Open Access in Latin America/Ewout ter Haar

• When and why did your interest in Open Access begin?

• Around 2004, as a natural progression from my interest in open source. Also the XXX preprint archive was relatively well-known among physicists (although not so much among condensed matter physicists, as I was then).

• How would you describe your current role within the OA movement?

• A relatively well-informed by-stander, who very occasionally does outreach activities among colleagues.

• How do you define OA? (free of cost v. open licensed or both?

• We are talking about OA to the scientific literature, right? In that case, OA for me is free, over the internet, with no requirement for open licensing.

• What route to OA do you prefer or support and why? (Gold road v. green road)

• Neither: my preferred model is the Brazilian Scielo model: state financed OA jornal platforms, preferably combined with institutional repositories. Private enterprises may have some role in scientific communication, but the long term preservation and dissemination infrastructure should be provided by public means.

• Are you involved in any specific OA project? If so, can you tell us some about it.

• Not OA to the scientific literature. But in my job I provide web-based tools with the aim for academics to experiment with new communication platforms.

• How do you see scholarly publishing in Brazil? What is the cycle and incentives? (if you know, please compare to the USA scenario)

• In physics, there is a lot of pressure to publish in high-status, usually american or european jornals. In education research, people publish in conferences. There is little pressure to publish in OA venues, but no big objections too.

• Why do you think open access policies have faced so many barriers in Brazil? (Here I refer to bills proposed and archived)

• I think initiatives have failed because of lack of interest from politicians in the executive branch, which in turn may be explained by lack of general interest and maybe the publishers lobby. But mostly, I think there is no sense of urgency in society as a whole.

• What do you see in terms of institutional open access policies in Brazil? Are there institutional policies mandating OA in Brazil or in Brazilian institutions? (Here I refer to university or other policies, proposed and/or implemented)

• Well, there is now a deposit mandate at USP, but it still needs to be implemented and widely adopted. The federal-level deposit mandate for theses were very successful.

• What is the role of Universities in OA in Brazil, and what should that role be in order to foster OA?

• They have a fundamental role in OA to the scientific literature, since almost all of it is produced by them. They should have institutional deposit mandates and give incentives to publish in OA jornals.

• What is the role of Libraries in OA in Brazil, and what should that role be in order to foster OA?
• Who do you consider the main allies of OA in Brazil?

• Scientists, teachers

• Who do you consider the main opponents of OA in Brazil?

• Publishers

• Do you know how much the government invests every year in public research? If so, what is the number you have?

• USP has a budget of 4 bi. The three state universities together have about 8 or 9 bi. I think the state universities of SP are responsible for most (maybe half?) of the research output in Brazil, so I guess the number I would guess is about 10 - 20 bi for brazil as a whole. Still, the question is ill-posed. What do you mean by "public research"? Meteorological institutes, aero-spacial industry (for example) would count?

• What is the role of government agencies in Brazil and what should be their role in regard to fostering OA?

• They should set policies, in particular ,OA policies.

• What are the main barriers to OA in Brazil?

• General awareness of the logic of OA and the perverseness of the current publisher-led system.

• Is there a supporting community for OA in Brazil?
• What were/are the main community driven activities or manifestos prol OA n Brazil?
• Is there technical structure supporting OA flourishing in Brazil? Is there attention to open standards and interoperability standards for a repository infrastructure?

• Open source is strong in Brazil. Likewise, among TI specialist that I am aware of, Open standards, open source etc. has high status. I don't know of any proprietary repository software used here. This is not the case for library software though, where commercial offerings are still the norm.

• Are publishers open to OA in Brazil?

• I don't really know of any scientific publishers in Brazil (as opposed to educational publishers). But the societies I know about are not OA friendly. Just now, the physics society (SBF) "sold" their flagship jornal to Springer. The argument is "quality" and the perception that commercial publishers have more status.

• What is the role of institutions such as IBICT and SciELO in Brazil?

• To do their job using OA principles. First of all, to do their job, as best they can. And do this, using OA principles.