Ricardo Saraiva, Open Access in Portugal, Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal, posted on August 19, 2009. Abstract:
This report describes the present situation in Portugal concerning Open Access (OA) in scientific publishing. It presents a comprehensive portrait of the Portuguese initiatives related to OA, such as the implementation of open access institutional repositories at various Portuguese universities or research institutes.
This document is commissioned within the RCAAP project and is a deliverable (D30) of the project. The study of the current situation of OA in Portugal is also related with SELL (Southern European Libraries Link) initiative, to assess the situation on southern countries, and will primarily function as a basis for discussion at a seminar which the final aim will be to establish a group of actions in the SELL countries (Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Greece and Turkey) for promoting Open Access to scientific information.
The report starts by providing some contextual background on Open Access and the Portuguese reality related with research and scientific publication. A brief history and evolution of Open Access initiatives in Portugal in the last six years, and the description of the current situation of Portuguese OA repositories and OA journals, constitute the main sections of this reports.
Finally, the report presents some conclusions and recommendations.
From the conclusions:
... As revealed in this study, the number of Portuguese scientific journals is low, many are still published in printed form, and consequently the number of OA journals is also low. ...
Concerning institutional repositories, there was a significant progress on the last years. ... At present time almost all Portuguese universities with significant research output have already or are creating their own institutional repository. ...
In general, the percentage of the institutional research output archived in those repositories is still relatively small (less than 10%). The most successful repositories, like RepositóriUM, from Minho University, are associated with institutional self-archiving policies, requiring, encouraging and/or rewarding deposition of publications. ...
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
