Abstract

This study compares the profile of Brazilian and Chinese scientific publications in Information Science indexed in the Web of Science. The specific objectives are: (a) to survey the number of articles published by each country; (b) identify the characteristics of the journals in which the articles are published; and (c) identify the nationality and type of publishers that edit these journals. The Web of Science search yielded 6,417 articles, with 2,005 articles authored by Brazilian institutions and 4,412 articles authored by Chinese institutions. Of these articles, 29.5% of the Brazilian publications and the majority (99.9%) of the Chinese publications were in English. Brazilian production is published in 99 of the 221 journals, while Chinese is published in 122. Different access models were identified for the articles. Specifically, 91% of Chinese publications were accessible via subscription and 76% of the Brazilians via open access. The highest concentration of journals is in England, the United States, and the Netherlands, with an Impact Factor of less than one. Commercial publishers publish most Chinese articles (92.3%) while Brazilian articles are predominantly available through university publishers with open access repositories (72.3%). It is concluded that the scientific production in the field of Information Science from Brazil and China, as indexed in the Web of Science, exhibits diversified strategies. Brazil stands out for the indexing of national journals and publishing articles in Portuguese that are available through Open Access repositories. On the other hand, China is notable for its publication of articles in English, in journals that are already indexed in the Web of Science, and predominantly edited by commercial publishers. A more internationalized production than the Brazilian one, but with greater dependence on the system by the scientific community.

Keywords:
Open Access; Brazil and China; Information Science; Scientific journals; Scientific production