 2004)

But ISI’s Science Citation Index has serious biases

Dominant Model of Knowledge Dissemination From the Centre to Periphery

invisible knowledge

Perpetual the cycle of poverty and dependence

HINARI/ AGORA

The 10-90 Gap

• 10% of the global health research spending is allocated to diseases affecting 90% of the world population

• So how relevant is scientific knowledge generated in the North for health and development in the developing world?

Lown and Banerjee (2006) The Developing World in The NJM

Flow of information

• North to South is important for South• South to South is also important as contexts are

more relevant• Is South to North important for North?• Definitely yes:

– Tropical and infectious diseases including HIV/AIDS, malaria, etc.

– Alternative including herbal medicine– Epidemiological data– Epidemics and new diseases– Biodiversity for global understanding

International collaboration

• International collaborations result in higher citation impact

• What about researchers in the developing countries?

Journals from developing world

Limited circulation

Poor visibility and readership

Limited recognition

Fewer citations

Fewer authors and subscriptions

Circle oflimited

accessibility

Dominant Model of Knowledge Dissemination From the Centre to Periphery

invisible knowledge

Stopping the cycle of poverty and dependence

Open access enable Peer-to-Peer sharing

… and new model ofKnowledge creation,Sharing, andDissemination

But need to better understand

Barriers to

access

Modes of

knowledge creation

Cultures of

sharing

Bioline International http://www.bioline.org.br

“… the small deal”

What is Bioline International?

• Electronic aggregator of full text journals from developing countries

• OAI data provider• Serve as open access

platform for journals without the necessary infrastructure

• A South-North collaboration

Bioline International• Development - using open source

software and open standards

• Advocacy - Aims to influence scholarly communication practices and access to research literature

• Research - Will open access improve the visibility and impact of journals from developing countries? How effective are research libraries in enabling international collaboration?

Core Partners

EPT, UK

CRIA, Brazil http://www.cria.org.br

UT, Canada

Funding Support

• University of Toronto Libraries

• Department of Social Sciences, U of T at Scarborough

• Open Society Institute, Information Access Program

Publishing Partners

• Scholarly and Scientific societies from 17 countries

• Research centres in biology and medicine, university-based publications,

• All non-profit and willing to experiment with free online access

• Most are supported by local subsidies and international aids

Meta-data exchange and dissemination partners

• Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) - http://www.doaj.org/

• The eGranary Digital Library - http://www.widernet.org/digitalLibrary/index.htm

• Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative (HINARI) - http://www.who.int/hinari/en/

• OAIster.org - http://www.oaister.org/ • Scientific and Technical Information System -

http://sist-prototype.sist-sciencesdev.net/ • University of Toronto Libraries - T-Space -

https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/ New Partnership with SPARC!

Recent additions

• International Journal of Environment Science and Technology (Iran)

• Iranian Journal of Environmental Health, Science and Engineering• African Health Sciences (Uganda)• Health Policy and Development Journal (Uganda)• Brazilian Journal of Oral Sciences• VITAE Academia Biomedica Digital (Venezuela)• Medical Journal of The Islamic Republic of Iran• Iranian Journal of Pharmacology and Therapeutics• Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition (Bangladesh)• African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development

(Kenya)

Bioline usage statistics- 2002 - 2004

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Month

Number of full- text

requests

200220032004

Bioline usage statistics - 2005-2006

0

50000

100000

150000

200000

250000

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Month

Number of full-text

requests

2005

2006

Key events: June 2003, full open access Jan 2005, full OAI compliant

Increased visibility

•Traditional directories and indexes ( e.g. EBSCO’s A-Z service, Ulrich’s Serials Directory), ISI Web Content

•Directory of Open Access Journal (DOAJ), African Journal Online (AJOL), Virtual Health Library of Latin America and Caribbean (BRIME), Latindex, Africa Index Medicus, eGranary Digital Library

•Accessibility from library catalogs through OpenURL

•Also accessible through HINARI and AGORA

Journal of Postgraduate Medicine• Quarterly journal• Based in Mumbai, India• Print circulation <400

– Limited to school

• Paid subscription ~100– Majority from India

• 50-80 articles published / year

Making more accessibleJPGM at BiolineJPGM at Bioline

Archived at multiple placesJPGM at OAI serverJPGM at OAI server

JPGM at PubMedJPGM at PubMed

www.jpgmonline.comwww.jpgmonline.com

JPGM at DOAJJPGM at DOAJ

Circle of Accessibility

JPGMPubMed

Directories e.g. DOAJ

OAI serversT-Space

Bioline InternationalSearchEngines

Librarycatalogues

OAI servicese.g. OAIster.org

SearchEngines

Downloads and visitors

0

20000

40000

60000

80000

100000

120000

Jun-05 Jul-05 Aug-05 Sep-05 Oct-05 Nov-05

Monthly visitorsArticle downloads

Data: D.K. Sahu

Geographic distribution of visitors Geographic distribution of visitors (n = 500)(n = 500)

Article submissions

140186

312

436

620

780

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

International submissions

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

From IndiaOverseas

Projected Impact Factor

0.02

0.11

0.24

0.41

0.82

0.95

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

1

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

Economics of OA-P for India

0

50000

100000

150000

200000

250000

300000

350000

Print Mailing Web

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

Effect of OA on subscriptions

OA as a tool for dissemination

Open access

Increased visibility

Larger readership

Wider recognition

Increased citations

More authors

and other benefits

Circle ofaccessibility

Conclusions• OA is increasing the visibility, accessibility and

impact of some of the journals from developing countries

• Collaboration is key and low cost • Open linking is crucial• Need to develop value-added services with OA

databases and open standards• Alternative and more inclusive measures of

research impact is emerging but OA is the foundation

• Long term funding is uncertain

Thank you!

Questions?

Please visit:

http://www.bioline.org.br