News

Case Notes: Open Access advocacy workshop in Malawi: Maximising research quality and impact

Iryna Kuchma & Kondwani Wella report on the Open Access Advocacy Workshop: Maximising Research Quality and Impact which took place at Kamuzu College of Nursing, University of Malawi in Lilongwe, on 29 and 30 October 2009, organised by the Malawi Library and Information Consortium (MALICO), the Malawi Research and
Education Network (MAREN), the Southern African Regional Universities Association (SARUA) and eIFL.net. These notes are published in the Issue No 10 (2009/2010) of The African Journal of Information and Communication.

Guest Editors on Issue 10 - Scholarly Communication and Opening Access to Knowledge:

Lucienne Abrahams, LINK Centre, Graduate School of Public and Development Management, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa; and

Eve Gray, Centre for Educational Technology, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

This thematic edition of the African Journal of Information and Communication - Scholarly Communication and Opening Access to Knowledge - addresses an aspect of ‘information society’ discourse that has taken shape in the world of universities, research, publishing and creative works.

European countries join forces to realize the EC Open Access pilot: OpenAIRE

OpenAIRE (Open Access Infrastructure for Research in Europe), a three-years project funded under the 7^th Framework Programme of the European Commission, has now taken up its work to implement Open Access on a pan-European scale. This ambitious effort unites 38 partners from 27 European countries.

The main goal of OpenAIRE is to support the Open Access pilot, launched by the European Commission in August 2008. This Open Access pilot, which covers about 20% of the FP7 budget, commits researchers from 7 thematic areas (Health, Energy, Environment, Information & Communication Technology, Research Infrastructures, Socio-economic sciences & Humanities and Science in Society) to deposit their research publications in an institutional or disciplinary Open Access repository, to be made available worldwide in full text. OpenAIRE will establish underlying structures for researchers to support them in complying with the pilot through European Helpdesk System, build an OpenAIRE portal and e-Infrastructure for the repository networks and explore scientific data management services together with 5 disciplinary communities.

“The implementation of a Europe wide infrastructure for Open Access is a milestone for the success of Open Access,” says Dr. Norbert Lossau, Scientific Coordinator of OpenAIRE and Director of Göttingen State and University Library, Germany. “The project consortium will work closely together with the European Commission, the ERC and many other stakeholders (such as SPARC Europe, LIBER, EUA) to achieve the broadest possible impact.”

The project consortium incorporates the best available expertise for Open Access & repository infrastructures in Europe and will establish a distributed support structure based on a network of liaison offices covering all European Union member states plus Norway. Consortium partners have been identified in each country, or in the case of Luxembourg, have pledged their support for the development and implementation of strategies and services for Open Access, that have gained acceptance in the international community since 2003, the launch of the Berlin Declaration.

Operational support (where eIFL.net is involved) will be offered in a network of central regional and national Open Access liaison offices, structured in a rough geographic distribution, based on local experience of different organisational cultures, varied levels of expertise, and knowledge of local research networks.

Website: www.openaire.eu

Contacts:
Prof. Mike Hatzopoulos, Project coordinator, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, mike[@]di.uoa.gr;
Dr. Norbert Lossau, Scientific Coordinator, Göttingen State and University Library, lossau[@]sub.uni-goettingen.de

News from the partners: Guide to open science is published in Poland

The ICM – Interdisciplinary Centre for Mathematical and Computational Modelling - of the University of Warsaw (UW) published a Guide to open science - “Przewodnik po otwartej nauce”. The Guide covers Open Access, Open Science and Open Educational Resources. Authors of the Guide are Justyna Hofmokl, Krzysztof Siewicz and Alek Tarkowski, Creative Commons Polska coordinators, Bożena Bednarek-Michalska from the Nicolaus Copernicus University Library in Torun and Jakub Szprot from ICM UW. Edwin Bendyk wrote an introduction to the Gudie.

News from the partners: Online Guide to Open Access Journals Publishing

Co-Action Publishing and Lund University Libraries Main Office are pleased to announce the launch of the Online Guide to Open Access Journals Publishing.

The online guide is directed to small independent teams and provides practical information on planning, setting up, launching, publishing and managing an open access scholarly journal. Users can take advantage of additional resources in the form of links to related information, samples of applied practices and downloadable tools that can be adapted. The guide seeks to be interactive, allowing users to share their own best practices, tips and suggestions through a comment field. Although the guide contains some information that is specific to the Nordic region, most of its content can be applied internationally.

Development of the Online Guide to Open Access Journals Publishing was generously supported by the Swedish National Library and the technical solution was supported by Nordbib.

Questions about the guide can be directed to Caroline.Sutton[@]co-action.net

Video and audio recording of all the presentations from the II International Conference Open Access in Poland

Audio, video and slides were recorded for all presentations and the entire conference is now available at the the Nicolaus Copernicus University (NCU) Internet Television: http://tv.umk.pl/?id=539

Presentations from the IInd International conference Open Access in Poland

Presentations from the IInd International conference Open Access in Poland are online.

Among the speakers - Alma Swan and Bernard Rentier from EOS, Claire Bundy from Open Repository and Maria Romano from BioMed Central, Jan Andrzej Nikisch and Iryna Kuchma from eIFL.net, Marcin Werla from Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center and Alek Tarkowski from the Interdisciplinary Centre for Mathematical and Computational Modelling at Warsaw University and Creative Commons Poland. Włodzisław Duch shared his experience with open science projects, Jarosław Stolarski presented a case study on the open access journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica and Jacek Ciesielski presented Versita e-publishing solutions for open access journals, Małgorzata Rychlik and Emilia Karwasińska told about AMUR - open access repository of Adam Mickiewicz university in Poznan and Jarosław Lipszyc presented Coalition for Open Education and promotion of open knowledge in Poland.

The conference was organised on January 14-15, 2010, by Nicolaus Copernicus University, eIFL.net, OSI Information program, Poznan Foundation of Scientific Libraries, Polish Librarians Assocation and EBIB - Electronic Library and sponsored by BioMed Central and ExLibris.

Save the date - International Open Access Week 2010

October 18 to 24 has been selected for International Open Access Week 2010. Please stay tuned to this site for updates on the program and registration when it opens.

eIFL.net and NDLTD signed a Memorandum of Understanding

eIFL.net and the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD: http://www.ndltd.org/) decided to work together to promote the adoption, creation, use, dissemination and preservation of electronic analogues to the traditional paper-based theses and dissertations and to make intellectual outputs from developing and transition countries more visible and more easily accessible locally and globally. Collaboration between eIFL.net and NDLTD is envisaged in educating stakeholders at national and international levels to promote expanded sharing of scholarship in the networked digital environment through the scholarly community within their own institutions and countries; incubating demonstrations of new Electronic Theses and Dissertations publishing and sustainability models that benefit scholarship and academe; and the joint support of an open access model for Electronic Theses and Dissertations (policies and practices).

News from the partners: EOS for librarians

Some context

The Web has already changed, and will change much more, the way research is both conducted and communicated: e-research, collaborative research, interdisciplinary research call for barrier-free communication channels. These things simply cannot be carried out efficiently in a world where researchers cannot lay their hands on information they want at the time they want it, and for no cost.

There are also a growing number of mandatory policies being introduced in institutions and by funders to make OA happen. We wanted to help that process along by providing help and support for people coming to the decision that they wanted a policy but were unsure as to how to implement it.

On a larger scale, the EUA (European University Association) recently published the results of a year’s deliberations by a specially-established Working Party on OA: this came up with a set of recommendations to EUA members, and the EUA secretariat was keen to work with us to help those recommendations get taken up in member universities.

As well as action from larger university bodies like the EUA, we were hearing from policy-makers at individual institutions who wanted to understand things better and who sometimes felt rather daunted by what they saw as problem areas in policymaking on OA. We wanted to give them support and encouragement, plus information and advice where requested - and we were also keen that the policies that come out of institutions are the best they can be.

How EOS came about

The so-called ‘Liege Convention’ was held in October 2007, in a castle owned by the University of Liege, deep in the wooded hills outside the city. We invited to the meeting the rectors from European universities and research institutes who had signed the Berlin Declaration. We had about 20 people there, not all of them rectors since some sent their deputy-rectors-for-research or similar representatives. It was a very positive meeting and, as a result, EurOpenScholarship was set up.

In September 2008, during an Open Access conference in Brisbane, Alma Swan convened a gathering of interested people with the aim of persuading them to set up a sister chapter (OzOpenScholarship). There had already been a similar move in Brazil, and so we thought a worldwide network of like-minded organisations would be a useful development. The Australians, however, said they thought that one overarching organisation was the best model, so we decided to make EOS open to universities worldwide. This necessitated dropping the ‘Euro’ bit of the name, but we liked the acronym EOS because it is the Greek word for dawn. We therefore settled for ‘enabling’ as a word that both retained the ‘e’ and admirably fitted the aims of the organisation.

We invited people to be on the Board who had already implemented – or been instrumental in implementing – mandates in their own institutions. We were ready to go in the summer of this year and we launched the organisation formally in September.

EOS’s aims and objectives

Our explicitly-stated aim on the website is “to further the opening up of scholarship and research that we are now seeing through the growing open access, open education, open science and open innovation movements. These, and other, 'open' approaches to scholarship are changing the way research and learning are done and there are profound implications for universities and research institutions. EOS has been established to help guide developments and to assist others in understanding the issues and their implications”.

EOS is not just about Open Access per se: it is about open scholarship in the round. EOS will frame its messages in terms of a brave new world, one which has openness at its core, as an enabler of better research practices. We will also make the arguments that the management and assessment of research can be done so much more effectively in an Open Access world and that increased visibility and impact for researchers aggregates into increased visibility and impact for institutions. So much discussion and resolution still needs to be had around these two big issues at management level in universities.

It is important to note here that our target group is managers who are in a position to make policy within an institution. We want to engage their interest in what is happening in scholarly communication, to make them understand that a lot hinges on this for their university or research institute, and to inspire them sufficiently that they start to act within the institution on Open Access and related matters.

We have had a number of applications for membership from libraries and we welcome that. It is true that our primary target is institutional policy-makers, and we set up EOS to help libraries by trying to reach policymakers and engage them about scholarly communication issues. Librarians do not need our advice because they know it all already! But we will try to develop some services specifically for library members of EOS and we welcome any suggestions or assistance that libraries might offer.

We therefore hope that, if libraries wish to join EOS, we can work together to reach institutional managers. For example, we can provide resources and data to help libraries get policymakers’ attention and make the arguments; we will ‘go in there’ wherever we can get a foothold created by you and try to encourage high level political thinking on scholarly communication; and we will encourage your policy-makers to ‘join the club’ and become part of the EOS community.

Working together to promote open scholarship

We will also invite libraries to help EOS in pinpointing opportunities to hold events for rectors/policymakers. For example, Bernard Rentier and Alma Swan will be speaking at an Open Access conference for Eastern European countries to be held in Poland in January. Using the opportunity of being in Poland, we are organising an EOS Workshop in Warsaw the previous day to which the Minister for Science and the rectors of Polish universities and those in neighbouring countries are invited. We have the help of eIFL’s network of libraries in identifying rectors and getting contact details, and the libraries will ‘prime’ their rectors as to why they or their pro-rector should attend. We also are working through the Polish Rectors Association to promote the event in the academic community in Poland. A similar event will be held in the UK in the spring. A university library is the instigator in this case, and EOS will help organise back-to-back events, one of which is for that particular university and the other for EOS to meet with PVCs-for-research from other universities in the region.

We would be very pleased to hear from any librarian who is holding an Open Access event for their institution and who would like to explore working with EOS to add onto that an EOS workshop for their managers and perhaps others from their region. We will always help where we can.

