2006.09.01 - Opening the door to research in Southern Africa

PRESS RELEASE
September 1, 2006

OSISA/eIFL Open Access Workshop for Southern Africa
Pretoria, South Africa, 21-22 August 2006

The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in Pretoria, one of the prime scientific and technology research organisations in Africa, was home for two days to some of the leading lights of the open access movement. Speakers from Botswana, Canada, Egypt, Scotland, South Africa and the US were joined by over forty participants from nine southern African countries to discuss practical ways in which open access projects and policies can be implemented in the region.

Co-sponsored by the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) and eIFL.net, the programme focused on open access journals, institutional repositories, advocacy and the role of funding agencies in open access publishing. Publishers hailed from diverse backgrounds. A fast growing commercial publisher, Hindawi Publishing, shared their experience in successfully converting twenty-five academic titles from a subscription-based to an open access model. Bioline International, a not-for-profit electronic publishing service, advised on improving visibility and impact of quality open access journals from developing countries.

Research funding agencies, which play a pivotal role in promoting open access policies around the world, were also represented. Dr. Andrew Kaniki, Executive Director, Knowledge Management and Strategy of the South Africa National Research Foundation, stated that recipients of NRF grants may use part of their funding to cover publishing costs in peer-reviewed open access journals. “An applicant can request for funds for conference attendance; funding for publication of research findings - the publication can be in an open access journal" confirmed Dr. Kaniki.

Professor Wieland Gevers discussed the new open access recommendations of the Academy of Science of South Africa.

Participants benefited from a roundtable discussion which covered critical issues for the successful implementation of an institutional repository, a freely accessible archive for collecting and preserving the intellectual output of an institution. Professor Julien Hofman presented Lawspace, a digital repository of research at the University of Cape Town. Librarians play a key role in advising their institution on such issues as access and preservation of material in the repository and most importantly advocating for the deposit of material by academics in the repositories as outlined by Susan Ashworth of the University of Glasgow in her presentation. The universities of Zimbabwe, Namibia and Pretoria count amongst those with operational repositories while a number of others plan to launch repositories in the coming months.

“I found the workshop most rewarding and will take many good ideas home which I would like to implement”, said Renate Morgenstern, University of Namibia Library.

Participants agreed to develop national lists documenting the copyright policies of publishers in each country similar to the SHERPA/Romeo list. “This is a great step forward to identify publishers’ copyright conditions and will strengthen the hand of academics in southern Africa in providing access to their research. eIFL.net welcomes this”, said Melissa Hagemann, who is advising the eIFL.net Open Access Program.

The workshop program and presentations are available online.

Further information:
Rima Kupryte, Director
Electronic Information for Libraries (eIFL)
c/o ADN Kronos, Piazza Mastai 9
00153 Rome, Italy
Tel: +(39)(06)5807216/17
E-mail: rima.kupryte@eifl.net
www.eifl.net

Notes for Editors

eIFL
eIFL.net is an international foundation which supports national library consortia in fifty transition and developing countries to negotiate and advocate for the wide availability of electronic resources to education, research and professional communities as well as governmental organisations and civil society. This global network embraces millions of users in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and the Middle East.