Journal of Oral Sciences (BJOS) just announced its inclusion in Scielo’s database. The news was enthusiastically received by the magazine's editorial board and we share here the reasons for such euphoria.
SciELO (Scientific Electronic Library Online) was created in 1998 aiming to contribute to the strengthening of scientific communication, as it provides open access to its entire collection. Extremely expensive for researchers and libraries - scientific articles coming from researches were not provided for free, restricting the spread of knowledge. Private companies and scientific publishers have become slower and less efficient on sharing information by the so-called "pay-wall", as it is known access to articles only after paying a fee.
Open Access, the system adopted by Scielo, increased the number of articles published by researchers. From 1999 to 2018, there was a 446% increase in the number of publications by Brazilian scientists. Considering that at the time of its creation, only 10 nationally edited journals were indexed to the platform, which today already has more than 1200 journals (almost 40% of national journals indexed) from 16 countries, including Brazil, another 14 Latin Americans and 1 from South Africa, thus verifying its importance. Promoting the improvement of journals throughout its values 一 professionalization, internationalization and sustainability 一, allowing free sharing, which, through bibliometric and bibliography analysis, contributes to the dissemination of Brazilian science.
But what does this mean for Brazilian research and consequently for BJOS? Currently, SciELO is responsible for the increasing visibility and quality of articles in Latin America, even though 90% of its journals have an impact factor (IF) lower than the average of their "international" counterparts. The SciELO's new challenge is to enter the field of international visualization and interest, so that the research published in its database contributes globally. To mitigate this scenario, the academic community must focus on the individual quality of each article cited, generating space for the growth of smaller and local journals.
However, it is important to establish national impact indicators to verify whether Brazilian research contributes to Brazilians themselves, generating an impact on the scientific community. In this aspect, SciELO truly contributes to society, opening the doors of the academy through free access to all its members. After all, science should not only exist for scientists – and for 24 years SciELO has been fundamental for this communication with society.