Open Access and Multilingual Approach to Communication Journals – The case and the editor’s perspective of Observatorio (OBS*) Journal and the importance of Open Science for the Knowledge Society

This paper is about the contribution of the network society to a more open and cross-cultural way of making and publishing science. Basically, and speaking of Observatorio (OBS*) e-journal that has been published by OberCom-Lisbon, we believe that it might be relevant to note the tendency that science, in relation to its distribution model, has been showing lately. We think more traditional ways of publishing science in closed platforms (as paper format), where legitimacy was only dependent on the strict editorial team, has definitely lost its space in scientific publications on open online platforms, where legitimacy is now managed from the contribution of several experts: a model named Open Science. The open science movement replaces the traditional, hierarchical and centralized logic with more dynamic horizontal collaboration among peers: a form of community production, decentralized and self-selective. One can say that the growth of the OBS* e-journal in Portugal, rather than other scientific journals in the same areas, but in more traditional formats, clearly demonstrates that a self-centred science with fewer users and whose distribution of produced knowledge implies bigger reliance on funding, is giving rise to a more open science with more users, for whom the transmission of produced knowledge is more autonomous, effective, cheaper, etc.


And here appears the relationship of Open Science with the questions raised in Information
Society and its technological basis, in the sense the latter appears as the transition facilitator of a traditional science publication, self-centred and closed, to a more open science, of free reference. If we want to establish here a parallel with the jounal that is a case study for this article, Observatorio (OBS*), we can state that this chain process: information technologiesonline publication platforms -knowledge dissemination, is not more than the reinvention of a previous structure of scientific production-diffusion, obsolete, which, as will shall demonstrate in 4, presents results below the dissemination potentiality of scientific knowledge made possible by this new symbiosis between information society and open science.
In general, in order to have an idea of the range of this problematic, we could remind the concept of Lisbon Agenda, at a time Europe started to lose ground to the United States (beginning of the nineties) and at the end of the European catching-up to more developed countries (Japan and USA), it was clear that creating new competitive platforms was fundamental to sustain the European model. This idea prepared the transition towards knowledge-based economy and society, through the application of better policies within more ambitious research and development policy, that could close in on the one practised by the American model. The reason was simple: only with a bet on R&D it is possible to produce an essential source of knowledge creation, performing a crucial role in understanding the world we live in and also in improving the quality of life, social cohesion and governance models (Rodrigues et al, 2009: p.46).
The Lisbon Agenda was translated into new general orientations for the following policies: information society, research and development, innovation, enterprise, education, etc (Ibid).
In conclusion, we could say that events such as the ones leading to the creation of Observatorio (OBS*) (whose existence in Open Access appears as a formula enabling authors and their articles a maximum public exposure) are the ones allowing to sustain this transition from a more closed and inaccessible knowledge model, as the one we knew with the previous print run publication model, towards a knowledge society where information democratisation and reach have a magnitude never seen before.

Society.
What is science? How does Open Science appear?
It is important to situate our study object from the theoretical point of view, conceptually understanding the path science has taken, from the production-distribution point of view.

First of all, what is science in fact?
The most consensual idea is, that science is made of a set of systematic research and investigation practices, with the purpose of creating knowledge about reality. Where does the open science concept come in, in partnership or community, crucial for the development of this text's problematic? Daston (in Becker, 2001: p.5) mentions that, during the search for knowledge about reality, the conquest of scientific objectivity is made in a communitarian way, an universe of collaborations stimulated by improvements in the means of transportation and communication, creating -increasingly vast and densely connected viewer networks‖. Thus, availability, and the possibility to reuse scientific data; public availability and scientific communication transparency and Web tools use to enable scientific collaboration.
Competitiveness and secrecy that oriented scientific work in the past, no longer seem to fit in the new visions of science for a growing number of researchers. In fact, Internet is becoming a support for scientists to make available laboratorial notes and first discoveries, increasing the scientific rhythm and being part of a broader debate dimension. These new practices do not fit the traditional academic culture, where typically scientists work alone, without disclosing results until its publication and without deepening all the details of the research process. This allows them to disclose their results and laboratorial notes to others, in any part of the globe. It also allows broadening debate inside and outside academia, integrating contributions and increasing the possibility of interdisciplinarity. As Cardoso (et al: 2009) states, it is a decentralisation process that strengthens knowledge reuse and dissemination at the same time it increases its recreation.
The Open Science movement, like Open source, substitutes traditional hierarchical logics, centralised by modular strategies, for horizontal dynamics of peer collaboration. Yochai Benkler called this -peer-production‖ (Benkler, 2002: p.8).
Source: (Klump et al, 2006:p.2) This is a figure demonstrative of what happens, the dashed lines symbolising limited publication of data in conventional scientific journals. The remaining journals/publications are online and benefiting from a greater diversity of arrival points, as demonstrated by the uninterrupted lines.
More than a debate about publication systems, The Open Access is created as a social movement born in the scientific community, structuring itself around the idea of scientific knowledge as a public asset that should, therefore, be accessible to all. Maybe we can now Open Access contributions in order to guarantee scientific quality and good practices, d) advocacy of the acknowledgement of Open Access publication and e) compensation of the authors of the articles, not in terms of royalties or copyrights, but prestige for publishing in journals influential in their field.

