Category Archives: oa.uruguay

Research Publishing: Is ‘One Nation, One Subscription’ Pragmatic Reform for India? – The Wire Science

Posted on by

“The story of open access (OA) publishing in India has been a chequered one. While we have had some progress with institutional initiatives, the landscape remains fractured without a national OA mandate. And now some reports suggest that the Indian government is considering striking a ‘one nation, one subscription’ deal with scholarly publishers for access to paywalled research for all of India’s citizens. Only last year, India had decided against joining Plan S. K. VijayRaghavan has been at the helm of these decisions, as the principal scientific advisor to the Government of India….

While it is heartening to see the momentum towards settling on a suitable OA approach, the ‘one nation, one subscription’ scheme is a curious proposition for India. A consortium of Indian science academies had recommended it last year. The scheme entails the Government of India to negotiate for and purchase a single, unified subscription from a consortium of publishers of scientific books and journals, after which the books and papers will be available to all government-funded institutions as well as all tax-payers….

Around the world, this scheme has been implemented in Uruguay and Egypt, while some European countries have adopted versions of it. Experts around the world have suggested that the model could be a feasible interim solution for developing countries. Note that both Egypt and Uruguay obtained financial assistance from the World Bank to secure their deals….”

Biodiversidata: an open-access biodiversity database for Uruguay – IRep – Nottingham Trent University

Posted on by

Abstract

Background

The continental and marine territories of Uruguay are characterised by a rich convergence of multiple biogeographic ecoregions of the Neotropics, making this country a peculiar biodiversity spot. However, despite the biological significance of Uruguay for the South American subcontinent, the distribution of biodiversity patterns in this country remain poorly understood, given the severe gaps in available records of geographic species distributions. Currently, national biodiversity datasets are not openly available and, thus, a dominant proportion of the primary biodiversity data produced by researchers and institutions across Uruguay remains highly dispersed and difficult to access for the wider scientific and environmental community. In this paper, we aim to fill this gap by developing the first comprehensive, open-access database of biodiversity records for Uruguay (Biodiversidata), which is the result of a large-scale collaboration involving experts working across the entire range of taxonomic diversity found in the country. 

New information

As part of the first phase of Biodiversidata, we here present a comprehensive database of tetrapod occurrence records native from Uruguay, with the latest taxonomic updates. The database provides primary biodiversity data on extant Amphibia, Reptilia, Aves and Mammalia species recorded within the country. The total number of records collated is 69,380, spanning 673 species and it is available at the Zenodo repository: https:// doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2650169. This is the largest and most geographically and taxonomically comprehensive database of Uruguayan tetrapod species available to date and it represents the first open repository for the country.

Plan S and the Global South – What do countries in the Global South stand to gain from signing up to Europe’s open access strategy? | Impact of Social Sciences

Posted on by

“Plan S raises challenging questions for the Global South. Even if Plan S fails to achieve its objectives the growing determination in Europe to trigger a “global flip” to open access suggests developing countries will have to develop an alternative strategy. In this post Richard Poynder asks: what might that strategy be?…”

Plan S: What strategy now for the Global South?

Posted on by

“Since the 2002 Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) the OA movement has had many successes, many surprises, and many disappointments. OA initiatives have also often had unintended consequences and the movement has been beset with disagreement, divisiveness, and confusion. In that sense, the noise and rancour surrounding Plan S is nothing new, although the discord is perceptibly greater. What seems clear is that Plan S raises challenging questions for those in the Global South. 1 And even if Plan S fails to win sufficient support to achieve its objectives, ongoing efforts in Europe to trigger a “global flip” to open access, and the way in which open content is likely to be monetised by commercial publishers, both suggest that the South needs to develop its own (alternative) strategy….”