Suggestions and ideas are very welcome for the EOS Board to consider. Please send them to info[@]openscholarship.org or to me directly at a.swan[@]talk21.com. And please help to spread the word by pointing people at our website which is rich in data and information: it can be found at www.openscholarship.org

Thank you, and we look forward to welcoming you to the membership.

Alma Swan

Convenor/Coordinateur

Enabling Open Scholarship

The Chinese Academy of Sciences signed a membership agreement with BioMed Central

The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) signed a membership agreement with BioMed Central to cover publication costs for research articles published by researchers at its institutions. CAS has long been a supporter of open access, having signed the Berlin Declaration in 2004.

Under the terms of the arrangement, CAS, through its library, will centrally cover half of the article processing charge (APC) for its researchers should the article be accepted for publication in one of BioMed Central’s 205 peer-reviewed open access journals. By funding APCs in this way, CAS makes it as straightforward as possible for its researchers to make their results universally accessible, bringing increased international recognition for China’s research output.

BioMed Central has seen significant growth in the number of published articles from authors based in mainline China and the Far East. Just 1.5% of all submissions received in 2004 came from the region, compared to 6.2% in 2008. This expansion in both the quantity and also the quality of published research demonstrates the increasing significance of open access across the region.

Speaking of the membership arrangement with BioMed Central, Dr. Xiaolin Zhang, the Executive Director of CAS Library, said that CAS is committed to open access to knowledge, and the collaboration with BioMed Central is just one of many ways for CAS to promote open access, including institutional open access repositories and experimental open access publishing, while working together with international communities in activities such as hosting Berlin Conference 8 in 2010 or joining initiatives like DRIVER. The experience gained from BMC membership will help evaluate the effectiveness of various approaches, improve CAS open access policies, and facilitate open access activities.

(From BioMed Central press release)

BioMed Central has created China Gateway: a primary source of the latest articles authored or co-authored by researchers based in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao.

Discussion lists and wiki about open access in South Africa and Africa

Irtalk – a discussion list to discuss, communicate, share information on all open access and institutional repositories related issues in Africa and South Africa.

DuraSpace – discussion list for the South Africa DSpace/ DuraSpace workgroup - mostly technical issues (maintained and managed by Hilton Gibson, Linux/ Ubuntu expert and Systems Administrator at the Stellenbosch University).

IR Wiki – comprehensive information about Open Access, Digitisation, Managing your IR, Digitisation, Capacity Planning and your IR, DSpace on Ubuntu, Digital preservation. This wiki is used for documentation regarding the Institutional Repository of the University of Stellenbosch and the Electronic Thesis and Dissertations of the University of Stellenbosch and was compiled by Hilton Gibson, Systems Administrator at Stellenbosch University. Most of the material contained in this wiki was used during the DSpace Technical Workshop in September 2009. You are welcome to use it as a resource to build African and South African repositories.

Anyone can join and make use of the resources. Please also contribute so that we can all together help build a resource pool for South Africa.

(Information from Ina Smith, Dgital Librarian/ IR Manager, Sellenbosch University).

Open Access in Hong Kong

In autumn 2009 the Hong Kong Open Access Committee (HKOAC) launched a website Open Access for Hong Kong to promote the concept, the reasons for, and the practice of open access in all Hong Kong academic, governmental and philanthropic institutions and to call to freely share research and intellectual output funded by the Hong Kong people. "Open Access of our research outcomes is a must as a scientist, and researcher. It will make our research outcomes accessible by the public who funded them in the first instance," said Prof. Tsoi Ah-chung, Chair, HKOA Committee, Vice-President for Research, The Baptist University of Hong Kong with the Hong Kong people.

Objectives of HKOAC:

-That all research and intellectual output produced in Hong Kong on a non-commercial basis be placed in Open Access. This includes such items produced at or by,

- all HK University Grants Committee funded institutions

- all HK Education Bureau governed institutions

- all organs of the HK Government

- all researchers receiving funding from the HK Jockey Club, the Croucher Foundation, etc.

- That research and intellectual output funded by the Hong Kong taxpayer be freely available in Open Access to these taxpayers, to China and to global communities.

- That HK research and intellectual output be quickly disseminated as broadly as possible, that it might seed further enquiry and discovery.

- That institutional repositories be provided for the above institutions, to collect, preserve in perpetuity and provide open access on their items of research and intellectual output.

- That all Hong Kong research funders and institutions adopt policies requiring their funded researchers to deposit some version of their research output in open access institutional repositories; similar to open access policies adopted at the National Institute of Health, the European Research Council, Harvard University, the University of Stirling, and at the Queensland University of Technology.

The website Open Access for Hong Kong lists institutional repositories in all Hong Kong Universities and provides a link to HKIR: Cross-searching Hong Kong Repositories.

On November the 2^nd the University of Hong Kong (HKU) has become signatory of the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities. Professor Tsui Lap-Chee, Vice Chancellor of HKU signed the declaration making HKU the first signatory in Hong Kong. HKU is formulating its Open Access policy consistent with the goals of the Berlin Declaration.

On December 21, 2009, the University of Hong Kong announced HKU Researcher Pages for each its many authors, now appearing in the HKU Scholars Hub, the institutional repository of HKU. Three examples: Prof Samaranayake, Dean of Dentistry; Prof Bacon-Shone, Associate Dean of Social Sciences; Prof Tam, Pro-Vice Chancellor (Research). This work is the result of a successful collaboration between HKU and CILEA (AePIC Team). Much of the code developed for this project has been included in the forthcoming version 1.6 of DSpace, which will soon be released to the community. Some of the highlights:

- Author-centric bibliometrics from Scopus – the results of an on-going massive bibliometric rectification project between Elsevier and HKU in preparation for an annual Performance Reviews, and impending Research Assessment Exercise.

- Author-centric bibliometrics from ResearcherID.com (Web of Science) – the results of an on-going large scale institutional upload of publication lists for each HKU author to RID. One example.

- Unique identifier for each HKU researcher.

- Integration with HKU’s Media Directory, to show subjects on which each researcher can speak to, or write for the media, and in which languages. The Hub is now an expert finder, for those in government and industry wishing to find specialists for consultancies, contract research, etc.

- Authority control; disambiguation of like named individuals, linkage from variant names to the established heading, synonymy between established headings in different vernacular scripts. Examples are here and here.

- Article level metrics from Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. In example here please scroll down to red buttons.

Further description:

- Presentation given at the Dec 2-4 Digital Repository Federation International Conference (DRFIC 2009), Tokyo.

- Presentation given at the Nov 18-20 Pacific Rim Digital Library Association (PRDLA 2009), Auckland.

- Thomson Reuter’s Customer Profile and Case Study

- Thomson Reuters’ “Intelligent Information for Life” article

- HKU press release

Samson C. Soong from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology published an article Measuring Citation Advantages of Open Accessibility in the D-Lib Magazine, November/December 2009, Volume 15 Number 11/12. This article describes a study, involving a set of articles published in scholarly journals by faculty members of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) that have also been deposited in the HKUST Institutional Repository. The study was conducted to measure the actual effect of their open accessibility on citation rates. Key Findings: of the 50 articles included in the study, 29 (or 58%) have had a higher average-citation-rate after they have been deposited in the IR and made openly accessible than they had prior to being available in the IR. These results suggest that there is a citation advantage for a larger percent of articles that are made publicly accessible.

Addressing Access to Knowledge Issues in Africa

Denise Rosemary Nicholson, Copyright Services Librarian, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg and a member of the Wits Plagiarism Committee and Policy and Dissemination Advisor to ACA2K Project, published an article Addressing Access To Knowledge Issues In Africa in the Bibliotheca Alexandria Access to Knowledge Toolkit II: The Access to knowledge movement: Opportunities, Challenges and the Road Ahead, First Edition, November 2009, edited by Hala Essalmawi (p. 65-84).

DRIVER/eIFL.net collaboration: More repositories in the DRIVER Research Infrastructure

At the DRIVER Confederation Summit, October 20, 2009, Ghent University Library, eIFL.net and DRIVER – Digital Repository Infrastructure Vision for European Research – announced a partnership to register repositories from eIFL.net network in the DRIVER Research Infrastructure so that their contents are harvested periodically, indexed into the DRIVER platform and presented in the DRIVER Repository search portal.

eIFL.net will support and market the DRIVER content policy (full-texts, e.g. via OA set), communicate DRIVER Guidelines and validator as self-assessment tool and provide help-desk support, validation and filling-in registration forms if needed. More information is here and here.

A national Mozambican repository launched

Account by Aissa Issak

On November, 4, 2009, SABER – The Mozambican Repository [http://www.saber.ac.mz] was launched in a ceremony that took place at Biblioteca Brazão Mazula/Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, the biggest university library in the country.
The idea of having an information repository in Mozambique came to the agenda after a short training course in Open Access and Repositories Building, which was held at the premises of Universidade Politécnica, in July, 2008. This course was delivered by Eloy Rodrigues, from Universidade do Minho, Portugal, who travelled to Mozambique thanks to the financial support of eIFL.net. Two universities, namely Universidade Eduardo Mondlane and Universidade Politécnica provided Eloy´s support during his stay in Mozambique.
For the project proposal, three institutions have joined, Centro de Formação Jurídica e Judiciária, Universidade Eduardo Mondlane and Universidade Politécnica, and submitted it to the financial support of QIF, a World Bank Program at the Ministry of Education and Culture. The proposal was approved, and with the budget was possible to purchase the server, to register the domain and to pay some bills regarding the installation of antivirus and other application in the server. This project was coordinated by Aissa Issak, from Universidade Politécnica.
With the technical support of Serviços de Documentação from Universidade do Minho, DSPACE was installed and the entries start to be put in the repository. In terms of content, it is possible to find thesis and dissertation, journal articles, papers and other materials written by Mozambican researchers and lecturers or about Mozambique to support the teaching, learning and research process in the country and outside, since the weak access to information about Mozambique or other African countries is very well known.
So far, this type of materials was still hidden within the Universities and this repository represents a hope to find and use materials written by Mozambican researchers and about Mozambique. After the launching ceremony, we hope that more people will join the project and submit their contents to the repository.
Although only three institutions embraced the project, during the launching ceremony, Aissa Issak, the project coordinator, encouraged other universities and research institutions to join the repository and have their own collections available.

From eIFL.net, congratulations to the Centro de Formação Jurídica e Judiciária, Universidade Eduardo Mondlane and Universidade Politécnica with the national Mozambican Repository http://www.saber.ac.mz! And thank you to the Minho University, Portugal, for the support!

NaUKMA supports Open Access to Knowledge

Oleksandra Yaroshenko, student of the Master’s Program in Journalism, the National University Kyiv Mohyla Academy (NaUKMA), released a video NaUKMA supports Open Access to Knowledge.

Open Access: Maximising Research Quality and Impact workshop, the University of Latvia

Presentatons and photos from the Open Access: Maximising Research Quality and Impact workshop organised by the University of Latvia, State agency "Culture information systems" and eIFL.net.

Open Access Week at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana

Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) Library in Kumasi-Ghana celebrated the first ever Open Access week (October 19-23, 2009) to raise awareness on open access and the usefulness of an institutional repository. The week was an opportunity for the library to broaden awareness and understanding of Open Access of research works and to showcase the newly created institutional repository (IR) within the University community, which is the only IR in Ghana.

We had 3 activities:

On Monday 19th October 2009 a Radio Discussion on ‘Open Access: The Future of Scholarly Publishing’ on Focus Radio, a community based Radio station at KNUST. The panel was 2 Librarians, a postgraduate student and a Lecturer from the Department of Publishing Studies.

