Introduction of Open Access, its Principles &
Advocacy
by
Helena Asamoah-Hassan, PhD
University Librarian , KNUST , Kumasi, Ghana
at AAU Workshop on
Institutional and National Digital Repository Collaborative Framework for
African Academic and Research Institutions at Airport West Hotel, Accra,
26-27 March 2013
Outline
• Introduction
• Overview of Open Access
• Open Access Initiatives for developing
countries
• Open Access Initiatives in Africa
• OA Principles
• OA Advocacy
• Suggestions/Recommendations
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Introduction
• OA is a public good. Published information is public
information and so should be accessible.
• OA is good for scholarship, good for business, good for
development and good for the people.
• The trend today is not money in a few peoples pockets
but information availability to a lot of people to enable the
creation of knowledge and innovation and this is what
OA seeks to do.
• Scholarship should be used, re-used and be re- usable.
• National platform for OA through IRs and OA Journals
with government support is very critical.
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What is an Open Access Publication?
• Research articles or publications that are freely available on the
internet, that permits any user to read, download, copy, distribute or
print the articles or publications,… pass them as data to software, or
use them lawfully , without any financial, legal, or technical barriers.
The only constraint when reproducing, and distributing, and for
copyright is to give authors control over the integrity of their work
and to properly cite and acknowledge them. (Budapest Open
Access Initiative).
• In effect, an OA publication is one that is freely available on the
internet and can be freely used, on condition that the author is
properly and accurately acknowledged.
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Why OA Publishing in Developing Countries?
• Researchers in developing countries face challenges of
-Limited equipment and facilities;
-Funding;
-limited access to research from , & journals published in ,the north
because libraries cannot afford to subscribe to several titles.
• OA in developing countries is geared towards
- increasing access to research results from the south;
- making authors from the south and their institutions visible as well
as their research results more cited.
- enabling collaboration in research and access to more research
funding.
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Benefits & Obstacles of OA to developing countries
• Major Benefits
- Unrestricted access to knowledge
- Speed and reduced cost of distribution
- Access to grey literatures from developing world
- Expanded opportunity to publish
• Major Obstacles
- Poor State of ICT - limited computer literacy; high cost of internet
access limiting access ; low bandwidth.
- Copyright issues - authors sign away their rights and so cannot self
archive their own papers.
- Misconception of Open Access resulting from lack of awareness.
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Open Access Repository sites around the world
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OA Repositories – Global (Green Publishing)
Open Access Repositories (ROAR)
(http://roar.eprints.org/ )
Directory of Open Access Repositories
(OpenDOAR) (www.opendoar.org)
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1223 in Europe
534 in Asia
471 in North America
266 in South America
91 in Oceania
78 in Africa
1073 in Europe
484 in North America
391 in Asia
177 in South America
62 in Africa
61 in Oceania
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OA Repositories - Africa (Green Publishing)
(www.opendoar.org/countrylist.php)
2011
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South Africa -24;
Egypt -6;
Kenya -4;
Nigeria-3;
Zimbabwe - 1
Mozambique, -2
Namibia -2
Sudan -2 ;
Ghana -1,
Malawi-1
Botswana, Cape Verde, Ethiopia,
Senegal, Tunisia, Uganda – 1
each
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2013
South Africa -24;
Egypt -6;
Kenya -7;
Nigeria- 6;
Zimbabwe -3;
Mozambique - 1,
Namibia – 2
Sudan -2 ;
Ghana - 2
Tanzania – 2
Malawi - 0,
Botswana, Cape Verde,
Cameroon, Ethiopia, Senegal,
Tunisia, Uganda – 1 each
• 62
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African Open Access Journals in DOAJ
(Gold Publishing) (as at 25th March 2013)
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Egypt – 351
South Africa – 56
Nigeria – 26
Tunisia – 10
Kenya – 6
Morocco - 6
Ethiopia – 5
Uganda – 4
Tanzania – 3
Algeria – 2
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Ghana - 2
Libya – 2
Burundi – 1
Cote d’Ivoire – 1
Madagascar – 1
Sierra Leone – 1
Zambia – 1
Total = 478
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Open Access Journals – AJOL (Gold Publishing)
About 150 OA Journals out of 450 total Journals in AJOL (as at 25th March 2013)
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Nigeria – 48
South Africa – 40
Ethiopia – 13
Kenya – 11
Egypt – 6
Ghana -5
Senegal – 5
Uganda – 3
Tanzania – 3
Cote d’Ivoire – 2
Mauritius – 2
Tunisia – 2
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Botswana – 1
Cameroon – 1
Eritrea – 1
Libya – 1
Madagascar – 1
Malawi – 1
Rwanda - 1
Sierra Leone – 1
Sudan – 1
Zambia – 1
http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ajol/browse/alpha?
