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Free Online Content Access for Resource-limited Countries
January 19 to January 20, 2009 Summary: Questions about any downsides of providing free access to journal online content for resource-limited countries are asked but not answered. WAME strongly encourages that journals provide free access to developing countries (see the WAME policy at http://www.wame.org/resources/policies#poor). However, recent information regarding technical issues, use, and success of programs such as HINARI would be welcome. —MW
Our association is driving to provide free access to our journals’ online content for individuals and institutions in “resource-limited” countries. While I applaud the idea, I’m wondering if anyone could share their experiences with this—for example, with technical issues, access abuse, marketing initiatives, etc. Apologies if I’m being vague. Nobody’s quite sure how best to approach this, and I figured it was time to tap the collective wisdom of WAME before trying to reinvent the wheel. I’m particularly interested in hearing how other journals have marketed this.
Bryan Nyary
Managing Editor, LABMEDICINE
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You might find some useful guidance from Health Sciences
Online (www.HSO.info),
which we launched last month. HSO is the first Web site to deliver
authoritative, comprehensive, free, and ad-free health sciences knowledge—you
can search and browse any health sciences topic from over 50,000 courses,
references, guidelines, and other learning resources. Materials are selected
from accredited educational sources including universities, governments, and
professional societies, by HSO staff, and deal with a lot of the issues you're
confronting.
You may also want to look at the Knowledge Hub—one of the 50,000 resources we have spidered, and itself a collection of 10,000+ pathology resources. Its creator, Dr David Hardwick, is here at UBC, and I'd be glad to introduce you, prn....
Hope this helps,
Erica Frank
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This sounds like a great idea—I hope your journal achieves
this laudable goal!
You might get some ideas (definitions, technical stuff, etc) from the HINARI initiative http://www.who.int/hinari/about/en/ or maybe by finding a contact person in one of the publishers who take part in HINARI to learn how they do it.
Liz Wager