Wednesday 21^stOctober 2009 featured a Workshop for lecturers and students on IR platforms, basically on how to search open access materials and the e-resources the University provides as well as how to deposit items into the repository. Also participants were informed of what has been done so far with regards to KNUSTSpace, the University’s IR.

The program ended on Friday 23rd October 2009 with a Seminar on ‘Open Access and the Value of an Institutional Repository’. The University Librarian Mrs Helena Asamoah-Hassan made a presentation on the topic.

(Written by Richard B. Lamptey, Institutional Repository, K.N.U.S.T, Kumasi-Ghana)

eIFL.net joins the Confederation of Open Access Repositories

eIFL.net has become a founding member of the international Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR) which was launched in Ghent on 21 October, during Open Access Week 2009. Coinciding with the sixth anniversary of the Berlin Declaration to provide "free and unrestricted access to sciences and human knowledge representation worldwide", COAR takes responsibility for the execution of this vision in bringing together scientific repositories in a wider organisational infrastructure to link confederations across continents and around the globe in support of new models of scholarly communication.

Read more about COAR www.driver-repository.eu
Press release is available from the DRIVER website www.driver-support.eu

Photo: Rima Kupryte, managing director of eIFL.net, signs the COAR foundation document, 21.10.2009, Ghent.

The history of the University of Pretoria Open Access mandate, Africa's first

During the Open Access Week the University of Pretoria Library Services released a document on the history of its Open Access mandate and a scorecard on the progress of open access at the university.

“We Build the Road By Walking It” was the slogan for a very tentative beginning to bring awareness about Open Access on campus which quickly gained momentum as the campus community became enthusiastic about it. On May 2009, the Senate of the University of Pretoria adopted a policy for mandatory submission of research papers by its staff, students and other affiliates.

To read about the first African open access institutional mandate and how they accomplished this please go here.

The University of Pretoria Library Services launched its list of Accredited Open Access Journals – South Africa (AOAJSA)

As part of its OA Day celebrations the University of Pretoria Library Services launched its list of Accredited Open Access Journals – South Africa (AOAJSA).

AOAJSA is a list of open access journals (600 titles) accredited by the South African Department of Education and which qualify for funding. These journals appear in one or more of the following:

Web of Science: Science Citation Index Expanded

Web of Science: Social Sciences Citation Index

Web of Science: Arts & Humanities Citation Index

IBSS Journal List

DoE List of Approved South African Journals

AOAJSA is a work in progress by the University of Pretoria Department of Library Services. Please send suggestions and comments to openup[@]up.ac.za, or to Marie Swanepoel: marie.swanepoel[@]up.ac.za.

(http://www.library.up.ac.za/aoajsa.htm)

The Depot – an assured gateway to make research Open Access – becomes international

To coincide with the Open Access week, EDINA (a JISC UK-national academic data centre based at the University of Edinburgh) is pleased to announce that the Depot has been opened up internationally. Building upon its initial role given to it by JISC, the Depot is now being opening up into a facility to support the Open Access agenda internationally.

The Depot ( www.depot.edina.ac.uk) is an assured gateway to make research Open Access and provides two main services:

1. a deposit service for researchers worldwide without an institutional repository in which to deposit their papers, articles, and book chapters (e-prints).

2. a re-direct service which alerts depositors to more appropriate local services if they exist.

The first time a researcher visits the Depot we will automatically check with OpenDOAR, the registry for open access repositories, to find a more appropriate local repository. If none exists then the author will be invited to deposit their research in the Depot. The Depot is OAI-compliant allowing deposited e-prints to be 'harvested' by search services, and other repositories, giving them instant global visibility.

You can find the Depot at http://www.depot.edina.ac.uk/.

(the Depot team)

Open Access Week @ the University of Zimbabwe

Congratulations to the colleagues from the University of Zimbabwe Libraries with a beautiful Open Access Week web-page and wide range of activites!

(Highlights of the Open Access Week)

Celebrate the first-ever international Open Access Week with us!

The first international Open Access Week for Open Access to research, October 19 – 23, 2009, has arrived! Hundreds of leading academic and research sites in over 30 countries will mark the week in unique ways, and express their support for the advancement of knowledge through free, immediate, online access to the results of scholarly research.

Open Access Week is designed to help raise awareness of the potential benefits of Open Access to research, and to celebrate milestones in making Open Access a norm in the conduct of science and scholarship. Momentum for the incorporation of Open into the fabric of science and scholarship has been steadily growing, as evidenced by the growing number of policies from public and private research funders and research producers on college and university campuses.

The momentum is also evident as research institutions, advocacy organizations, and others around the world will participate in the week and demonstrate the wide relevance of Open Access across disciplines and across constituencies. Many campuses and organizations are planning to release reports and resolutions, to discuss Open Access policies, to launch new or updated resources, to sign the student statement, or take other specific actions to support Open Access throughout the week.

eIFL.net network activities include:

Armenia: the Fundamental Scientific Library of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia wears Open Access Week button.

Latvia: The University of Latvia (LU), State agency "Culture information systems" and eIFL.net will organize Open Access: Maximising Research Quality and Impact workshop on October 22, 2009, at the LU, Riga, with Prof. Indrikis Muiznieks, LU vice rector, giving a welcome speech, Zibute Petrauskiene from Vilnius University Library and Tetiana Yaroshenko, University Librarian, Vice President for IT, National University of Kyiv Mohyla Аcademy, presenting successes of Open Access projects in Lithuania and Ukraine, Indra Dedze, Ph.D., Project Manager, Academic Department, LU, discussing challenges and opportunities of the research publications at the University of Latvia, and Irina Shumadieva, Metamorphosis Foundation, presenting the strategy of promoting Open Access in Macedonia.

Moldova: The State University of Moldova (USM), Faculty of Journalism and Communications, Department of Library and Information support, Library Association of the Republic of Moldova, Consortium eIFL Direct Moldova and Program eIFL-OA Moldova organsed a workshop Open Access to Knowledge in the Republic of Moldova.

Poland:

§ the Polish Academy of Sciences and the University of Warsaw organised the seminar “Openness in science – Open Access and other models”;

§ Editors of Electronic Pedagogical Library promoted the idea of Open Educational Resources and open access among librarians and teachers.

Russia: the electronic archive of the Ural State University celebrated its next milestone of 1,865 publications (1 new publication was deposited every day since the first Open Access Day on October 14, 2008).

South Africa:

Durban University of Technology launched Featured Author series at DUT Institutional Repository;
The Library of the University of Johannesburg scheduled presentations and demonstrations of UJDigispace – open access institutional repository every day during the week as well as invited the guest speaker: Ms Madelein van Heerden, CSIR to give a presentation Making you famous;
The Department of Library Services and the Department of Research and Innovation Support of the University of Pretoria have joined hands to present a programme that focuses on the value, importance and cost-effectiveness of open access (OA) journals: Open Access journals demystified;
University of the Western Cape invited Eve Gray to talk how researchers can use internet communications and open access strategies to profile their work and enhance the reputation of their scholarship and their university.

Ukraine:

§ Anthropos – Open Humanities archive celebrates Open Access Week;

§ Donetsk National Technical University will organise a lecture for the 2^nd and the 3^rd year students about Open Access to Knowledge (by Victoria Voropayeva);

§ Kharkiv National Academy of Municipal Economy promoted Open Access Week;

§ Presentations about Open Access will take place in the National University Kyiv Mohyla Academy;

§ National University of Shipbuilding, Mykolayiv, will discuss its Open Access strategy, promote Open Access to the faculty and the libraries of the city, and will present Open Access to the University senate;

§ The library of the Uzhorod National University will host a meeting Open Access to research outputs: Emerging opportunities for University libraries;

§ Presentations about Open Access at Kharkiv National University;

§ Kyiv University after Borys Hrinchenko will inform the faculty and the students about Open Access resources.

eIFL.net is participating in the DRIVER Confederation Summit presenting eIFL-DRIVER partnership to register repositories from eIFL.net network to harvest, index and present the content in the DRIVER Repository search portal.

eIFL.net will also become a founding member of the new international organisation, COAR: the Confederation of Open Access Repositories. COAR aims to support the expansion of open access through developing international, interoperable standards; advocating for open access policies with research funders and institutions; and working to improve deposit rates at repositories.

Later this week we will share with you the stories about the first Open Access institutional mandate from the University of Pretoria, South Africa, and how the value added services can be linked to the open repositories – a case study from Socionet – Russian Online Information Space. We will be sharing more news and exciting stories.

Congratulations on your success so far in bringing awareness of Open Access!

It’s not too late to get involved in Open Access Week 2009. Here are five simple ways YOU can participate:

1. OPEN your email, go viral. Send a video link or 3 little-known OA facts to your friends online.

2. OPEN your sense of style. Wear a t-shirt, button or sticker (real or virtual).

3. OPEN a video. Invite a few friends – online, in person, or at your next class – and play one of the Voices of Open Access videos (http://vimeo.com/oaday08).

4. OPEN a table. In your library, in your department or faculty lounge, or in the student union, set up a table where you can talk with friends and colleagues about Open Access. Take advantage of available sticker templates, flyers, and posters.

5. OPEN an event invitation. It’s not too late to invite your contacts to get together anytime from October 19 – 23. Tight schedules? Get together by phone. Watch or listen to a video and then open discussion.

See www.openaccessweek.org for resources.

PARTICIPATING? Please be sure and add your details to the events listing at http://oad.simmons.edu/oadwiki/Events_celebrating_Open_Access_Week. Take pictures, record your events, and share via www.openaccessweek.org. Remember to report on any actions you have scheduled, and to let us know the outcome! Please contribute information (your own announcements, blog posts, tweets, photos, etc. – we'd be pleased to help spread them around) on the Open Access Week Wiki and make the rest of the world aware of research activities in your institutions!

Presentations from Scientific Information in the Digital Age: Access and Dissemination, ICTP Workshop, Trieste, Italy, 12-16 October 2009

Video recordings of the presentations from Scientific Information in the Digital Age: Access and Dissemination, ICTP Workshop, Trieste, Italy, 12-16 October 2009, are online (automatic video recording of the activities with synchronized audio and video slides using the ICTP EyA System):

Introduction to Open Access - Iryna Kuchma, eIFL.net

Open Repositories - Iryna Kuchma, eIFL.net

PLOS, Semantic Enrichment Tools, Database and Literature Integration - Philip Bourne, UC San Diego, USA

How the Internet Works - Les Cottrell, SLAC, USA

How the Internet is Performing - Les Cottrell, SLAC, USA

Network Measurements - Les Cottrell, SLAC, USA

Setting up the repositories, Policies and Legal Issues, Expanding Content and Increasing Usage - Iryna Kuchma, eIFL.net

Content Management in a Web 2.0 Environment – Philip Bourne, UC San Diego, USA

DSpace software - Iryna Kuchma, eIFL.net

Case Studies/Presentations by Participants:

Publishing An Open Source Journal: Experience of BIIJ - KADRI Nahrizul Adib, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya, Malaysia

Shift from Custom Built Repository to Standard Institutional Repository - KHODE Alok, CSIR Unit For Research and Development of Information Products, Pune, India

Open Source Libraries - NARAYANASAMY Nageswaran, Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune, India

Information Management in Planning and International Relations Division - KUMAR Maragatham, Malaysian Nuclear Agency, Kajang, Malaysia

Preservation and Reformatting Program - DIZON Heidi Kalayaan, Rizal Library, Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines

Access and dissemination of Knowledge in Egypt: Initiatives and Projects - TAHA Mandy, Library of Alexandria, Egypt

Information Literacy: The Missing Link in Information Dissemination - BANDA Charles, The Copperbelt University, Library Department, Zambia

Open Access to Data - BULLEN Alison Maeve, Human Sciences Research Council, Gauteng, South Africa

