Introduction

As of March 2021, Venezuela has registered 16 OA digital repositories in OpenDOAR, mainly thesis collections in university repositories and journal articles. Venezuela also participates in Cybertesis. International OA Policy databases such as ROARMAP currently register two institutional OA Policies from Venezuela.

A study (Open Access Indicators and Scholarly Communications in Latin America) shows that, as of 2014, 4.73% of OA journals indexed in Latindex, 7.74% of OA journals indexed in RedALyC and 5.69% of OA journals indexed in SciELO are published in Venezuela. This corresponds to a total of 256, 54 and 51 locally published OA journals respectively.

Enabling Environment

The University of Los Andes is very active in promotion of open access and has an open access resolution (CU-0580, year 2008), registered in ROARMAP, for all theses and publications from the University to be deposited in the institutional repositories. In total there are 4 policies registered in ROARMAP as of 2021.

As of March 2021,  DOAJ currently has 38 open access full-text journals from Venezuela. The national focal point of Latindex in Venezuela is the National Fund for Science, Technology and Innovation FONACIT. In ROAD, 3 OA journals are currently indexed.

The Index and Electronic Library of Science and Technology Journals from Venezuela REVENCYT (Indice y Biblioteca Electrónica de Revistas Venezolanas de Ciencia y Tecnología) was developed by the Foundation for Science and Technology Development from Mérida (Fundación para el Desarrollo de la Ciencia y la Tecnología del estado Mérida) and the Andes University (Universidad de los Andes, ULA) for access to certified quality journals.

An agreement of REVENCYT with Redalyc ensures that peer-review journals from Venezuela are indexed in the Venezuela collection within Redalyc, today with 56 peer-review open access full-text journals, with bibliometric indicators and the scientometric atlas of Venezuela.

Venezuela participates in open access regional subject repositories with a growing number of full-texts, examples: health (BVS), agriculture (SIDALC), science (PERIÓDICA), education (Relpe), public management and policies (CLAD-SIARE), social sciences (CLACSO, FLACSO, CLASE), work (LABORDOC), information science (E-Lis), among others.

Key Organizations

The National Center of Technological Research (Centro Nacional de Investigación Tecnológica - CENIT) and its National Academic Network (Red Académica Nacional-Reacciun) are the national focal point of RedCLARA (Latin America Cooperation of Advanced Networks) and of the Latin America Network of Institutional Repositories National Systems (Red Federada Latinoamericana de Repositorios Institucionales de Documentación Científica). The University of Los Andes is a member of CoLaBoRa, the Latin America Community of Digital Libraries and Repositories.

The Venezuelan Academic Digital Library (Biblioteca Digital Académica Venezolana, BDAV) is a program of the National Association of Directors of Academic, University and Research Libraries and Information Services (Asociación Nacional de Directores de Bibliotecas, Redes y Servicios de Información del Sector Académico, Universitario y de Investigación-ANABISAI) together with Universidad de los Andes. BDAV is a harvester of institutional repositories from Venezuela, with search facilities for users.

Universidad de Oriente (UDO) is a partner that contributes contents in The Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC), which provides users with open access to Caribbean cultural, historical and research. And three university libraries from Venezuela participate with full-texts in the Andean Digital Library (Biblioteca Digital Andina).

The Scielo Venezuela collection has 51 full-text peer-review journals from Venezuela. It has been developed by the Biomedical National Documentation and Information System (Sistema Nacional de Documentación e Información Biomédica -SINADIB), the Ministry of Science and Technology (Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología- MCT), the National Fund for Technology and Innovation (Fondo Nacional de Tecnología e Innovación - FONACIT), the Foundation National Center for Technological Innovation (Fundación Centro Nacional de Innovación Tecnológica - CENIT) with support from BIREME/OPS/OMS and the Faculty of Medicine of the Central Univesity of Venezuela (Facultad de Medicina de la Universidad Central de Venezuela.

The University of Zulia (Revicyh), for journals from the University, has developed an open access journal portal with OJS.

Creative Commons Venezuela promotes the use of open access licenses in the country.

The University of Los Andes in Mérida has developed the wiki Open Access in Latin America (Acceso Abierto Latinamérica).

