Access to knowledge in the context of Open Science: exploring the popularity of Sci-Hub in Brazil

ABSTRACT

Introduction:

Sci-Hub is a channel for accessing scientific texts completely free of charge and without the need for registration, which retrieves documents by title or persistent identifiers, even when texts are protected by copyright laws. The article presents the context in which Sci-Hub was created and how it works, informing about the barriers to scientific communication imposed by the current editorial system.

Objective:

The study investigated the extent of use of Sci-Hub in Brazil among stricto sensu graduate students from different areas.

Methodology:

The research involved a survey on the motivations for using Sci-Hub, applied with the help of Google Forms.

Results:

The results showed that around 20% of respondents were not aware of SciHub. Among the 779 graduate students who were familiar with the tool, 88% indicated that they use it regularly, either because of its zero cost or because of its practicality (74%). Just over 14% cited intellectual disobedience as a motivation for using Sci-Hub. The results also indicated that Sci-Hub has remained a shortcut between the researcher and the essential scientific content for carrying out his research and for the evolution of science.

Conclusions:

It is concluded that the creation of Sci-Hub and its intense use in Brazil and around the world are a symptom of the reaction of scientists to the deteriorated scheme of scientific communication maintained by international publishers and a confirmation of the importance of the principles of Open Science.

KEYWORDS:
Sci-Hub; Scholarly communication; Open access; Copyright; Intellectual disobedience