Diffusion of Scientific information in India: Role of a Civil Society Organisation - MUKHERJEE DAS Anasua, GreenPeace India Society, New Delhi, India

Open Access and Web 2.0 in Academic Library: A South Africa Experience - KOVATCHEVA Pavlinka Svetomirova, University of Johannesburg, South Africa

Open Science and Science Commons Projects - Kaitlin Thaney, Science Commons, USA

Open Source Journal Management and Publishing System: OJS and OCS: I - James McGregor, SFU, Canada

Quantifying the Digital Divide as seen Through the Internet - Les Cottrell, SLAC, USA

e-Math and e-Physics for Africa - Anders Wandahl, physics.golonka.se

scivee.tv: Science Community Site - Philip Bourne, UC San Diego, USA

YOUnipr: A Video Server 2.0 – Sara Valla, Servizio Supporti Informatici per la Didattica e E-Learning, Univ. Parma, Italy

ICTP Diploma Course On-line – Carlo Fonda, ICTP-SDU

ePrints Software and case study of the Enlighten – the University of Glasgow's institutional repository - William Nixon, University of Glasgow, UK

21^st Century Learning - Donald Clark, UK

e-Learning and Generation Y - Donald Clark, UK

Presentations from the Open Access session, Informatio 2009, Lviv, Ukraine

Presentations from the Open Access session at Informatio 2009, October 9, Lviv, Ukraine, are online (in Ukrainian language). The presentations cover open access news, overview of open access projects in Ukraine, case studies of the open access repositories from Kharkiv National University, Ternopil Technical University, Chernivtsi National University, National University Lviv Polytechnics, Lviv National University, and training how to start an open access repository.

eIFL.net declared its commitment to the HIFA2015 goal

eIFL.net became one of 70 health and development organisations worldwide that have officially declared their commitment to the HIFA2015 goal. The full list of Supporting Organisations is available here.

HIFA2015 (Healthcare Information For All by 2015) is a global knowledge network administered by the Global Healthcare Information Network, a non-profit organisation working to improve the quality of health care in developing countries. HIFA2015 brings together more than 2600 health workers, librarians, publishers, researchers and policymakers from 150 countries worldwide, all committed to a common goal: By 2015, every person worldwide will have access to an informed health care provider. One-third of members are based in Africa, one-third in Europe, and one-third in the rest of the world. Together they are working for a future where people are no longer dying for lack of basic healthcare knowledge. During 2009, HIFA2015 has received financial support from the British Medical Association, International Child Health Group, Network for Information and Digital Access, Royal College of Midwives, Royal College of Nursing, and World Health Organization. Join today: www.hifa2015.org

The first open access repository in Belarus – Belarusian State University Digital Library

The Fundamental Library of the Belarusian State University celebrated the National Library Day (9-15-09) by registering the first open access institutional repository in Belarus – BSU Digital Library – in the Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR). Congratulations to our colleagues from Belarus!

The OpenDOAR service provides a quality-assured listing of open access repositories around the world (as of 9-23-09 it has 1463 listings). OpenDOAR staff harvest and assign metadata to allow categorisation and analysis to assist the wider use and exploitation of repositories. Each of the repositories has been visited by OpenDOAR staff to ensure a high degree of quality and consistency in the information provided: OpenDOAR is maintained by SHERPA.

Open Access Anthropology in Africa

antropologi.info blog – a multilingual anthropology portal with news blogs in English, German and Norwegian – posted an introduction to Open Access Anthropology in Africa highlighting the anthropology related papers in Sudan Open Archive, Institutional Repository at University of Zimbabwe, and from five South African universities: Rhodes University eResearch Repository, UJDigiSpace – Institutional Repository of the University of Johannesburg, UPSpace at the University of Pretoria, the University of the Western Cape electronic theses and dissertations repository and WIReDSpace – the digital repository of the University of the Witwatersrand.

Open access to research information included into the Olvia declaration of the Universities in Ukraine

26 rectors of Ukrainian universities endorsed the Olvia declaration of the Universities: Academic Freedom, University Autonomy, Science and Education for Sustainable Development at Olvia Forum 2009 (Livadia palace, Yalta, Crimea, Ukraine, June 12, 2009). Open access to research information is described in the Article 2.6:

“Academic freedom includes open access to information (except reasonable exceptions specified by the law of Ukraine), including open access to research information through the development of open repositories and open access journals in the Universities, and ability to communicate freely with the peers in any part of the world.

Open access to information is a significant part of the research in today's globalised world, a key to further development of science, education and society, and Ukraine's integration into the global academic community.”

From the Article 2.11 of the Action Plan on implementing the Olvia declaration of the Universities:

“To practice open access to knowledge Universities and research organizations should:

develop institutional polices and strategies on open access (free and unrestricted access to full text peer reviewed research results), provide access to, search and usage of the above mentioned works by the faculty to every internet user to increase scientific, social and economic impact of the research;
launch and develop open institutional repositories and open access journals;
encourage open use of this information for research and education.”

Congratulations to Tetyana Yaroshenko, University Librarian and Vice President for IT at the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy, and eIFL Open Access country coordinator in Ukraine, for being a driving force behind Articles 2.6 and 2.11!

Photos from the Olvia Forum 2009.

Open Repository – Collecting, preserving and disseminating

The Internet has, through immense growth and widespread adoption, brought about a revolutionary transformation in the way that people find, access and communicate information. As the digital transformation spreads, organisations across the developing world need to adapt the storage of their research information so that it is logically organised, relevant and continuously available.

To ensure that we preserve our valuable data for future generations, institutes and funders are increasingly mandating open access self-archiving. Self-archiving necessitates authors to store their research in a freely accessible repository at the time of submission.

Despite the software costs involved in building a repository being relatively low, staffing and upgrade costs make running a repository in the developing world both costly and time consuming. Hosted institutional repositories are increasingly being adopted as a highly effective method for archiving research output whilst providing a reliable, cost-effective solution that complies with institutional mandates.

BioMed Central’s “Open Repository” is a leading hosted archive solution that allows organisations to build, launch, host, and maintain their own repositories. Open Repository can store a wide variety of data types and is and is built upon the latest version of DSpace, an open-source solution for accessing, managing and preserving scholarly works.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) well known for its humanitarian medical work adopted Open Repository in 2008. Now, MSF's research experience is available to health workers, policy makers and researchers across poorer countries where access to scientific publications is often difficult and expensive to obtain.

Through the use of Open Repository, librarians can manage and maintain all the research output of their organisations. The hosted solution allows administrators to focus their time on populating their repositories with content, rather than worrying about the day-to-day management of their systems. The additional freedom provided by Open Repository offers a much greater level of flexibility and the prospect of higher visibility for organisations.

Build and hosting a repository can be a major challenge for organisations based in the developing world. Open Repository therefore offers the perfect solution through delivering a high quality hosted product, bespoke to each organisation and at an affordable cost.

Free non-obligatory trials for the Open Repository system are now available. Visit our website to find out more: www.openrepository.com

Claire Bundy
Business Development Manager
Open Repository
BioMed Central
E: claire.bundy[@]biomedcentral.com

Plans for Open Access Week - October 19-23, 2009

This year, the Open Access Week organizers will highlight a growing suite of educational resources that you can use to design your own programs on Open Access, for your respective audiences. Scholars, students, libraries, publishers, individuals, and campuses everywhere are invited to adapt these resources as needed and to mark Open Access Week by hosting an event, distributing literature, blogging, or wearing an Open Access t-shirt.

Learn more about downloadable resources (videos and webcasts, handouts, posters, flyers, buttons, icons, banners, etc), sample program tracks, event in a box here.

The OASIS project features the resources for researchers, administrators, librarians, students, and the public — as well as different OA awareness levels — that will be the centerpiece of the 2009.

a) list your organisation if you plan any events celebrating Open Access Week here (please choose your region, e.g. Africa: Open Access Week 2009, Asia: Open Access Week 2009, Europe: Open Access Week 2009 and add your country if it's not listed). Or send us your information and we will fill in the wiki page for you.

b) give us feedback on whether our available and planned resources look useful to you and if not, how might we improve it?

c) let us know what resources we might have missed

d) what other samples would be useful to you for us to develop.

Thank you for your feedback!

Open repository experience from the medical library

Jolanta Przyłuska from Scientific Library of the Nofer Institute of Occupational Medicine, Łódź, Poland, in her paper and presentation Can a bibliographical database be replaced by a repository? (in Polish language, deposited in E-LIS) suggests using a repository of digital documents and describes the experience from administrating open access subject repository of ECNIS research – Environmental Cancer Risk, Nutrition and Individual Susceptibility. The repository is powered by Open Repository – a hosted solution from BioMed Central that builds and maintains repositories on behalf of organizations. ECNIS repository is OAI compliant based on the latest DSpace software, easy to navigate (search and browse), provides fast and easy access to the full texts and links to social software applications including communication and interactive tools.

Przyłuska , Jolanta Czy repozytorium zastąpi bazę bibliograficzną - doświadczenia małej wyspecjalizowanej biblioteki medycznej., 2009 . In Bibliograficzne bazy danych : kierunki rozwoju i możliwości współpracy. Ogólnopolska konferencja naukowa z okazji 10-lecia bazy danych BazTech, Bydgoszcz (Poland), 27-29 May 2009. [Conference Paper] [Deposited in E-LIS on 26 Aug 2009]

Ten thousands scientific articles at dLib.si

Ten thousands scientific articles from a range of top scientific and professional journals are now online at the Digital Library of Slovenia portal (dLib.si, full text availability depends on the publishers’ decision). dLib.si provides quick, easy and wide access to academic achievements and contributes to the promotion and dissemination of Slovenian knowledge.

Other scholarly collections include Higher education publications uploaded within the project Development of the Digital Collection of Scientific Research and Professional Publications aimed at providing a single point of access to full text of the professional, scientific and multimedia content of the four Slovenian universities. The first collection includes 253 master's and doctoral theses from the University of Ljubljana.

The digital library has been enhanced by an extensive collection of programme and project reports. All reports for 2008, which were financed by the Slovenian Research Agency, have been published on the dLib.si portal.

Evaluation of Institutional Repository Development in Developing and Transition Countries: t-shirt winners and call for more input

Thank you to the repository managers who have already filled in the survey, and congratulations to the three eIFL T-shirt winners: African Higher Education Research Online (AHERO), University of the Western Cape, South Africa; Orion@ISI, Indian Statistical Institute; and UNAMSpace, University of Namibia Library!

We welcome more input from repository managers in developing and transition countries. This is the first time that such data about digital repository activity in developing and transition countries has been collected, and we hope this will serve as important resource for promoting open access and repository development in these regions. Your answers will help contribute to a larger overview of repository activity, and will provide support those who have just started building their repository! The survey will take approximately 30-45 minutes to complete. If possible please fill in this survey by August 31st.

This study is part of a cooperative program between eIFL.net, the University of Kansas Libraries, the DRIVER project and Key Perspectives Ltd., and aims at creating an inventory of current digital repository activities in developing and transition countries, at both the infrastructure and services level. This survey has been adapted from the DRIVER Inventory study into the present type and level of OAI-compliant digital repository activities in the EU by Maurits de Graaf and SURF, and from the European repository study by Alma Swan, Key Perspectives Ltd.

The link to the survey is here.

To help you prepare you can view a PDF preview of the survey questions here.

We appreciate your cooperation!

AgEcon Search invites to contribute material

If you are not familiar with AgEcon Search it is a free-to-user Web resource with full-text of working papers, conference papers and journal articles in agricultural, consumer, development, energy, environmental, resource and other areas of applied economics.

Open access repository AgEcon Search is housed at the University of Minnesota, and co-sponsored by the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA).