Events and Programmes:

La Universidad de Carabobo divulga su conocimiento abierto, October 25, 2018 from 9am to 12pm – Venezuela, Venezuela, Organized by Waleska Franquiz, Type: académico

¿Qué es el Open Access? Tendencias en el mundo y Venezuela, October 27, 2016 from 3:30pm to 6pm – Venezuela, Venezuela, Organized by Luis Miguel Montilla, Type: conversatorio

Claves del Acceso Abierto en Venezuela, October 19, 2015 from 10am to 11:30am – Venezuela, Venezuela, Organized by Jacinto Dávila (CESIMO-ULA), Type: talk

“La Universidad de Carabobo incursiona en el Acceso Abierto”, October 22, 2015 from 8am to 12pm – Venezuela, Venezuela, Organized by Dirección General de Biblioteca Central de la Universidad de Carabobo-Vicerrectorado Académico, Type: evento, académico

14 October 2014: Seminar "What is open Access?" held in Universidad de los Andes, Venezuela.

5-8 March 2013: 30 experts and Policy specialists from 25 countries including Belize; Virgin Islands; St Vincent and Grenadines; St Kitts and Nevis and St Martin; Argentina; Brazil; Chile; Costa Rica; Dominican Republic; El Salvador; Guatemala; Uruguay and Mexico gathered in Kingston to develop strategies and a road map to implement open access policies in the Latin American and Caribbean Region. This was the first regional consultation on open access to scientific information and research organized by the UNESCO Kingston Cluster office in collaboration with Ministry of Science, Technology, Energy and Mining, Ministry of Information, Government of Jamaica, University of West Indies and UNESCO National Commission for Jamaica. Workshop participants had the opportunity to contribute towards highlighting priority areas for intervention to achieve “Openness” in the region and individual countries. Participants reviewed the UNESCO OA policy templates and worked out specific policies for their own country/institution.

Claves del Acceso Abierto en Venezuela               October 19, 2015 from 10am to 11:30am – Venezuela  October 19, 2015      2015-10-19          Venezuela          Organized by Jacinto Dávila (CESIMO-ULA) | Type: talk

“La Universidad de Carabobo incursiona en el Acceso Abierto”  October 22, 2015 from 8am to 12pm – Venezuela                October 22, 2015             2015-10-22         Venezuela          Organized by Dirección General de Biblioteca Central de la Universidad de Carabobo-Vicerrectorado Académico | Type: evento, académico

La Universidad de Carabobo divulga su conocimiento abierto     October 25, 2018 from 9am to 12pm – Venezuela                October 25, 2018             2018-10-25         Venezuela          Organized by Waleska Franquiz | Type: académico

¿Qué es el Open Access? Tendencias en el mundo y Venezuela October 27, 2016 from 3:30pm to 6pm – Venezuela                October 27, 2016             2016-10-27         Venezuela          Organized by Luis Miguel Montilla | Type: conversatorio

Publications

2014: "Open Access Indicators and Scholarly Communications in Latin America" is the result of a joint research and development project supported by UNESCO and undertaken by UNESCO in partnership with the Public Knowledge Project (PKP); the Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO); the Network of Scientific Journals of Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal (RedALyC); Africa Journals Online (AJOL); the Latin America Social Science School- Brazil (FLACSO-Brazil); and the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO).

Babini, D., and J. D. Machin-Mastromatteo. 2015. “Latin American Science Is Meant to Be Open Access: Initiatives and Current Challenges.” Information Development 31(5):477–81. doi: 10.1177/0266666915601420.

Guzmán-Useche, E., and F. Rodríguez-Contreras. 2021. “Sustainability of Latin American Initiatives That Publish Open Access Journals Using the XML-JATS Standard: The Case Redalyc [Sustentabilidad de Las Iniciativas Latinoamericanas de Publicación de Revistas Científicas En Acceso Abierto Utilizando El Estándar XML JATS: El Caso de Redalyc].” Biblios (76):10–22. doi: 10.5195/BIBLIOS.2019.588.

López, M. G., A. J. M. Escalante, and S. Sánchez-Alonso. 2007. “Reusability of Learning Objects Stored in Open Access Repositories [Reusabilidad de Los Objetos de Aprendizaje Almacenados En Repositorios de Libre Acceso].” in CEUR Workshop Proceedings. Vol. 318.

Salager-Meyer, F. 2012. “The Open Access Movement or ‘Edemocracy’1: Its Birth, Rise, Problems and Solutions [El Movimiento de Acceso Abierto o La ‘e-Democracia’: Nacimiento, Crecimiento, Problemas y Soluciones].” Iberica 24:55–73.

Salager-Meyer, F. 2017. Open Access: The next Model for Research Dissemination?