Introducing Ameli Blog
Claudio Amescua and Omar M. Gallardo
Ameli Blog is a space for multiple—critical and creative—reflection on the great Open Access issues that Latin America and the whole Global South face. This blog aims to be the greatest means of communication for reference where the clearest intelligences converge to collaboratively set up a common work agenda by which the design and implementation of the Open Access (OA) scientific policy might be effective in the countries from the region.
This is a call for all academics, students, researchers, editors and any stakeholder that partakes in the editorial and scientific communication world, to share ideas and proposals so that the scholarly nature of scientific publishing be, in some cases recovered, and in others, kept.
With this in mind, the contributions shared will be articulated through the principles and values of AmeliCA, whose fundamental goal is to consolidate Open Access strategies for the countries of the region as a true alternative to the commercialisation of science financed with public resources.
Social sciences and humanities have formed and consolidated their own circuits of scientific conversation, which in the last years have been threatened by the homogenisation of the Global North model. In this sense, AmeliCA recovers and promotes the old debate on the scientific status of these fields.
Historically, social sciences and humanities have formed and consolidated their own circuits of scientific conversation, which in the last years have been threatened by the homogenisation of the Global North model. In this sense, AmeliCA recovers and promotes the old debate on the scientific status of these fields. Appeals to and promotes the non-subordinate inclusion of these fields to the rule of natural sciences. Precisely, this is about building an assessment system in accordance with the nature of each field of knowledge, which means, amongst other things, stop sacralising the scientific article as the sole valid means of scientific communication.
Regarding this, OA means overcoming the current reign of academic assessment, which is based, unidirectionally, on the impact factor and citation numbers. The aim is to subvert this model with more comprehensive criteria of scientific performance.
Lastly, this communication tool aims to, in the medium term, build a regional system of bibliometric indicators different, in matter and manner, from the current monopoly of indicator generation that Scopus and Clarivate and their emulators promote in the region. Hence, the texts gathered in this space will work as a guide to join, innovatively, science’s global conversation via academic principles and values. To this aim, the platform of principles that DORA, CLACSO, Latindex and Redalyc represent, supported by many universities, institutions and research centres, will be essential to solidify a true Global South Open Access policy.
