Edwin Siñani (President of REBER)
The Bolivian Network of Publishers and Scientific Journals (REBER) is an initiative comprising 24 journals published in Bolivia. REBER was created as an effort to strengthen the country’s research culture by creating spaces for debate and training to enhance the quality and visibility of the country’s scientific publications. To be part of the network, journals must have an ISSN, be up to date, have an editorial committee and request their affiliation via a letter.
Training journal teams is a core mission for REBER. This year, the Network undertook a training programme for journal editors through a series of webinars in collaboration with DOAJ and other organisations such as Latindex, SciELO Bolivia, and Biblat. The purpose of these webinars was to highlight the importance of indexing journals in databases as a strategy for promoting Bolivian science.
On 15 February 2024, Ivonne Lujano, DOAJ Ambassador in Latin America, delivered the “Workshop on the application of Bolivian journals to DOAJ”, with the participation of 22 journal editors and publishers. In this workshop, general aspects of the DOAJ were addressed and a practical exercise was carried out, which consisted of the review of each of the indexing criteria. Afterwards, the most common challenges faced by editors in Bolivica were discussed. For example, the importance of having robust editorial committees in multidisciplinary journals was discussed, and how this aspect is positively valued by the DOAJ editorial team as it strengthens quality control processes. The editors and publishers participating in the webinar took away tips on how to prepare their application to DOAJ or improve some of the practices they are already implementing in their journals.
Following the webinar, nine participating journals submitted applications to DOAJ. After a thorough review by DOAJ’s editorial team, six journals were accepted into the Directory. These are:
Tribunal. Revista en Ciencias de la Educación y Ciencias Jurídicas and Impulso. Revista en Administración, both published by the Universidad Privada Domingo Savio (Potosí).
Franz Tamayo, Propuestas educativas and REBE. Revista Boliviana de Educación, edited by la Universidad Adventista de Bolivia
Revista en Educación “Simón Rodríguez” from Universidad Latinoamericana ULAT.
We are pleased to welcome the admitted journals and invite all members of the Bolivian Network of Editors and Journals to continue improving their publications and the professionalisation of their editorial teams.
