The SciELO Model

Abel L. Packer

SciELO - Scientific Electronic Library Online (www.scielo.org) is part of the current remodelling movement of the scientific information cycle that is taking place worldwide. This movement encompasses the convergence of players, instances and processes around Internet common workspaces that are progressively smoothing the flow of information towards the establishment of a continuum among authors and readers. Electronic publishing evolves around this movement. From the single transport of electronic images of the classical paper based scientific journals, the electronic publishing is promising to reshape the entire scientific communication. The SciELO Model, whilst part of this planetary movement, centers its operation on the scientific communication of developing countries, which historical development is characterized by a severe marginalization of the international mainstream scientific communication centered in the developed countries. The ultimate objective of the SciELO Model is to contribute to properly value developing countries scientific communication, particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean. The model consists of three components. The first is the continued development of the SciELO Methodology as a common and affordable methodology to edit, storage, build Internet hyperlinks, publish, disseminate, and evaluate scientific journals, which makes intensive usage of appropriate information technologies, and follows international developments in electronic publishing. This methodology intends to facilitate the transition from paper based to the electronic publishing movement. The second component is composed of SciELO Sites, which are collections of scientific journals published on the Internet using the SciELO Methodology. SciELO Sites are developed at national and thematic levels in order to maximize visibility and accessibility of collections and individual journals. The SciELO site composes an environment that induces individual journals to improve quality. The third component is the continued development of a network of SciELO Sites, improving scientific communication in developing countries. The SciELO Model is operated in Brazil (www.scielo.br), Chile (www.scielo.cl), Costa Rica (www.scielo.sa.cr), and Cuba (www.sld.cu/scielo), publishing together over 70 journal titles and 7,000 full-text articles. A collection of the best scientific journals related to public health in Latin America and Spain is also operated as a SciELO thematic collection (www.scielosp.org). New SciELO national and thematic collections are expected to be operational in the near future. An unique envisaged product of the emerging SciELO network of sites is the development of Latin American and Caribbean indexes to measure the usage and impact of the scientific communication in the region.