Bioline International
About Bioline
Established in 1993 in the early days of the Web, Bioline International provides an open-source platform to make visible scientific journals published in the Global South. These journals have been rendered invisible due to an indexing system controlled and designed by powerful entities to favour knowledge from the North.
The questions we were interested in were:
- Whether “Open Access” would enable global South journals to bypass this key structural barrier;
- Whether South-South flow of knowledge could lead to the de-centering of the North as the “centre” of knowledge production and legitimation
- Being a largely volunteer-supported and highly distributed global collaboration, how could the infrastructure and processes of production and circulation be sustained? Specifically, what would be the appropriate funding models for initiatives that contribute to a global knowledge commons?
Behind the Scenes
Bioline International – Lightning Talk
The 2021 Summer Bioline International team at the Knowledge Equity Lab gave a Lightning Talk to share some of the Behind the Scenes work on how journals are updated and maintained.
Bioline Co-founders at Knowledge Equity Lab
At the Knowledge Equity Lab Launch Party, Open Access pioneers and Bioline International co-founders Barbara Kirsop and Vanderlei Canhos shared their history and experiences launching the open access publishing platform.
Impact
“No other service has given so much visibility to local content from Nigeria as Bioline International has done. I do hope that more journals published in Nigeria will be added to the existing list in the future.”
Grace A. Ajuwon, E. Latunde Odeku Medical Library, College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, Nigeria
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Average number of downloads per year (2015-2019)
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Average number of visitors per year (2015-2019)
Reducing Health Inequity Through Local Knowledge Production: The Case of African Health Sciences
Dr. James Tumwine is a recently retired Professor of Paediatrics and Child Health, at the School of Medicine, College of Health Sciences in Makerere University at Mulago Hospital in Kampala, Uganda. Professor Tumwine is also the founder and Editor-in-Chief of African Health Sciences, a free, open access, internationally refereed, multidisciplinary journal publishing original articles on research, clinical practice, public health, policy, planning, and implementation and evaluation in health and related sciences in African countries. This journal is indexed on Bioline International. In this podcast episode, Dr. Tumwine speaks to the barriers of academic publishing for those from the African continent.
Key Partners
Reference Center on Environmental Information (CRIA)
Based in Brazil, CRIA provides server hosting, administration, and server development on a volunteer basis.
Digital Scholarship Unit at the University of Toronto Scarborough
The Knowledge Equity Lab and and the UTSC Library collaborate to oversee content management, project development and research.