Throughout 2022, b-on – a FCCN service that guarantees unlimited access to scientific knowledge – recorded growth in the number of downloads and statistics regarding open access publications.
In March, 19 years passed since the start of operations of the b-on – the Online Knowledge LibraryOver the past two decades, this FCCN Unit service has provided research and higher education institutions with unlimited and permanent access to full-text articles from thousands of scientific journals and online ebooks from some of the most important content providers. This service is guaranteed through subscriptions negotiated nationwide.
In 2022, b-on provided this access to 64 institutions, representing a total of 420,000 potential users. Throughout the year, a total of 19.5 million downloads were made, a 12.5% increase compared to the previous year.
On the other hand, 2022 marked the first year of a new cycle of contracts signed by b-on for the provision of scientific content. In total, the contracts signed with 16 publishers and content providers guaranteed access to more than 90,000 titles, including journals, conference proceedings, and e-books.
What about open access?
Implementing open access principles and best practices has been a priority for b-on. To this end, 13 of the contracts negotiated by b-on for the 2022-2024 triennium offer a new opportunity to authors from participating institutions: the ability to publish their articles open access with these publishers, under what are known as transformative agreements.
In 2022, 2,120 open access articles were published under these agreements, with the vast majority (94%) being published in hybrid journals at no cost to authors. The remaining publications were in open access journals whose publishing fees include discounts negotiated by b-on.
It is also worth noting that 96% of the articles published under these conditions were produced by authors affiliated with higher education institutions. Of the remaining articles, 3% were published by authors affiliated with Research & Development institutions and 1% were affiliated with hospitals.
To learn more about b-on, visit: https://www.b-on.pt
