Innovations in Reducing International Knowledge Isolation

First up in this symposium was Alex Deghan, Science and Technology Advisor at USAID. He discussed digital tools to enhance development initiatives, such as a real-time version of Google Earth, and 3D printers to decentralize manufacturing. USAID co-sponsored a grant challenge, Saving Lives at Birth, in which 1/4 of the applications came from the developing world. The 77 finalists attended an event where they exchanged ideas and met with venture capitalists. He also mentioned USAID's PEER program, which partners a US scientist with a developing world scientist, and its University Engagement program.

Charles Dunlap of CRDF Global spoke about the Iraq Virtual Science Library. The Iraq VSL was started in 2006 and handed over to Iraqi control in 2010. It includes a mix of for-profit journals provided at a reduced cost by publishers, and open access journals searchable through the same interface. About 1/2 of downloads are of open access journals. Since its founding in 2006, publications by Iraqi scientists in journals indexed by Web of Science have increased fourfold. CRDF Global has also launched VSLs in Afghanistan, Maghreb (Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco), and Armenia.

Gilbert Omenn talked about Supercourse, the collection of over 5000 freely available epidemiology and global health slide presentations. Visitors to the Supercourse site are free to reuse content in whole or in part. The extensive and engaged network of Supercourse authors has created just-in-time lectures after the Fukushima disaster, Katrina, and other emergencies. There is a new Science Supercourse hosted by the Biblioteca Alexandrina and partners. It already has over 160,000 lectures, features a ratings system, and focuses on public health, computer science, agriculture, and environment.

John Willinsky described his work with Open Journal Systems (OJS), an open source ejournal publishing platform produced by the Public Knowledge Project (PKP). There are currently about 11,500 journals using OJS, half of which are from developing countries, especially in Latin America. A recent survey of 1,000 of these journals found that most were sponsored by academic departments or scholarly societies; only 83% were completely open access, while others were partly OA or charged for access; and the average article processing fee was $140. The PKP is establishing partnerships with libraries for long-term archiving of these journals. Partners include Simon Fraser University, California Digital Library, Stanford University, and University of Pittsburgh.

The last speaker was Leslie Chan of Bioline International. It was one of the earliest sites to offer free access to online journals, and now hosts around 60. Chan has found that most of the barriers to publishing open access are institutional, not financial - academic departments in both developed and developing countries insist that researchers publish in journals indexed by Web of Science. He showed some articles on important development topics which, ironically, were behind steep paywalls so the people who need them most can't access them. Bioline seeks to publish literature that is relevant to people in the developing world, and which is often rejected by high-impact journals. For instance, one author sought to publish her work on indigenous African vegetables, and her paper was rejected by major publishers because it was about "weeds;" she then published in a Bioline journal. Chan mentioned articles which scrutinize the traditional scientific paper and impact factor:

• Peter Medawar's 1964 talk "Is the Scientific Paper a Fraud?"
• The International Mathematical Union's Citation Statistics report
• Retracted Science and the Retraction Index, Infection & Immunity, 8 August 2011
• Open Society Foundations Beyond Impact project
• SURFfoundation report, Users, Narcissism and Control