letter=oa
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Some Open Access Initiatives for Developing
Countries
• Health Inter Network Access to Research Initiative (HINARI)
• Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture (AGORA)
• Online Access to Research in the Environment (OARE)
• Bioline International
• Electronic Information for Libraries (EIFL)
• BioMed Central
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Some Big African OA Initiatives
• African Journals Online – 1998
www.ajol.info/
• African Digital Library - 1999 africaeducation.org/adl/
• Database of African Theses and Dissertations – 2003
www.aau.org/datad
• Africa’s Open Knowledge Network – 2003
• African Online Digital Library www.aodl.org/
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KEY OPEN ACCESS PRINCIPLE
Free availability of knowledge on the public internet
permitting users to read, down load, copy, distribute,
print, search, or link to the full texts, crawl them for
indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them
for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal
or technical barriers other than those inseparable from
gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint
on reproduction and distribution and the only role for
copyright in this domain, should be to give authors
control over the integrity of their work and the right
to be properly acknowledged and cited
OTHER OA PRINCIPLES
• Making (African) research available to other researchers.
• Making research done in other places available to other
(African) researchers.
• Assisting in bringing together global research output of
scientists as well as the scientists themselves.
• Enhancing research funding opportunities and
collaboration among researchers.
• Setting up of Policies by institutions to enable mandatory
deposits in the IR by researchers.
ADVOCACY
Advocate for
• OA everywhere necessary/relevant.
• IR to be set up in the Library / Documentation Centre
• Bold national OA-friendly Policy frameworks including for
public-funded research.
• Networks and partnerships with other OA compliant
institutions(south-south, south-north)for research and
knowledge exchange.
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ADVOCACY
Advocate for
•
Registering IR with Directories and Registries for easy
searchability - http://roar.eprints.org/;
http://www.opendoar.org/ ; http://maps.repository66.org/
• Installation of an umbrella mandatory OA Policy for the
institution –a one page document. For a model see
http://osc.hul.harvard.edu/ For inquiries go to
osc@hulmail.harvard.edu
• Revisit to the institution’s Mission and include OA.
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ADVOCACY
Stakeholders
• Institution’s Authorities / Administration
• Relevant Committees
• Faculty and Researchers – champions very important,
• Library personnel
• ICT personnel – use of OSS and general support
• Students – future champions
• Users – self archive
• Government – commitment to set up and sustain IR and
make output of funded research available for public use
through it.
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ADVOCACY
• Government - use of common OSS adaptable for
institutional needs but interoperable.
• Involve students in your OA activities – leaders of
tomorrows OA Movement
• National IR to be the responsibility of National Library.
• IR Policy of an institution must be aligned with the
National and Regional Policies on OA.
• Consider bold collective action – build networks and
linkages, twinning of strong and weak OA institutions
• Sign the Berlin Declaration.
• Annual Open Access Week Celebrations – October
•
Suggestions/Recommendations(1)
• Universities/research institutes need to publish OA peer
–reviewed journal articles on the institution’s repository.
• Education and advocacy to be pursued rigorously so
that authors will publish in OA journals and repositories.
• Institutional authorities need to be sensitised to see
articles in OA journals as of same quality as in
commercial ones and so considered for advancement
purposes.
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Suggestions/Recommendations(2)
• OA initiatives should be registered with all the key
international directories , registers and agencies.
• Support to young scientists/early career scholars to
enable them write effectively – eg. AuthorAid.
• Libraries should promote OA publishing through:
- creating and maintaining OA Archives (IRs) in their institutions and
assisting authors to self archive and do mediated archiving.
- publishing OA journals, with the library setting up and maintaining it.
- searching and adding OA resources, OA journal directories and search
engines on their web interfaces.
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Conclusion
• OA to information has come to stay and so institutions in
Africa must accept it in order to reap its enviable
benefits.
• Important to advocate for the necessary protocols to be
put in place.
• Important to secure the buy-in of stakeholders.
• Very important to advocate for a National IR which will
bring all the scattered IRs in the country together – for
national development.
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