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Bioline International:A Model of Collaborative Open

Access Publishing

Leslie ChanAssociate Director, Bioline International

University of Toronto

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History and Mission

• Established in 1993• Explore ways of using ICT to improve

scientific communications• Bridge the South-to-North Knowledge gap• Improving visibility, accessibility, and

research impact of science from developing countries

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…History and Mission

• Making The “Lost Science” Visible• Experimentation with online-only-journal• Explore the impact and potential of open

access• Convert to fully open access provider in

2004

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Partners• CRIA – Centro de Referência em

Informação Ambiental (Campanis, Brazil) www.cria.org.br

(Reference Center for Environmental Information) Make scientific research useful and “useable” in a way that it

can be incorporated in the definition of local, regional and national strategies for conservation and sustainable use of natural resources.

Sidnei de Souza, Vanderlai Canhos, Dora Canhos

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…Partners

• Publishers from Africa (Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda), Latin America (Brazil, Chile, Venezuela), Turkey and India

• See list of Journals• University of Toronto Libraries

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Collaboration provides

• Shared resources and technology• Zero to very low start up cost• Tested technology• Acts as PubMedCentral for less developed

countries• Cross-linking and hyper-linking• Advantage of established ranking and search

positions ( Google Scholar, ISI Web of Content)• Full Integration with Eprints/T-Space server for

long term archiving

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Three Aspects

• Service

• Research

• Development

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Services

• Free electronic publishing, distribution and archiving for participating journals

• Technical support for individual and library users

• Promotion of participating journals to library consortia and research institutions

• Connecting authors and publishers

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Research

• Will open access increase journal usage and sustainability?

• How do researchers in developing countries use publications and what is their citation pattern?

• Does the site of research publication affects the likely impact of research findings on medical practices (Ptolomy project)?

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Development

• Value-added services that improve citation and discovery (e.g. Species linking tool)

• Integration of open-source tools• Create alternative low-cost and collaborative model of

scholarly publishing that is also portable• Technology transfer and human resource development

(partnership with Electronic Publishing Trust for Development and others)

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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

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Problems with journals from DC

Low Circulation

Low submission

Poor VisibilityLost impactThe volume one,

number one syndrome

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Breaking the cycle through open accessWorldwide Circulation

IncreasedSubmission

Improved VisibilityImproved Citation Open

ACCESS

Open

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Journal of Postgraduate Medicine

• Started in 1955• Publication of Staff Society of GS Medical

College and KEM Hospital, India• Covers basic and clinical sciences• Joined Bioline International in June 2002

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Role of JPGM in collaboration

• Content• Promotion • Linking from PubMed as LinkOut• Technology transfer• Encouraging other journals

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What we achieved with open access

• More than one copy of full text openly available– Archives the published data

• More visibility and readers – More citations– More article submission– Articles from all around the world

• International recognition

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Vicious cycle --->Circle of Accessibility

JPGMPubMed

Directories e.g. DOAJ

OAI serversEprints, T-Space

Bioline

SearchEngines

Librarycatalogues

OAI servicese.g. OAIster.org

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Number of articles submitted, JPGM

Data from D.K. Sahu

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004

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2003 2004

Articles received 438 629

Decisions taken 437 550

Submissions and acceptance

rate

Articles accepted 143 [33% ] 106 [19%]

All articles 166 (38%) 189 (30%)Submissions from outside

India Original research papers 15% 31%

Time taken for first decision 24.78 31.82

Days from first submission to

acceptance

62.92 [0 ,

181]

72.48 [0 ,

217]

Journal's performance

Days from acceptance to publication 71.16 [1 ,

192]

74.80 [3 ,

195]

Number of reviewers 1432 1699

Data from D.K. Sahu

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0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

%

2000 2001 2002 2003

From India

Overseas

International submissionsData from D.K. Sahu

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0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Submissions

Countries

UK

USA&

Canada

Europeans

SE AsiaME Aust.

NZ

Data from D.K. Sahu

OPEN ACCESS SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATION WORKSHOP20-21 February 2005, Vilnius, Lithuania

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0

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

0.3

2000 2001 2002 2003

Effect on citationsData from D.K. Sahu

ISI

Impa

ct F

acto

r

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Sources: ISI Web of Science, Scopus, Google Scholar

Publicationyear

Citationyear

Total number ofcitationsin scientific journals (A)

No of articles other thaneditorials, letters, and news(B)

A/B

1998-1999 2000 2 60 0.031999-2000 2001 12 111 0.112000-2001 2002 34 147 0.232001-2002 2003 62 155 0.402002-2003 2004 137 173 0.78

Increasing Citation

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0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

2000 2001 2002 2003

Effect on subscription

Data from D.K. Sahu

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Partnership issues

• Data transfer

• Maintenance and updates

• Copyright issues

• What if such collaboration breaks?

• Long term archiving?

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Lessons Learned

• Journals from DCs are tough to sell - no matter the quality

• Need to consider new sustainability models• Conversion to open access is essential

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…Lessons learned

• Aggregation is important

• Interoperability is crucial - OAI is the glue

• Journal funding should not be tied to subscription return - should be tied to impact

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Future Plans

• Expand the number of journals• Promotion to library consortia• XML for full text• Multilingual content• More sophisticated reference linking

(OpenURL)

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… Future plans

• Improve user interface and linking• Better tracking of usage pattern - Ptolomy

Project• Multiple mirror sites for Bioline - India, Africa

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Conclusions

• Funding agencies must be clear on why they support journals in developing countries– Avoid the Volume 1, number 1 syndrome– Transition to open access with new business

plan• Government agencies should support and

promote local journals - think beyond impact factor, promote open archives and sharing

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…Conclusions

• Open access is only the essential first step. What to do with the open access material is even more critical.

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Please visit

http://www.bioline.org.br

http://bioline.utsc.utoronto.ca(eprints server)

http://tspace.library.utoronto.ca