Acooperativestrategytostrengthenthenon-profit
scholarly-ledscientificcommunicationinLatinAmerica
andtheGlobalSouth
Dr. Arianna Becerril García
Chair AmeliCA
Executive Director Redalyc

Open Knowledge for Latin America and the Global South
Latin America has
created and maintains a
non-commercial
structure where
scientific publishing
belongs to academic
institutions and not to
large publishers
Autonomous National University of Mexico

Open Knowledge for Latin America and the Global South
A fee has not been included neither
for authors nor for readers in the
regional editorial tradition.
Every institution supports journals that
are driven by their own faculty
members, and then that content is
made available in OA.
Everyone gets benefit from everyone’s
investment.

Open Knowledge for Latin America and the Global South
Open Access Ecosystem
in Latin America
Nonprofit platforms of
visibility, edition, quality
assurance, metrics
Nonprofit institutional
journal publishing
Mainly public institutions
Key factors:
Cooperation
Networking
Crowdsourcing
Open source software
In-house software
Free software
Nonprofit, mainly public – funded scientific communication system
2,849 journal installations
Scholarly-led scientific communication system

Open Knowledge for Latin America and the Global South
Property
Open access to knowledge is not enough,
we must think about:
There is no guarantee that what it is open know,
continues to be open.
Specially if authors do not hold copyright.
Sustainability
Research assessment
Participation
1
2
3
4
Is it OA long-term guaranteed?
Is it non- profit OA sustainable?
Is it science fairly assessed?
Are there OA platforms included in assessment
criteria?
Are new forms of exclusion emerging?

Open Knowledge for Latin America and the Global South
PROCESSES
OPTIMIZATION EFFICIENCY
IN THE USE OF HUMAN &
ECONOMIC RESOURCES
STRATEGIC
COOPERATION
JOINING
FORCES
To achieve a more equitable access and participation of the South in the
global scientific conversation, it is necessary ...

Redalyc’s technology and
innovation now is extended to
the Global South

Open Knowledge for Latin America and the Global South
Redalyc contributions
at a glance
54.000 Redalyc daily users
10 million article downloads per month
1,300 Peer-reviewed OA journals
629,000 full-text articles
622publisher institutions from 22countries
1.5 million authors from 10.000 institutions

Open Knowledge for Latin America and the Global South
Elsevier’s article of the future
Many functionalities offered by commercial publishers in other parts of
the world are provided for free by Redalyc and now by AmeliCA
vs. Redalyc article
reader technology However, the recognition of
research assessment -by
governments and
institutions- is for what is
present in Scopus
(Elsevier) or WoS. If this
doesn’t change there is no
future for scholarly-led
scientific communication

Open Knowledge for Latin America and the Global South
AmeliCA is a multi-institutional community-driven initiative supported by UNESCO
and led by Redalyc and CLACSO, that arises in response to the international, regional,
national and institutional contexts of Open Access, which seeks a cooperative,
sustainable, protected and non-comercial solution for Open Knowledge in Latin
America and the Global South.
Redalyc along with CLACSO and a dozen of institutions formed a regional
alliance to back and keep the ”organically open and scholarly” OA ecosystem

Conocimiento Abierto para América Latina y el Sur GlobalConocimiento Abierto para América Latina y el Sur Global
Values and principles
2The OA has no future or
meaning without the evolution
of the research assessment
4The transition to digital scientific
communication is an essential
axis
1 Scientific knowledge generated
with public funds is a common
good and access to it is a right
3 The economic investment in
the OA must be consistent with
the benefit to society
5 The Impact Factor must be
overcome as an indicator of
quality and performance

Conocimiento Abierto para América Latina y el Sur GlobalConocimiento Abierto para América Latina y el Sur Global
17 member institutions

Conocimiento Abierto para América Latina y el Sur GlobalConocimiento Abierto para América Latina y el Sur Global
We are commited to improve research assessment
Latindex-Redalyc-CLACSO-Conacyt

www.amelica.org
XML JATS markup tool

Open Knowledge for Latin America and the Global South
Technology and Artificial Intelligence for a
participatory and inclusive science ecosystem.
XML
Open data
Linked data
Knowledge Discovery
Ubiquity
Semantic web
And this is just the beginning…

Open Knowledge for Latin America and the Global South
We must seek as humanity a more equitable participation of all nations in the scientific
discourse that comprehends local agendas, diversity and that contributes in the
reduction of gaps.
We are totally committed in contributing with our technology and knowledge -but
above all- with our willingness to build an alliance in favor of achieving science as
commons.
We imagine ...
A web of data for science, a cloud of
scientific knowledge, sustainable and
open that promotes a participatory and
inclusive science communication.

Open Knowledge for Latin America and the Global South
How could they interact without cause other forms of exclusion?
How could they coexist with their own paradigms without one being imposed to the other?
If one subsystem is altered to emulate the other, new concepts, rules, values and
Different subsystems of science
communication to address Open Access
Different paradigms to address Open Access
Aim to eliminate pay-to-read
bussiness model
Neither a cost for readers nor
for authors
Focused on legacy publishers Natively Open, Scholarly-led, Non-profit
communication system

Commercial publishing
Scholarly-led
Scholarly-supported
Non-profit publishing
Restrictions
to read
Before BOAI

Commercial publishing
Scholarly-led
Scholarly-supported
Non-profit publishing
Restrictions
to publish
Open to read
After BOAI and the pay-to-publish model emerged

Open Knowledge for Latin America and the Global South
Plan S and AmeliCA definitely share a common goal: achieve full and immediate
Open Access to publications from publicly funded research.
AmeliCA is the widening of Redalyc’s work
Redalyc contribution to the regional publishing is shown in the 1,300 journals and more than
half million full-text articles available in Open Access
Plan S and AmeliCA also share the support of DORA
Redalyc last year required as mandatory for a journal to be index the DORA’s signature
DORA recently confirmed that almost 50% of the signatures comes from Redalyc
We celebrate cOAlition S is commited to fulfil the target.
Our concerns about Plan S are not a matter of ends but of means.
Plan S from AmeliCA’s perspective

Open Knowledge for Latin America and the Global South
Global Alignment of Open Access Initiatives (1/4)
Although Plan S is not focus on a single bussiness model, the only one that is
mentioned is APC. If Plan S pursuit global acceptability, the diversity of bussiness
models should receive equal mentions and planned actions, including the definition of
how funding could be given to organisations that implement them. (agree with point
seventh of Martin Eve’s letter).
Case Latin America, publications in Redalyc
X articles in X journals
X publishers (universities and academic societies)
from X countries
They are no-APC but they need funding to
continue publishing
Applying an APC of X, funders would pay X.
The APC model brings a risk of widening the
gap between Latin American research and
international publication;
1
Disruption of a non-profit scholarly-led
publishing ecosystem, which is mainly financed
with public resources –thorugh governments
and universities-.
2
Effects

Open Knowledge for Latin America and the Global South
APC
No APC
A case of APC to non-APC conversion

Open Knowledge for Latin America and the Global South
Highlights
A global flip could only be
achieved if all prevalent
Open Access models at all
regions are recognised.
A global flip cannot emerged
from a self-referenced vision.

Open Knowledge for Latin America and the Global South
Dra. Arianna Becerril García
arianna.becerril@gmail.com
http://www.redalyc.org/autor.oa?id=25
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0278-8295
@ariannabec
Merci beaucoup