OBS* as a Case Study
Observatorio (OBS*) is an international interdisciplinary e-journal that publishes peer- The multilingual approach of (OBS*) is one of its distinctive characteristics. The e-journal accepts and publishes manuscripts submitted in English, Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese, What is intended here is, taking advantage of several statistic linked to (OBS*) growth, to verify until what point an online jounal like (OBS*), centred in the fields of media and communication, largely surpasses the spectrum of publication consumption in similar areas, but in the traditional format (paper or book). This way, we can notice OBS* has been having an exponential growth in different aspects, not only the number of access to the online platform that gives access to all published texts, but also on the number of downloads and article consultation. Ultimately, (OBS*) approach has a special importance in the sense it appears as a consistent and practical explanation of the theoretical assumptions Knowledge Society is based upon, highlighting at the same time the relevance and contribution of Open Science towards the prosecution of this paradigm change, which goes from the self-centred, closed and small reach knowledge Society, to a more accessible knowledge Society, which content democratization is explained by the greater range it has under the accessibility point of view.

Monthly Historyyear of 2007 (the beginning of OBS*)
On the other hand, there are two other aspects that appear to regulate the success of a scientific journal and its credibility in Academia.
To begin with, we must mention the editorial board as the first impact in approaching the journal. It is quite relevant the first impression that the author establishes with the journal in a people, and growing, in number of users, in a way that is continuous and non-dependant of financing or other party's idiosyncrasies, such as designers, publishers, etc. -The average price of a science journal has risen four times faster than inflation for the past two decades.
The result is an access crisis in which no institutions can afford access to the full range of journals.‖ -The price of journals increased considerably in the last two decades, generating an access crisis and forcing institutions to cancel subscriptions‖ (Canessa, Zennaro, 2008: p.14).
In the same sense, Cardoso (et al: 2009) states the rise in subscription prices generated concern and revolt regarding commercial publication in the academic world. There are even examples of already perfectly established publications in the scientific domain, that have decided to add to the paper publication the possibility of those same content being available on the Internet, perhaps with the intention of beginning to move in safer ground or choosing a progressive transition towards the digital format alone (see On the other hand, the main limitations of a platform such as (OBS*), which supports scientific knowledge production and distribution in the models we have already defined, ends up by finding some conflict points in this triad relationship, this is between the author, the journal and its act of moderating, and the reviewers. What is the reason for this conflict? If we want to be clear, any signs of disagreement between the three parties will always have its origins in individual wills. If on one side, it is quite possible that reviewers suggest alterations to the original model submitted by the author, on another side it is also possible that the author does not acknowledge such suggestions made by the reviewers. In parallel, there is also the danger of elongating too much the reviewing process of articles that are presented to us. Therefore, if the previous problem was related with the lack of convergence of opinions between the parties involved in the process, here the problem lies in a certain absence of commentary or attention from the person proposed to review. This means that, as reviewers are proposed, if we do not receive an answer from them, the authors end up reminding us they have a submitted article without reply, which may discredit the journal with this potential author and collaborator of the publication.
Dear editors, more than a year has passed now since we submitted our paperwe have not received any reviews yet. Just now I found a mail in your review system asking for incorporating changes for the April edition. We never got that notification e-mail nor any reviews. (Anonymous 4) Therefore, more than a monitoring and organisation role, the role of the editing team of a scientific journal with an online publication must be an appeasing one, in the sense of managing conflicts and attempting to promote and converge the author's and reviewers wills.
Ultimately, unlike traditional publications, where the choice of written articles follows an unilateral publication logic, where the editorial will and decision process are sovereign, in online journals and publications (to which (OBS*) belongs), the final decision goes through three parts, and balance is not so easy to achieve.
Beyond all this, as mentioned above, this kind of journals depend largely on the first impact that the authors establish with the journal and, as we have already stated, the two most important aspects for an initial impact are: a <strong> board of associate editors, renowned and with recognized merit as well as the association of the journal to some indexing systems (such as ISI) that facilitate the global access to articles published in each issue. And this is not always easy, since these processes are slow and depend on the agreement of many individual wills to be succeed. And, moreover, -the use of indexing systems may ensure quality, but it discriminates against smaller journals and new journals trying to get a foothold‖ (Leibman, founding editor of IJEM, in World Association of Medical Editors: http://www.wame.org/wame-listserve-discussions/the-role-of-indexing-systems).
However, we could say that these cons of the existence of an online scientific publication are, at the most, small obstacles when compared with the great advantages linked to it, whether at the author level, with a greater dispersion of articles signed in exclusivity, whether at the consumption level, since it blurs that restraining dualism between those that have no way of consuming science and those that have and therefore use it.
Deep down, the expression Scientific Philanthropy is the best to define such process, since all parts of a system seem to benefit, including the whole, that establishes itself with a real approach to what we previously defined as Knowledge and Information Societies or the pillar of growing societies.