User:Filippo Morsiani/Open access in Madagascar

Open Access in Madagascar is facilitated through the Madagascar Conservation & Development open access journal which publishes research on Madagascar and the Western Indian Ocean islands. Madagascar based researchers publish in international open access journals.

Open access journals
Madagascar Conservation & Development is an open access journal published by the Missouri Botanical Garden, the Madagascar Research and Conservation Program and the Institute and Museum of Anthropology at the University of Zurich. The journal is devoted to the swift dissemination of current research in and on Madagascar and the Western Indian Ocean islands. Manuscript submission, peer review, and publication are all handled on the internet. This open access journal publishes original research, field surveys, advances in field and laboratory techniques, book reviews, and informal status reports from research, conservation, development and management programs and in-field projects in Madagascar. In addition notes on changes in the legal status of any species (IUCN, CITES) or land (Protected Areas) existing in Madagascar are published. The journal is indexed in DOAJ, ROAD and AJOL. The journal has signed the Budapest Open Access Initiative.

Madagascar Conservation & Development uses Open Journal Systems 2.2.2.0, an open source journal management and publishing software developed, supported, and freely distributed by the Public Knowledge Project under the GNU General Public License. The software automates all clerical steps during peer review, facilitates a double-blind peer review process, and allows authors and editors to follow the progress of peer review on the internet. As articles are accepted, they are published in an "Issue in Progress." At six month intervals (e.g., June and December) the Issue-in-Progress is declared a New Issue, and journal subscribers receive the Table of Contents of the issue via email. Madagascar Conservation & Development’s turn-around time (from first submission to publication) averages around 200 days.

The Directory of Open Access Scholarly Resources (ROAD) also lists the Indian Ocean review of science and technology, an open access journal launched in 2013.

Madagascar based researchers
Madagascar based researchers publish articles in international open access journals, for example: in 2013 58 articles have been published with BioMed Central – an STM (Science, Technology and Medicine) publisher, and among them there are highly accessed articles by researchers from the Centre National d'Application des Recherches Pharmaceutiques, Conservation International Madagascar, the Field Museum of Natural History, the Hôpital Joseph Raseta Befelatanana, IMRA, the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, the Institut Pasteur de Madagascar, Ministère de la Santé, du Planning Familial et de la Protection Sociale, Service de Santé de District de Moramanga, UNICEF, Université d'Antananarivo and WHO.

61 articles have been published in Public Library of Science (PLoS) international Open Access journals: PLoS ONE, PLoS Genetics, PLoS Medicine, PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, as well as in PLoS Currents by researchers from the Département Biologie Animale, Ecole Normale Supérieure and Museum of Art and Archaeology, Université d'Antananarivo; Département de Recherches Forestières et Piscicoles; DRP Forêt et Biodiversité; Epidemiology Unit, IPM; FOFIFA-DRZV; Institut Pasteur de Madagascar; Laboratoire de Pharmacognosie Appliquée aux Maladies Infectieuses, Institut Malgache de Recherches Appliquées; Parc Botanique et Zoologique de Tsimbazaza; and Wildlife Conservation Society-Madagascar Country Program.