Introduction of Open Access and its Principles
by
Helena Asamoah-Hassan, PhD
University Librarian , KNUST , Kumasi, Ghana
To
Personnel of the National Library of South Africa, in Pretoria,
South Africa
on 24th May 2013
Outline
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Introduction
Overview of Open Access
OA Principles
Open Access Initiatives for developing
countries
• Open Access Initiatives in Africa
• Suggestions
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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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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.
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
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African Open Access Journals in DOAJ
(Gold Publishing)
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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
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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
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Health Inter Network Access to Research Initiative (HINARI)
Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture (AGORA)
Online Access to Research in the Environment (OARE)
ARDI
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/
• ASKIA of the UN Economic Commission in Addis Ababa
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Suggestions
• National Repository has to be the responsibility of a
National Library just as the national bibliography is.
• Library must have a dedicated Department for IR
• Advocate with stakeholders- Institution’s Authorities /
Administration, Library ICT Personnel and Users
• Revisit the institution’s Mission and include OA.
• Government must be committed in setting up and
sustaining IR and make output of funded research
available for public use through it.
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Suggestions
• Build networks and partnerships, twin with other OA
compliant institutions(south-south, south-north)for
research and knowledge exchange.
• Register IR with Directories and Registries for easy
searchability - http://roar.eprints.org/;
http://www.opendoar.org/ ; http://maps.repository66.org/
• Important to install a bold national OA-friendly Policy
framework including for public-funded research which
must be aligned with existing National and Regional
Policies on OA. For a model see http://osc.hul.harvard.edu/
For inquiries go to osc@hulmail.harvard.edu
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Suggestions
• The Library should promote OA publishing through:
- creating and maintaining an OA Archive (IR) and assisting authors to
self archive and also 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.
• Before all these are done it is important to examine the
mandate of the National Library to see if it can accommodate
OA in its existing mandate or if it can revise its mandate to
include OA.
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Conclusion
• OA to information has come to stay and so libraries 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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