Integrating the "gold" and the "green" road to open access: experience from Bioline International

This paper reports on Bioline International’s (BI) technical infrastructure, workflow, and hybrid strategy of combing Open Access Publishing (Gold) and Open Access Archiving (Green) to improve the access and visibility of published research from developing countries. It further shows how BI uses open source technologies (e.g. XML, Perl, OAI-PMH) and software (Eprints and DSpace) to promote the widest distribution and discovery of research information for the benefit of international scientific exchange. Data on the general usage pattern of materials on BI are presented. Using the Journal of Postgraduate Medicine as a case study, the effects of open access in terms of improved visibility, citation and author submission are further illustrated. In the process, this paper demonstrates how BI has evolved in response to the changes in technologies and resultant opportunities