Open non-commercial access with knowledge in times of COVID-19

THE SCIENTIFIC CONHECIMENTO IN LATIN AMERICA HAS BEEN OPENED HISTORICALLY. CIENTÍFICA COMMUNICATION WITH LUCRATIVE FINES DOES NOT OPEN OR ACCESS ONLY IN CONTINGÊNCIA TIMES! 

The global health emergency that we are currently facing reveals an urgent need for unrestricted scientific knowledge, to the extent that this contributes substantially to the development of vaccines, to the improvement of medical treatments and to the creation of public policies in the midst of pandemics.

It is essential to reflect not only the importance of openness or knowledge, but also the context and the strategies in which it is made, in the achievement of a sustainable phenomenon that does not generate exclusions in the other phases of scientific communication.  

The University of Arizona warns that in response to unprecedented and rapidly changing circumstances in relation to Coronavirus, some publishing groups of academic books and electronic books have temporarily opened access to their contents, which will continue with access that has not been due to the health crisis. Much of the recently released material is only temporarily open. It is not expected that Open Access to these contents will be permanent (excetuating publications or educational materials not previously available).

Some of the responses from publishing companies are given in the following terms:

SAGE Publishing 's statement on COVID-19 included the following: “We have removed the subscription gateway for articles that we believe will be of value to researchers and professionals at this time.”

Springer Nature 's response refers: “Springer Nature is committed to supporting the global response to COVID-19 that allows quick and direct access to the latest research, tests and data available to you.” Springer has made free access to more than 19,000 scientific articles and book chapters, and among others has published more than 490 recent scientific articles on COVID-19.

In turn, Taylor & Francis says: “In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Taylor & Francis allows free access to relevant research tools to support the global effort to diagnose, address and prevent COVID-19.”

Likewise, Elsevier and Wiley provide “full access” to a collection of resources related to Coronavirus and COVID-19. It is important to note that the Elsevier website, Coronavirus Research Hub, states that it will be open only on October 28, 2020.

An emerging opening by two commercial publishing groups only demonstrates that Open Access, as Murray says , saves lives. Daí , or what happens with other things? Is science not the main objective of developing humanity and saving lives? What happens to other problems and conflicts in society that can be addressed through scientific knowledge? Is there a rational justification for not opening the access to the conhecimento, or therefore, opening it only temporarily? What is the basis for opening the contents that decide which scientific discoveries can be opened? What is there not to control to do it?

In times of crisis as you face during the COVID-19 pandemic, information to make appropriate decisions is important. It is not just about offering timely responses, defining relevant public policies and solving management questions immediately, but also about accessing the knowledge and data that are generated daily and that constitutes the scientific foundation applied by experts in communities, in hospitals and in general health centers. Also how we govern ourselves nationally and locally. 

It is also important to have open medical information, just as it is important to know what is happening in the scientific studies that can help us understand society in the current times. Knowing and analyzing the behavior of societies given this situation incomum is also science that helps society.

Latin America is distinguished by maintaining for decades scientific communication established in the academic sector through scientific journals that are only published by institutions in the educational sector, in research centers or universities. Platforms such as Redalyc , Latindex , SciELO , and recently AmeliCA , have contributed to the sustainability, visibility and consolidation of the regional non-commercial Open Access system to scientific newspapers in the region.

The scientific journals of Latin America do not open their content only in contingencies, or do always, indiscriminately and permanently, from a view in the direction of democratization of knowledge and where the beneficiaries are not only the Latin American readers and researchers, but general citizenship. 

The availability of scientific content is what can make it possible to contextualize public policies in Latin American countries, which can lead to solving the most pressing effects of COVID-19 and finding appropriate solutions, in the same way that some countries such as Costa Rica and Argentina are doing in the field of medicine.

Due to COVID-19, scientific journals and platforms have ratified their opening commitment. Redalyc and AmeliCA will organize knowledge related to epidemics, COVID-19 Coronavirus from scientific articles in Acesso Aberto two academic journals that Redalyc indexes ( available here ) to help researchers uncover the data that constituted knowledge from a specialized web researcher and an open dataset in Language Linked Open Data where there is a record of 6,737 scientific articles by 27,336 authors from 65 countries. Another example is the creation of the coronavirus collection in the regional health repository (Virtual Health Library -PAHO, WHO-BIREME-) and the Coronavirus Social Observatory created by CLACSO.

The current emergency period should lead us to think about mechanisms to strengthen our infrastructure and our publications, increase their visibility and ensure their for-profit nature. Let us appeal to the governments and institutions to continue and strengthen their support for non-commercial publications. The previous one is in line with initiatives such as InvestInOpen , which promotes investment in open, non-commercial infrastructure; ou SCOSS (The Global Sustainability Coalition for Open Science Services), a coalition of funders to obtain crowdfunding investment in Open Access and Open Science infrastructure.

Latindex , Redalyc , CLACSO and IBICT , affirm that non-commercial Acesso Aberto and the infrastructures that do not support the mechanisms that protect you and launch “ Mexico's Declaration in favor of the Latin American ecosystem of non-commercial Acesso Aberto ”, a joint declaration on o use of the CC BY-NC-SA license “to guarantee the protection of academic and scientific production in Aberto Access”. Likewise, we recognize that it will not be possible to strengthen non-commercial Open Access until the current assessment systems are modified and the “Declaração de São Francisco sobre Avaliação da Pesquisa (DORA)” is adhered to.

The CLACSO Working Group, Conhecimento Aberto como Bem Comum , constituted by 28 researchers assigned to 13 institutions from 9 countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Spain, Mexico and Uruguay), considers it urgent to focus the efforts of the scientific community in The direction of collaboration and strengthening of access is non-commercial and academically directed. Only in this way can we guarantee that the control, direction and interests of the academic sector are the scientific community and not the interests of commercial corporations. Only in this way can you achieve total Open Access without costs for reading or publishing.

However, the previous one is not new, because we appeal to the open knowledge and product of a reflective and analytical posture that we have assumed in Latin America for decades, always tending as a basis to the experience of the region and the best traditions of knowing how to share the resources that we have. Ultimately, the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the fractures of the commercial publishing system and its power, but also the needs of the Latin American region to achieve the sustainability of its Open Access ecosystem in the future.

09 June 2020
CLACSO Working Group
Conhecimento Aberto as Bem Comum

This statement expresses the position of the Working Group Conhecimento aberto como bem comun and not necessarily that of the centers and institutions that make up the CLACSO international network, its Steering Committee or its Executive Secretariat.

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