Over 170 institutions from 5 continents contribute their material to AgEcon Search, and its 34,000+ papers have been downloaded over 1.5 million times since 2001. Inclusion in AgEcon Search will give your papers added exposure. Articles will be available and highly ranked in both Google and Google Scholar, and we are committed to archiving all materials in AgEcon Search.

For example, at last count, the 48 papers from the Humboldt University Berlin have been downloaded a total of 1490 times. Announcements about new papers are sent to an e-mail distribution list that reaches 2000+ economists, students, and policy makers.

The process for adding papers is quite easy. It just involves filling out a short form with the title, authors and abstract, and attaching a PDF version of the paper. Adding papers is also free of charge, as long as one person from an organization coordinates the effort.

If you have older material that is in print format, we can work with you to find a way to digitize it and add it to AgEcon Search.

Please consider contributing material to AgEcon Search. We welcome papers in a variety of languages.

If you want to get started, or have any questions about AgEcon Search, please feel free to contact us.

Louise Letnes, lletnes[@]umn.edu
Julie Kelly, jkelly[@]umn.edu

Coordinators, AgEcon Search
Aesearch[@]umn.edu
http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/

Open access mandate in the National Science Library (NSL), Chinese Academy of Science (CAS)

In February 2009 NSL, CAS, launched a Knowledge repository and mandated the NSL members to deposit all their articles 1 month after the publication. The articles submitted by the NSL members will be the indicators of research performance during the annual performance evaluation, which impacts the faculties’ and staffs’ salaries, tenure and promotion. To support the project NSL drafted addendums and licenses, including Copyright License Addendums, Conference proceedings Archiving License and Journals Archiving License.

NSL encourages each CAS institutes to launch institutional repositories, and plans to federate them into the repository network. To advocate for open access and to build capacities NSL set up the Chinese Open Access Portal

More information in the paper Open Access Practice in National Science Library, Chinese Academy of Science, written by LI Lin, LIU Xiwen and ZHANG Xiaolin, NSL, CAS, to be presented at IFLA Science and Technology Libraries session: Open access to science and technology research worldwide: strategies and best practices, World Library and Information Congress: 75th IFLA General Conference and Assembly Libraries create futures: Building on cultural heritage, 23-27 August 2009, Milan, Italy.

Open access developments worldwide in the DRIVER Wiki

The purpose of the DRIVER Wiki is to provide a home for community contributions and to create a dynamic and updatable picture of open access activity. You can read about Open Access in Bulgaria (contributor: Georgi Simeonov, Institute of Mathematics and Informatics at Bulgarian Academy of Sciences), Open Access in Egypt (contributor: Mandy Taha, Library of Alexandria), Open Access in Ethiopia (contributor: Bezunesh Alemu, Addis Ababa University), Open Access in South Africa (contributor's: Ina Smith, Institutional Repository Manager University of Pretoria South Africa, and Susan Veldsman, Director: Scholarly Publishing Programme and Unit Academy of Science of South Africa), and in many other EU countries, Non-EU Europe and worldwide. You can also use the DRIVER Wiki to share information about your open access developments (contact us if you want to add your country or to update information).

DRIVER – Digital Repository Infrastructure Vision for European Research – is a multi-phase effort whose vision and primary objective is to establish a cohesive, pan-European infrastructure of Digital Repositories, offering sophisticated functionality services to both researchers and the general public.

The first African repository exposed to the global research community in the DRIVER Research Infrastructure

Boloka, the Research Repository of the North-West University in South Africa was exposed to the global research community today in the DRIVER Research Infrastructure. Congratulations to the repository team at NWU! As the first African repository to go global, the contents of Boloka, which means to store, to keep safe, or to preserve, can now be searched in conjunction with over 1 million other research papers harvested by DRIVER and made openly accessible through Open Access institutional repositories. The repository comprises electronic theses, an Open Access journal (Potchefstroom Electronic Law Journal) as well as the research output of the University of the North West, and periodic harvesting will capture incremental growth. As many OAI repositories contain restricted content, DRIVER harvests only those repositories that voluntarily register for prior validation and confirmation of data quality. To assist in improving data standards, and ultimately ensuring the interoperability of data in global information spaces, DRIVER provides support for repository managers in online Guidelines for Content Providers. Boloka was validated and registered smoothly, which speaks highly of the interoperability standards achieved. Congratulations are due to repository manager, Louw Venter, and his team at NWU . Louw says: " This has been a tough road for us so far having to figure out a lot of things on our own, so we are also very proud of what we've achieved, in what I think is a relatively short time. Initially I just used the Validation tool to see if our repository is more or less on track and was reassured when the results looked good, which gave me confidence to register." Repository managers are invited to validate their own repository and register with confidence in the knowledge that the research papers of your researchers can enjoy full exposure to their respective disciplines and subject communities. To find out more, visit the Driver website: Register your Repository: http://validator.driver.research-infrastructures.eu/validatorWeb/ We encourage repository managers to register their repository with DRIVER, so that its contents are harvested periodically, indexed into the DRIVER platform and presented in the DRIVER European Repository search portal. In this way, publicly funded research deposited in your repository can achieve wider distribution - to be read, used and cited more widely by the global research community. Repositories successfully harvested by DRIVER are entitled to display the DRIVER logo on their library website, to certify quality and global networked status of their content.

Yuriy Fedkovich Chernivtsi national university, Ukraine, launched digital repository

Digital repository of Yuriy Fedkovich Chernivtsi national university, Ukraine, is now live. The repository was launched in the frames of ELibUkr project initiated byKyiv-Mohyla Foundation of America along with three Ukrainian universities: National university of «Kyiv-Mohyla academy», V. Karazin Kharkiv National University, Yuriy Fedkovich Chernivtsi national university supported by Center for Technology Innovation Management of Northwestern University in the USA and All-Ukrainian Association "Informatio-consortium" and by sponsorship of Regional Mission of USA Agency for International Development (USAID) in Ukraine. ElibUkr is a nationwide network of university Knowledge Centers which provides access to the most authoritative world scientific resources and ensures knowledge interchange among the Ukrainian scientists and world academic community via institutional repositories.

Congratulations to the repository team of Yuriy Fedkovich Chernivtsi national university and to the management of ELibUkr project!

Open Access first for South African Journal of Science

The South African Journal of Science (SAJS) is one of the first South African journals to be hosted on the fully Open Access platform, SciELO South Africa. This represents a major achievement in South Africa that will benefit researchers and scholars in providing a free-to-publish, free-to-access platform for the best scientific thinking the country has to offer.

SciELO focuses on developing countries where few end users have access to traditional peer-reviewed academic journals either online or in print form. Access to journals is subscription-based and can be very expensive. Only certain libraries carry them, meaning that there have been severe restrictions in accessibility and affordability up to this point. The Open Access platform for these journals aims to combat these restrictions, while simultaneously enhancing the international visibility of South African research.

Open Access publishing allows research literature comprising academic peer-reviewed journals, conference papers and theses to be placed in an online portal from which they can be downloaded for use. The authors do not have to pay any type of publishing fee. However, it is important to realise that open access by no means equates to ‘self-publishing’ – all articles conform to the traditional process of journal publishing, entailing critical reading by several peer-reviewers who ensure that a rigorous standard of research is upheld. Open Access publishing merely makes these research results available and affordable to a wider audience.

The South African Journal of Science, published by the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf), is the first of a number of leading existing peer-reviewed journals to be fully Open Access on the SciELO platform. Other scientific journals which are in the process of being uploaded are Koedoe, the South African Journal of Education, and HTS: Theological Studies.

Journals selected to be part of SciELO South Africa must first go through a rigorous process of quality appraisal, in which journal accreditation by the Department of Education is considered, along with IBSS and ISI rankings and peer-reviewing processes. This will ensure that the most reliable, credible and innovative research by South Africa’s top researchers will be available in full to any person with internet access and the desire to learn, at no cost. Actual usage by scholars and scientists is monitored by the indexing system in various ways, including journal impact factors, and article citation and download statistics.

The initiative is led by Susan Veldsman, a specialist in the field of Open Access and Director of the Scholarly Publishing Unit at the ASSAf. She has been working in the information science sector for over twenty years, with a recent focus on Open Access journals.

The implementation of this open and freely accessible online journal platform has been pioneered by the Scientific Electronic Online Library (SciELO) project, based in Brazil. Fully indexed, it has been successfully implemented in eight countries, mostly in Latin America, with others being in the developmental phases. SciELO South Africa is the first site of this growing system on the African continent.

Visit www.scielo.org.za.

Issued by:

Andrea Meyer

Communication Officer

Academy of Science of South Africa

Tel +27 12 843 6576

Cell + 27 83 754 7215

E-mail: andrea[@]assaf.org.za

www.assaf.org.za

About the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf)

The Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) is the official national academy of science and represents the country in the international community of science academies. As collective resource, the Academy enables the generation of evidence-based solutions to national problems.

The strategic priorities of the Academy are closely matched to those of the nation, focusing particularly on the need for the greatly enhanced availability of high-level human capital and an increased use of the country’s best intellectual expertise in generating evidence-based policy advice that is practical and feasible.

Open Access: Maximising Research Quality and Impact, July 22-23, 2009, Kathmandu, Nepal

Presentations from the workshop Open Access: Maximising Research Quality and Impact, organised by Nepal Library and Information Consortium (NELIC) and eIFL.net, supported by the Foundation Open Society Institute, Zug, Switzerland, July 22-23, 2009, Kathmandu, Nepal, are now online.

Researchers, research managers and policy-makers, librarians and ICT specialists discussed how to maximise the visibility of research publications and improve the quality, impact and influence of research, how to disseminate the research results in the most efficient way, how to showcase the quality of research in universities and research institutions, what are the new tools to better measure and manage research in such institutions, and how to collect and curate current digital outputs.

Open Access publishers from Nepal shared the case studies of Journal of Nepal Medical Association, Journal of Nepal Paediatric Society and Dhaulagiri Journal of Sociology and Anthropology. Strategies for collective advocacy of open access to research results were discussed and workshop participants agreed to work together to set up a joint repository to improve the visibility and accessibility of current research publications from Nepal.

Overview of open access projects in Nepal:

Open Access journals:

Journal of Nepal Medical Association (JNMA)

Nepal Journal of Neuroscience

Journal of Forest and Livelihood

26 journals hosted at Nepal Journals Online supported by INASP:

Banko Janakari (a journal of forestry information for Nepal, 2005-2007)

Bulletin of the Department of Geology, Official publication of the Central Tribhuvan University

Dhaulagiri Journal of Sociology and Anthropology

Ecoprint: An International Journal of Ecology

Himalayan Journal of Sciences

Himalayan Journal of Sociology and Anthropology

Himalayan Review (2006-2007)

Hydro Nepal: Journal of Water, Energy and Environment

Journal of Agriculture and Environment (2007)

Journal of Natural History Museum

Journal of Nepal Chemical Society

Journal of Nepal Paediatric Society

Journal of Nepalese Business Studies, the Faculty of Management, Tribhuvan University

Journal of Political Science (1998 and 2004)

Journal of the Institute of Agriculture and Animal Science (2002-2006)

Journal of the Institute of Engineering, Tribhuvan University

Kathmandu University Medical Journal

Nepal Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology

Nepalese Journal of Engineering (2005)

Nepalese Journal of Qualitative Research Methods (2007)

Occasional Papers in Sociology and Anthropology (1987, 1990, 1993-1994, 1996, 2000-2001, 2003, 2005, 2007)

Our Nature: An International Biological Journal

The Third Pole: Journal of Geography Education (2004, 2007)

Tribhuvan University Journal (2004)

TULSSAA Journal (a journal of Library and Information Science, 2006)

Voice of History (2000-2001, 2005)

Open access books: published by ICIMOD http://books.icimod.org (the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, a regional knowledge development and learning centre serving the eight regional member countries of the Hindu Kush-Himalayas – Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal, and Pakistan); books and journals published by Nepal Agriculture Research Council http://www.narc.org.np/publicaton/index.php.

