The International Seminar on Open Access for Developing Countries is being organized by BIREME/PAHO/WHO as a parallel meeting of the 9th World Congress on Health Information and Libraries in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil.

The objectives of the Seminar are:

• to bring together various initiatives within the open-access movement

• to discuss ways to improve visibility, accessibility, quality, and impact of journals from developing countries

Who should attend: science editors, information professionals, researchers and all those interested in electronic publishing and the Open Access movement.

Terms of Reference:

1) Initiatives within the open access movement (with focus on what all of this means for developing countries):

• discussion on the pros and cons of open access
• different models used and paths to achieving open access to the health literature
• research reports and open access
• democratizing access to scientific and health-related information
• economics of scientific publishing and implications of the various open-access models
• copyright and intellectual property

2) Open Access and the journals from developing countries

• what does it means to bring journals online
• publishing models for open-access journals
• financing and sustaining open access journals in developing countries
• costs associated with open access in developing countries
• language barriers and translation
• training information specialists and users on searching and accessing health literature