Open access repositories

Iryna KuchmaOpen Access Programme manager

Presented at “New Trends for Science Dissemination”, ICTP – Trieste, Italy, 26 September 2011

www.eifl.netAttribution 3.0 Unported

EIFL Programmes

EIFL-Licensing: Expanding access to commercial e-resources

EIFL Open Access: Removing barriers to knowledge sharing

EIFL-IP: Copyright & Libraries: Promoting fair & balanced copyright laws

EIFL-FOSS: Improving ICT infrastructure in libraries

EIFL-PLIP: Public Library Innovation Programme

Open access (OA) is free, immediate, online

access to the results of research, coupled with the right to use those

results in new and innovative ways

OA to publications

open data

open education

open science

FOSS

open innovations

“Restrictive access policies drastically reduces readership of electronic research journal articles.” Professor Frank Youngman, DVC, University of

Botswana

“OA provides an environment within which literature and scholarly research articles are made freely accessible online without license restrictions and without charging users subscription or access fees.”

“OA is a vital means of dissemination of information which is crucial for national development and in achieving MDGs, given the crucial role that information plays in achieving social, economic, cultural and political development.”

OA for researchers

increased visibility

usage

& impact for their work

OA for research institutions

publicises institutes’ research strengths providing maximum return on investment

complete record of the research output in easily accessible form

new tools to manage institution's impact

OA for publishers

increased readership & citations visibility & impact

the best possible dissemination service for research

OA for libraries

partnerships with scientists & research managers to set up OA repositories, to curate research data & to develop OA policies

partnerships with scholarly publishers to publish OA journals & books

partnerships with educators to produce OERs

OA repositories

Contain research outputs

Institutional or thematic

Interoperable (OAI-PMH)

Common metadata protocol allows web applications (text & data mining)

Snapshot of publication outputs by discipline

OA repositories (2)

The need to evaluate researchers and departments

As a response to requests from faculty

(“Open Repository Development in Developing and Transition countries” conducted by EIFL and the

University of Kansas Libraries)

OA repositories (3)

Publicize an institute’s research strengths, providing maximum return on research investment

Provide an administrative tool for institutions

OA repositories (4)

Increase impact & usage of institute's research, providing new contacts & research partnerships for authors

Provide usage statistics showing global interest & value of institutional research

OA repositories (5)

FOSS to set up, free technical support

Low installation & maintenance costs, quick to set up & gain benefits

Institutions can mandate OA, speeding development

to enhance greater visibility & application of research outputs through global networks of OA digital repositories

http://coar-repositories.org/

“Access to relevant and timely information is critical to support the University’s mission of teaching, learning, research and the managerial functions of the University. Access to information is also an essential condition for the economic and social development of the country. Open access will enhance access to local content and this goal can only be achieved through collaborative efforts.”

Professor Kamau Ngamau, Dean Faculty of Agriculture, JKUAT

One of the key pillars of the University of Botswana new strategic plan “Strategy for excellence” is “Research Intensification”. OA will help the University of Botswana, Government, and research institutions to achieve this pillar by ensuring online accessibility to public funded research output that can be freely shared by everyone, enhance research quality, and improve visibility of the institution and the nation globally.

Prof. Frank Youngman, DVC, U of Botswana

The SOAP survey

11 EIFL partner countries: Bulgaria, China, Egypt, Nigeria, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Slovenia, South Africa, Thailand and Ukraine

About 86% of researchers are convinced that OA publishing is beneficial to their research field directly improving the way scientific community work and providing the benefits outside the scientific community – public good benefits

The SOAP survey (2)

Publicly funded research should be made available to be read and used without access barriers (n=3875)

S t r o n g ly a g r e e

A g r e e

N e it h e r a g r e e n o r d is a g r e e

D is a g r e e

S t r o n g ly d is a g r e e

The SOAP survey (3)

OA articles are likely to be read and cited more often than those not OA (n=3882)

S t r o n g l y a g r e e

A g r e e

N e i t h e r a g r e e n o r d i s a g r e e

D i s a g r e e

S t r o n g l y d i s a g r e e

The SOAP survey (4)OA publishing is more cost-effective than subscription-based publishing and so will benefit public investment in research (n=3871)

S t r o n g l y a g r e e

A g r e e

N e i t h e r a g r e e n o r d i s a g r e e

D i s a g r e e

S t r o n g l y d i s a g r e e

The SOAP survey (5)

Researchers should retain the rights to their published work and allow it to be used by others (n=3872)

S t r o n g l y a g r e e

A g r e e

N e i t h e r a g r e e n o r d i s a g r e e

D i s a g r e e

S t r o n g l y d i s a g r e e

How OA benefits your work and career

Distribution and usage

Immediate access to your research output for everyone upon official publication

More visibility & usage

Immediate impact of your work

Intensification of research through fast dissemination and use of research;

Possibly a citation advantage as well

How OA benefits your work and career

Plus:

Monitoring of your research output

Preservation of your research output by your library

Keep your rights instead of signing them away

What can you do?

Submit your research articles to OA journals, when there are appropriate OA journals in your field

Deposit your preprints/postprints in an OA repository

Deposit your data files in an OA repository along with the publications built on them.

What can you do? (2)

Volunteer to serve on your university’s committee to evaluate faculty for promotion and tenure. Make sure the committee is using criteria that, at the very least, do not penalize faculty for publishing in peer-reviewed OA journals. At best, adjust the criteria to give faculty an incentive to provide OA to their peer-reviewed research articles either through OA journals or OA repositories

What can you do? (3)

Work with your professional societies to make sure they understand OA.

Write opinion pieces (articles, journal editorials, newspapers op-eds, letters to the editor, discussion forum postings) advancing the cause of OA.

Educate the next generation of scientists and scholars about OA.

“Michael Faraday’s advice to his junior colleague to: “Work. Finish. Publish.” needs to be revised. It shouldn’t be enough to publish a paper anymore. If we want open science to flourish, we should raise our expectations to: “Work. Finish. Publish. Release.” That is, your research shouldn’t be considered complete until the data and meta-data is put up on the web for other people to use, until the code is documented and released, and until the comments start coming in to your blog post announcing the paper. If our general expectations of what it means to complete a project are raised to this level, the scientific community will start doing these activities as a matter of course.”

(What, exactly, is Open Science? by Dan Gezelter: http://www.openscience.org/blog/?p=269)

Thank you! Questions?