If your projects are not listed here, please share with us information about them.

Lithuanian Academic Libraries Network was recognised as one the most active players in the field of Open Access in Lithuania

The European Commission received 30 responses to the questionnaire on scientific information in the digital age, 25 from CREST members (EU Member States) and 5 from CREST observers as a follow-up to the Council Conclusions on Scientific information in the digital age: Access, Dissemination and Preservation. From the results of the questionnaire:

In Lithuania, the most active players in the field of Open Access are research libraries, and awareness raising events are organized in close collaboration with the Lithuanian Academic Libraries Network, the Ministry of Education and Science, the academic community, and the Lithuanian Academic Publishers Association. All the journals published by the Academy of Sciences in Lithuania put their full text articles on the web.

Replies to the question about repositories/open archives show a great deal of successful national activities, and many of these look to standards developed at European level through the project DRIVER (Digital Repository Infrastructure Vision for European Research) as a point of reference. EU co-funded project DRIVER is also mentioned as one of the most noteworthy efforts in the area of interoperability of repositories of scientific information in Member States pursuing the objective to create a cohesive, robust and flexible, pan-European infrastructure for digital repositories.

One of CREST - Comité de la recherche scientifique et technique - missions is to identify research and development priorities for the EU.

More information about the results of EC questionnaire is here.

Open Access Publishing: Views of Researchers in Public Agricultural Research Institutions in Zambia

Davy Simumba, Principal Agricultural Research Officer, Zambia Agricultural Research Institute, Chilanga, Zambia & Justin Chisenga, Information Management Specialist, FAO Regional Office for Africa, Accra, Ghana, presented a paper Open Access Publishing: Views of Researchers in Public Agricultural Research Institutions in Zambia at the plenary session on Open Access to Publicly Funded Research – Views from Research Scientists, Policy Makers, Development Partners/Funders of Research, Users & Information Professionals at the 2nd Conference of the International Association of Agricultural Information Specialists (IAALD) Africa Chapter: Towards Opening Access to Information and Knowledge in the Agricultural Sciences and Technology in Africa, Accra, Ghana, 15th – 17th July 2009.

Fostering open access publishing in Tanzanian public universities: policy makers’ perspectives was a second paper at this session presented by Frankwell Dulle, Senior Librarian, Sokoine University of Agriculture, Morogoro, Tanzania & M. K. Minishi-Majanja, Department of Information Science, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa.

(OA tracking project)

Free publishing and access opportunities with the Oxford Journals

The Oxford Open initiative expands Oxford Journal's experiments with Open Access publishing models. It includes full and optional open access across over 70 journals in every subject area. For each of the Oxford Journals that offers an open access model listed here authors in the developing countries listed below can publish for free and readers can have free access to these articles. Information for authors is here.

A. Free access and free publishing opportunities:
eIFL countries: Cambodia, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Nepal, Nigeria, Senegal, Sudan, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The full list of countries is here.

The chain of communication in health science: from researcher to health worker through open access

Leslie Chan, Subbiah Arunachalam and Barbara Kirsop published a paper The chain of communication in health science: from researcher to health worker through open access in Open Medicine, Vol 3, No 2 (2009) – a peer-reviewed, independent, open-access journal.

The article addresses the public health benefits of open access, points to strategies for making publications accessible and reusable, provides examples of successes so far and concludes with recommendations on how best to maximize the return on investment for health research.

Leslie Chan is director of Bioline International and senior lecturer in the Department of Social Sciences, University of Toronto, Scarborough, Ontario, Canada. Subbiah Arunachalam is distinguished fellow at the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, India. Barbara Kirsop is a trustee and secretary of the Electronic Publishing Trust for Development, a registered charity in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, UK.

Presentations and papers about open access in Poland from INFORUM 2009

2 presentations and papers from the INFORUM 2009: 15th Conference on Professional Information Resources, Prague, May 27-29, 2009:

Open Access Journals Quality – How to Measure It?

Aneta OSTROWSKA, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Poland

Open Access: how to benefit from it reasonably and how to make the own contribution in its development?

Zuzanna Wiorogórska, University of Warsaw Library, Poland

The presentation starts with information about eIFL.net as “an interesting initiative, which agglomerate OA materials”.

South Africa: the first African open access institutional mandate at the University of Pretoria and a new repository at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology

On May 22, 2009 Monica Hammes registered the open access mandate of the University of Pretoria, South Africa:

To assist the University of Pretoria in providing open access to scholarly articles resulting from research done at the University, supported by public funding, staff and students are required to:

- submit peer-reviewed postprints + the metadata of their articles to UPSpace, http://repository.up.ac.za/ the University’s institutional repository, AND

- give the University permission to make the content freely available and to take necessary steps to preserve files in perpetuity.

Postprints are to be submitted immediately upon acceptance for publication.

Access to the full text of articles will be subject to publisher permissions. Access will not be provided if permission is in doubt or not available. In such cases, an abstract will be made available for external internet searches to achieve maximum research visibility. Access to the full text will be suppressed for a period if such an embargo is prescribed by the publisher or funder.

The Open Scholarship Office will take responsibility for adhering to archiving policies of publishers and research funders, and managing the system's embargo facility to delay public visibility to meet their requirements.

The University of Pretoria strongly recommends that transfer of copyright be avoided. Researchers are encouraged to negotiate copyright terms with publishers when the publisher does not allow archiving, reuse and sharing. This can be done by adding the official UP author addendum to a publishing contract.

The University of Pretoria encourages its authors to publish their research articles in open access journals that are accredited.

More information:

The open access mandate : a key element of open scholarship by Hammes, Monica M.P.

Open Scholarship and research reporting in tandem : creating more value by Olivier, Elsabe

Leslie Carr, Southampton, United Kingdom, created the global picture of hardworking repositories (repositories which receive regular daily deposits) and according to it the UPSpace at the University of Pretoria is the ninth hardworking repository in the world!

And congratulations to the Cape Peninsula University of Technology Libraries on their repository up and running at http://dk.cput.ac.za/.

eIFL Spotlight Gaining the momentum: eIFL marks five year commitment to Open Access in South Africa is here and presentations from the Gaining the momentum: Open access & advancement of science and research workshop (a part of the African Digital Scholarship 2009 Conference) are here.

Implementation of the Belgorod Declaration on open access to scientific knowledge and cultural heritage endorsed by 10 rectors in Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine

On May 28, 2009 Belgorod State University presented its digital repository, http://dspace.bsu.edu.ru/ followed by the V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University launching its digital repository eKhNUIR http://dspace.univer.kharkov.ua/ to implement the action plan of the Belgorod declaration on open access to scientific knowledge and cultural heritage at the university area of border regions of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine for 2008-2013.

Last year the rectors of Belgorod State University, Voronezh State University, East-Ukrainian National University named after V.Dahl, Gomel State University named after F.Skorina, Donetsk National University, Zaporozhye National University, Kursk State University, Taurida National University named after V.I.Vernadskiy, Kharkiv National University named after V.N. Karazin and South Federal University signed the Belgorod Declaration to stimulate and support open access to scientific knowledge and cultural heritage by the universities of the CIS countries. They committed themselves to encourage open access publishing among the researchers and grant recipients. The universities should support open access, launch and finance the digital repositories, grant open access to the results of scientific researches fulfilled at the expense of the budgetary funds based on rectors’ directions on mandatory self-archiving of the publications in the institutional digital repositories. The universities should initiate the creation of open access journals and provide financial support to open access publications. Parliamentary committees, ministries, government agencies, scientific funds and other organizations, that form the universities’ scientific research budget and finance it, were recommended to grant open access to the results of the scientific research, to allocate some costs for creating and maintaining the university digital repositories and open access journals and also to evaluate the effects of the open access scientific publications. The universities of the CIS are invited to support the declaration.

A signed copy of the Belgorod Declaration on open access to scientific knowledge and cultural heritage on the university area of border regions of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine, Belgorod, Jan. 30, 2008 in Russian and in English.

The action plan of the principles of the Belgorod declaration on open access to scientific knowledge and cultural heritage on the university area of border regions of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine for 2008-2013 in Russian and in English.

Contact person: Professor Vladimir Moskovkin, Belgorod State University, moskovkin[@]bsu.edu.ru, http://library.bsu.edu.ru/resourse/biobibl/moskovkin.asp

Poland considering an open access mandate

Krzysztof Gulda, Director of the Department of Strategy and Development of Science at the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, speaking at the conference Open Educational Resources in Poland on April 23, 2009, declared the interest of the Ministry in introducing open science models in Poland, as part of the current reform of the scientific system. In particular, he declared that the Ministry is considering introducing an open mandate for publicly funded scientific content.

(From the Open Education and Open Science in Poland news by Jane Park, Creative Commons)

A new Lithuanian law on science requires online access for publicly-funded research

Article 45 of the new Law on Science and Studies of the Republic of Lithuania (adopted on April 30, 2009 and took effect on May 12, 2009) requires publicity of the results of scientific activity:

1. In order to guarantee the quality, transparency of the scientific research and to stimulate scientific advancement carried out utilising state budget funds, all the results of the scientific activity carried out in the state science and study institutions must be made public (via the internet and by other means) if this is in agreement with laws regulating intellectual property and protection of the commercial, state or work related secrets.

2. Results of scientific activity carried out at non-governmental institutions of science and studies using state budget funds must be made public (via the internet and by other means) if this is in agreement with laws regulating intellectual property and protection of the commercial or state secret.

This new law is a big step forward towards national open access policies. Congratulations to the Lithuanian Research Library Consortium on this large and hard-won step forward! The new law introduces lots of radical changes into Lithuanian academic life and most of the changes should be implemented by 2011. The text of the lay in Lithuanian is here.

Peter Suber comments on the new law are here.

Open access repositories seminar at Crimea 2009, June 11

Presentations from the Open access repositories seminar (June 11, 2009) are available here (most of them in Russian language).

Speakers discussed the academic and research libraries role in the open access movement; and presented

- history of the movement, open access benefits and open access projects in Ukraine (implementation of the national open access mandate, Open access to knowledge statement endorsed by more than 150 Ukrainian University librarians – more information is here, simple search metadata – harvesting 9 Ukrainian open repositories http://oai.org.ua/, and a case study from open institutional repository of the National University Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, etc.);

- open institutional repository in Ternopil State Ivan Pul’uj Technical University integrated into the research and education portal of the University and the fist open access institutional mandate in Ukraine;

- open repositories in Russia (Socionet and 21 open repositories in Russian Academy of Sciences, 6 institutional repositories in Russian Universities – Ural State University, Siberian Federal University, Udmurt State University, Tver State University, Belgorod State University, and Ural Technical University, and other open repositories - e.g. regional repository for educational materials Ural Education, etc.) and a case study of the first Russian open institutional repository in the Ural State University;

- open access to research information in Kazakhstan.

The seminar was concluded with the workshop How to start: Planning and setting up open intuitional repositories.

eIFL.net and the Russian National Public Library for Science and Technology (GPNTB) organised the seminar at the Sixteenth International Conference Crimea 2009: Libraries and Information Resources in the Modern World of Science, Culture, Education, and Business, Sudak, Autonomous Republic of Crimea, Ukraine (more information about the conference here.

