Scientific journals in Brazil and Spain: Alternative publishing models

This paper describes the situation of high-quality journals in Brazil and Spain, with emphasis on the distribution models used. It presents the general characteristics (age, type of publisher and theme) and analyses the distribution model by studying the type of format (print or digital), the type of access (open access or subscription) and the technology platform used. The 549 journals analyzed (249 in Brazil and 300 in Spain) are included in the 2011 lists of the WoS and Scopus databases. Data on each journal were collected directly from their websites between March and October 2012. Brazil has a fully open access distribution model (97%) in which few journals require payment by authors thanks to cultural, financial, operational and technological support provided by public agencies. In Spain open access journals account for 55% of the total and have also received support from public agencies, although to a lesser extent. These results show that there are systems for the progress of open access in scientific journals other than the “author pays” system advocated by the Finch report for the United Kingdom.