Open Access: Maximising Research Impact workshop in Palestine

35 participants from Al-AHLIYA College University – Bethlehem, Al Haq for Human Rights library, Al-Quds University, Al-Quds Open University, An-Najah National University, the Arab American University, Bethlehem University, Birzeit University (Law Library, Institute of Women Studies Library, Birzeit University Main Library, Computer Centre and Dean of Graduate Studies), Hebron University, Palestine Polytechnic University and Palestine Technical University (Khadoori) participated in the Open Access: Maximising Research Impact workshop at Birzeit University Library organised by Palestinian Library and Information Consortium (PALICO), Birzeit University Library, Telemark University College Library, Norway, and eIFL.net in celebration of Jerusalem Capital of Arab Culture in 2009.

Workshop presentations and materials and photos from the group discussion are here.

Birzeit university library in Palestine, Tromsø university library and Telemark university college library in Norway have decided to work together to promote the development and establishment of an open research repository for theses and scientific publications from Birzeit University. The workshop participants discussed this project implementation as well as possibilities of launching a shared repository for research from Palestine. Open access is a viable solution to existing problems in the scholarly communication – this statement is especially relevant in Palestine where geographical barriers, walls and checkpoints are a restriction to movement.

Libraries advocating for open access in Ukraine – May news

More than 150 Ukrainian University librarians endorsed Open access to knowledge statement on May 21, 2009 at the International conference Libraries of the higher education institutions in the context of higher education modernisation that took place in Sevastopol, Ukraine:

"We support open access to knowledge and strategies on developing open institutional repositories and open access journals published by the Universities.

We ask to support new approaches to scholarly communication:

We ask the government to support open access to research information especially when the research is funded from the state budget of Ukraine, as well as to support open access to research data and cultural heritage.

We ask the researchers to support open access and self-archive research papers, reports, dissertations, educational materials, etc., in open institutional repositories and publish articles in open access journals. We ask the researchers to retain copyright.

We ask the Universities and research institutions to implement open access policies and strategies, provide open access to the full-text peer-reviews research outputs produced by the faculty and staff to raise the scientific quality, social and economic value of the research. We ask to launch and develop open institutional repositories and open access journals...

We ask the academic journal publishers … to allow self-archiving of the postprints, request only the rights needed to publish an article, cancel or shorten the embargo periods and provide the published versions of the articles to the relevant open institutional repositories.

We ask the university libraries to promote open access to research information among the research community, faculty and individual researchers. To launch and develop open institutional repositories to provide open access to the research materials and to raise the University profile, provide long-term preservation for the research publications. Repositories should follow DRIVER and other relevant recommendations, be OAI-PNH compliant and interoperable to allow the best possible global searching facilities.”

Full text of the Open access to knowledge statement in Ukrainian is here.

Congratulations to Tetiana Yaroshenko, University Librarian, Vice President for IT, National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy, and eIFL-OA country coordinator in Ukraine, for introducing this declaration. Her presentation (from the above mentioned conference) Open Access: History and current projects in Ukraine and in the world (in Ukrainian) is here.

To implement the Open Access Mandate (open access to research funded from the state budget of Ukraine introduced in the Law of Ukraine On the principles of Developing Information Society in Ukraine in 2007-2015) the Vernadsky National library of Ukraine created a registry of 726 journals and full text articles of 346 journals (starting from 2008) are already deposited here. 2453 full text records are also deposited in the DSpace repository of the Vernadsky National library of Ukraine.

This initiative was presented at the seminar E-libraries Management and Technologies on May 20,2009 at the National parliamentary library of Ukraine (in the frames of the Sixth international conference Documents, Libraries and Information: Problems and practices of science and education, May 19-21, 2009, State academy for the arts and culture management). Seminar presentations are here and other open access related presentations from this conference (in Ukrainian language) are Open Access and Libraries Transformations by Iryna Kuchma, eIFL Open Access program manager, Institutional Repositories: UBC and Europe by Lea Starr, University of British Columbia, Associate University Librarian - Public Services, Vancouver, Canada, Web-resources of the children libraries by Natalia Dzuba, the National library of Ukraine for children, E-library in the National parliamentary library of Ukraine by Olga Barkova, E-resources in the National Technical University Kyiv Polytechnic institute by Valentyna Volynets.

And the library of the Institute of Biology of the Southern Seas (IBSS), Ukraine, launched CEEMaR (Central and Eastern European Marine Repository) – a thematic digital repository covering the marine, brackish and freshwater environments and providing access to papers produced by the staff of the ECET institutes in Bulgaria, Poland, Russia and Ukraine.

Gaining the momentum: Open access & advancement of science and research workshop in South Africa

42 participants from the University of Botswana, National University of Lesotho Library and Lesotho College of Education, University of Malawi, DANS (the Netherlands), Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Development Bank of Southern Africa, Durban University of Technology, National Bioproducts Institute, Port Elisabeth Museum, Rhodes University, South African Resource Heritage Agency, UNISA, University of Cape Town, University of KwaZulu-Natal, University of Pretoria, University of Johannesburg (South Africa), REPOA Research Institution (Tanzania) and Zimbabwe Open University participated in the Gaining the momentum: Open access & advancement of science and research workshop that took place on May 14, 2009 at CSIR Conference Centre, Pretoria, South Africa. Workshop was organised by Susan Veldsman, Director: Scholarly Publishing Unit, ASSAf, & Iryna Kuchma, Open Access program manager, eIFL.net. This workshop was a part of the African Digital Scholarship 2009 Conference.

The workshop presentations are here.

If you are interested you can also read eIFL.net Spotlight Gaining the momentum: eIFL marks five year commitment to Open Access in South Africa.

Launch Institutional Resposity, UjDigispace

The new Institutional Repository, UJDigispace, of the University of Johannesburg was successfully launched on the 24th of March 2009. The Library under the initiative of Mr. Barrie Swanepoel, was responsible for the implementation of the University’s open access electronic archive. The Repository was unveiled by Prof. Derek van der Merwe, Pro Vice-Chancellor of the University. The IR’s first e-book, Prof. Jos Lurie’s book Symmetrical polyhedra was also introduced at this occasion. The UJ Repository can be accessed at http://ujdigispace.uj.ac.za

Institutional repository training in Malawi

Following the training on Institutional repository in South Africa in October 2008, INASP gave a grant to Kondwani Wella, eIFL-OA country coordinator, University of Malawi, Kamuzu College of Nursing to organise Institutional repository training in Malawi on March 18-20, 2009. University of Malawi open access institutional repository will be launched soon as well as the repository of the Ministry of Health MALICO helps to set up.

Call for participation: Scientific Information in the Digital Age: Access and Dissemination, ICTP Workshop, Trieste, Italy, 12-16 October 2009

The Workshop is meant to be informative and practical with hands-on sessions and demonstration on the technical setup, organization and maintenance of the newest web applications and services to access, carry out and disseminate science. Participants will be exposed to the tremendous resources and possibilities available to the scientific community including open access for science dissemination, social software for scientists, digitization of scientific contents and open academic webcasting. Participation: Scientists, librarians, electronic publishers, content providers and students from all countries which are members of the United Nations, UNESCO or IAEA may attend the Workshop. As it will be conducted in English, participants should have an adequate working knowledge of this language. As a rule, travel and subsistence expenses of the participants should be borne by the home institution. Every effort should be made by candidates to secure support for their fare (or at least half-fare). However, limited funds are available for some participants who are nationals of, and working in, a developing country, and who are not more than 45 years old. Such support is available only for those who attend the entire activity. There is no registration fee to be paid. Directors: E. Canessa, C. Fonda and M. Zennaro (ICTP-SDU, Italy) Advisory Committee: Iryna Kuchma (eIFL.net) and Les Cottrell (SLAC). Applications deadline is 22 July 2009. More information: http://sdu.ictp.it/openaccess09/

Open Access: Maximising Research Impact workshop in Sofia, Bulgaria

52 research managers, researchers and librarians from Bulgaria, Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia participated in the Open Access: Maximising Research Impact workshop in the New Bulgarian University Library, Sofia, organised by the Bulgarian Information Consortium, New Bulgarian University Library and eIFL.net, and supported by the Higher Education Support Program (HESP) of the Open Society Institute. The participants discussed the benefits of open access for researchers, research managers and policy makers; case studies from TARA: Trinity’s Access to Research Archive, Ireland, New Bulgarian University Scholar Electronic Repository and ePrints.FRI, Slovenia, and value-added services that can be build on top of the repositories – the Serbian Citation Index - SCIndeks developed for publications in Serbian journals (all of them are open access journals due to the mandate from the Ministry of Science and Education). The second day of the workshop was devoted to discussing funders open access policies, university open access policies, repository policies, copyright management and open content licences for sharing materials from the repositories and checklists for setting up institutional repositories and increasing usage. You can download all workshop presentations here: http://www.eifl.net/cps/sections/services/eifl-oa/training/2009-sofia. The HESP Program will be supporting eIFL.net is organising more seminars for the HESP supported institutions in Poland, Latvia and Russia. Background information – Open Access projects in Bulgaria, Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia Bulgaria: – 14 OA journals registered in DOAJ published by New Bulgarian University Library, Bourgas University, Technical College; Hikari Ltd, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Trakia University, National Bank for Industrial Microorganisms and Cell Cultures Bulgaria and Bulgarian Geological Society. - 3 institutional repositories: New Bulgarian University Scholar Electronic Repository, http://eprints.nbu.bg/ Research at Sofia University http://research.it.fmi.uni-sofia.bg:8880/dspace/ and University of Rus. http://dspace.ru.acad.bg American University in Bulgaria is working on creating institutional repository. Macedonia: 4 OA journals registered in DOAJ published by Versita, Society of the Chemists and Technologists of Macedonia, University Ss Kiril and Metodij and Institute for Sociological and Political Research. Serbia: - Open Access journals from Serbia at the National Library http://nainfo.nb.rs/doiserboai/oai2.aspx – 24 OA journals registered in DOAJ published by the The Faculty of Medicine, Faculty of Sciences and Mathematics, University of Nis; University of Belgrade and Academic Mind; Astronomical Observatory, Department of Astronomy; Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts; Association of the Chemical Engineers; Electrochemical Science Group; Serbian Chemical Society; Mathematical Society of Serbia; VINČA Institute of Nuclear Sciences; Drustvo Psihologa Srbije; University of Belgrade, Sports Academy, Serbian medical association, Zajecar. Slovenia: – 20 OA journals registered in DOAJ published by Biotechnical Faculty, Veterinary Faculty, University of Ljubljana; Slovenian Chemical Society, Geografski inštitut Antona Melika ZRC SAZU, Slovene Anthropological Society, Morana RTD d.o.o., Association of Surveyors of Slovenia, Versita, Slovenian Museum of Natural History and Mississippi College, Slovenian Society for Stereology and Quantitative Image Analysis, The Slovene Society Informatika, University of Primorska, Faculty of Management, Institute of Metals and Technology with associated publishers, International Association for Political Science Students (IAPSS), Slovensko društvo učiteljev tujega strokovnega jezika (SDUTSJ) and Slovenian Forestry Institute. - department repository ePrints.FRI at the Faculty of Computer and Information Science (FRI), Univerza v Ljubljani. http://eprints.fri.uni-lj.si The collegium of the rector commissioned a draft model for the establishment of the institutional repository for research publications and higher education works (diploma, master and PhD theses) for Ljubljana University.

Evaluation of Institutional Repository Development in Developing and Transition Countries

This study is part of a cooperative program between eIFL.net, the University of Kansas Libraries, the DRIVER project and Key Perspectives Ltd., and aims at creating an inventory of current digital repository activities in developing and transition countries, at both the infrastructure and services level. This survey has been adapted from the DRIVER Inventory study into the present type and level of OAI-compliant digital repository activities in the EU by Maurits de Graaf and SURF, and from the European repository study by Alma Swan, Key Perspectives Ltd. The results of this survey will be made available online via a wiki. All participants in this study will receive an invitation to look at and comment on the results of this inventory for their own country. This is the first time that such data will be collected about digital repository activity in developing and transition countries, and we hope this will serve as important resource for promoting open access and repository development in these regions. We look forward to your cooperation. We encourage all repository managers in developing and transition countries to participate. Please forward this message to other repository managers or colleagues who may be interested in participating. The survey will take approximately 30-45 minutes to complete. The link to the survey is here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=Wdi_2buyQ_2b1wSDIrTQahrbQg_3d_3d Thank you in advance! WIN AN eIFL T-SHIRT! All respondents who complete the survey by May 23, 2009 will be eligible to win one of three eIFL t-shirts. T-shirt winners will be chosen in a random drawing of all completed surveys. To help you prepare you can view a PDF preview of the survey questions here:

Open Access to research information – creating Open Access journals and open repositories workshop in Donetsk

Donetsk National Technical University hosted a workshop Open Access to research information – creating Open Access journals and open repositories for the heads of research departments, researchers and librarians from Eastern Ukraine. Presentations from the workshop (in Ukrainian) by Tetiana Yaroshenko, National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy: http://www.library.ukma.kiev.ua/dspace/handle/123456789/179 and eIFL-OA country coordinator, and Iryna Kuchma, eIFL-OA program manager: http://www.slideshare.net/irynak/ss-1294661

Institutional Repository Advocacy Seminar, Accra

On March 16 – 18, 2009, the Database of African Theses and Dissertations Programme of the Association of African Universities organized an International Institutional Repository Advocacy Seminar in collaboration with the Research Libraries in Ghana (CARLIGH) and Royal Tropical Institute of the Netherlands. 80 participants from Africa and Europe – heads of tertiary institutions and libraries – attended the seminar. The seminar participants worked on the policy guidelines for the operations of institutional repositories in Africa. Netsanet Animut from Addis Ababa University Libraries presented Open ETD repository (http://etd.aau.edu.et/dspace) and National Repository Centre, Ethiopia. Other case studies: Zimbabwe and CAMES (Francophone universities network), MALICO's National Repository Centre of Malawi. Programme and presentations. http://www.aau.org/datad/ws/iras09/prog.htm Open access institutional repository of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology: http://dspace.knust.edu.gh

Open access institutional mandates in the eIFL countries

A great news about open access institutional mandate from Ternopil State Ivan Pul'uj Technical University, Ukraine, encouraged us to count open access institutional mandates in eIFL countries. And there are three mandates in Russia (thanks to Sergey Parinov, Socionet , and the person who registered the first Russian open access institutional mandate, for the information about Russian institutions below) and as already mentioned one mandate in Ukraine:

- Central Economics and Mathematics Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences:

“All researchers of the Central Economics and Mathematics Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences are mandated by director's decree to immediately deposit their papers/articles in the institutional Open Archive. ["...mandate researchers of CEMI RAS to deposit all completed research (in working paper form), including the full text, in institutional OA (repository) not later than 6 months after completion."]

(http://www.cemi.rssi.ru and http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/policysignup)

- Vologda scientific-coordination center of the Central Economics and Mathematics Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences and http://socionet.ru.

- Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics, Russian Academy of Sciences and http://socionet.ru.

- And the most recent open access policy adopted by Ternopil State Ivan Pul'uj Technical University (TSTU), Ukraine, mandates that all published journal articles and conference papers must be deposited in Electronic Archive of TSTU (ELARTU) if there are no legal objections by publishers. ELARTU also encourages and fully supports self-archiving of other research outputs produced by scientists and students of the university as well as other members of the scientific community. Congratulations to the repository team – Serhij Dubyk and Halyna Onysko!

If you know about other open access institutional mandates in the eIFL countries – please register them in the ROARMAP (Registry of Open Access Repository Material Archiving Policies) and write to me (iryna.kuchma[@]eifl.net).

Open Access Week declared for 2009

Popular global event extended over one week, October 19 – 23 Washington, DC – March 5, 2009 – To accommodate widespread global interest in the movement toward Open Access to scholarly research results, October 19 – 23, 2009 will mark the first international Open Access Week. The now-annual event, expanded from one day to a full week, presents an opportunity to broaden awareness and understanding of Open Access to research, including access policies from all types of research funders, within the international higher education community and the general public. Open Access Week builds on the momentum generated by the 120 campuses in 27 countries that celebrated Open Access Day in 2008. Event organizers SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition), the Public Library of Science (PLoS), and Students for FreeCulture welcome key new contributors, who will help to enhance and expand the global reach of this popular event in 2009: eIFL.net (Electronic Information for Libraries), OASIS (the Open Access Scholarly Information Sourcebook); and the Open Access Directory (OAD). “I’m participating in Open Access Week again this year because I want to shed light on the tremendous potential of Open Access,” said Allyson Mower, Scholarly Communications & Copyright Librarian for the University of Utah’s Marriott Library. “People searching for information usually consume whatever is readily available. Open Access ensures that quality information is at people’s fingertips.” “eIFL.net works to make intellectual outputs of developing and transitional countries more visible and more easily accessible,” added Rima Kupryte, Director of eIFL.net. “We believe that Open Access contributes to improved education, teaching, and research, and accelerates innovations and economical developments in these countries. Open Access Week is a great opportunity to promote Open Access globally.” This year’s program will highlight educational resources on Open Access that local hosts can use to customize their own programs to suit local audiences and time zones. OASIS will serve as the centerpiece of the 2009 program, delivering resources for every constituency and every awareness level. The Open Access Directory will again provide an index of participants on five continents, as well as their growing clearinghouse for all OA resources. Through the collaborative functionality of the two initiatives, OA videos, briefing papers, podcasts, slideshows, posters and other informative tools will be drawn from all over the Web to be highlighted during Open Access Week. The organizers will also work with registrants to develop a variety of sample program tracks, such as “Administrators’ introduction to campus open-access policies and funds,” “OA 101,” and “Complying with the NIH public access policy” that take full advantage of available tools. Participants are invited to adapt these resources for local use, and to mark Open Access Week by hosting an event, distributing literature, blogging -- or even just wearing an Open Access t-shirt. “After the success of last year’s Open Access Day, we’re delighted to be co-organizing the first ever Open Access Week with our fellow collaborators, again in conjunction with the anniversary of one of our flagship journals,” said Peter Jerram, CEO for the Public Library of Science. “We ask our supporters to celebrate the fifth anniversary of PLoS Medicine by spreading the word about Open Access and getting involved in the week.” “There’s no more certain sign of the momentum behind Open Access to research than an annual, global celebration of this scale,” added Heather Joseph, Executive Director of SPARC. “Occasions like this are the best possible way to attract attention from busy faculty members and administrators, and to demonstrate the widespread appeal of Open Access. It’s SPARC’s pleasure to be working with our partners to realize the event once again this year.” For more information about Open Access Week and to register, visit http://www.openaccessweek.org. For more information, contact: Jennifer McLennan, SPARC Tel.: (202) 296-2296 ext 157 jennifer [at] arl [dot] org SPARC SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition), with SPARC Europe and SPARC Japan, is an international alliance of more than 800 academic and research libraries working to create a more open system of scholarly communication. SPARC’s advocacy, educational and publisher partnership programs encourage expanded dissemination of research. SPARC is a founder of the Alliance for Taxpayer Access, representing taxpayers, patients, physicians, researchers, and institutions that support open public access to taxpayer-funded research. SPARC is on the Web at http://www.arl.org/sparc.

SURF: 2009 is Open Access year

The Dutch higher education sector has declared 2009 to be ‘Open Access Year’. The aim is to boost Open Access to the results of scientific/scholarly and practice-based research. Efforts will be made throughout the year to formulate and implement an Open Access policy, develop and improve the knowledge infrastructure, establish a clear legal framework, and create awareness with all stakeholders. The parties involved are the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), the Dutch higher education sector, and research institutions. SURF will act as the coordinator. The Netherlands is one of the world leaders in achieving Open Access. The research universities and a large number of universities of applied sciences have created a knowledge infrastructure making possible permanent Open Access to publications. NARCIS, the national “gateway to Dutch scientific information”, provides access to the full text of almost 170,000 scientific and scholarly publications. The Knowledge Bank for Universities of Applied Sciences [HBO Kennisbank] gives access to the results of research by ‘lectors’ (directors of research groups and knowledge networks in Universities of Applied Science). Extensive information is also available about copyright in higher education, as well as a ‘copyright toolbox’ for authors and publishers. But there is still a lot to be done. Public access Dutch higher education institutions believe that radical improvements need to be made in Open Access to knowledge, information, and data. Compared to the ‘age of paper’, digitisation of research and scientific/scholarly communication opens up opportunities that are still underutilised. Improved access creates a solid basis for the transfer of knowledge in education, knowledge generation for research, and knowledge valorisation for civil society. The central idea is that the results of publicly financed research should also be available to the public. Dr Sijbolt Noorda, chairman of the Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU), says that “It’s in the interests of scientists and scholars for their publications to be digitally available for anyone in the world. It’s in the interest of the general public too. Material that’s been paid for out of our taxes can then be accessed and used by everyone.” Multimedia Researchers and lectors need to be able to utilise all the new possibilities for scientific and scholarly communication opened up by the Internet and ICT. Authors are more ‘visible’ if their work is available on the Internet, and they have more readers than if they publish in the traditional journals only. The greatly increased cost of subscribing to the traditional journals means that university libraries and media centres can afford fewer and fewer of them. Moreover, scientific and scholarly publications increasingly consist of more than just text: primary research data and multimedia files are included, with audiovisual files and games being used to help present the research data. Constant development and improvement of the knowledge infrastructure is therefore necessary. Copyright law Information about copyright is also necessary because there are a lot of misunderstandings about Open Access and copyright. Complete transfer of copyright to a publisher, for example, may be an obstacle to the author’s further use of the publication. This often means that the author is not even allowed to upload the work to his/her own personal website or to that of his/her knowledge network. Some publishers are prepared to arrange licences that do not require the exclusive transfer of copyright, but this is the common case yet. Dr Noorda points out that five years ago the Netherlands was one of the pioneers in the field of Open Access “but since then all the other neighbouring countries have tackled it too. It’s important for us to remain one of the leaders and really make progress." Apart from Dr Noorda, various other administrators, university professors, and university deans have given their views on Open Access in a short film commissioned by SURF. The film can be viewed on a number of websites and on YouTube. More information Mr. Gerard van Westrienen Project manager T: +31 30 234 66 40 E: vanwestrienen[@]surf.nl About SURF SURF is the collaborative organisation for academic universities, universities of applied sciences and research institutions aimed at breakthrough innovations in ICT. SURF supports higher education and research in taking optimum advantage of the possibilities offered by ICT to improve the quality of education and research. SURF provides the foundation for the excellence of higher education and research in the Netherlands. http://www.surffoundation.nl/en/actueel/Pages/SURF-2009-is-Open-Access-year.aspx eIFL.net has a partnership agreement with SURF.

eIFL.net and Bioline International signed the Memorandum of Understanding to promote open access

eIFL.net and Bioline International have identified an opportunity for cooperation in order to advance the development of Open Access and in particular open access journals in developing and transitional countries. Joint activities will aim to encourage more publishers to make available their journals on an Open Access basis, and will attempt to encourage more libraries to use and to promote this valuable free source of peer-reviewed scientific information. Bioline International (http://www.bioline.org.br/) is a not-for-profit initiative that aims to reduce the global scientific knowledge divide through the online distribution of peer-reviewed journals from developing countries. The platform now hosts over 70 journals from 16 countries. Bioline improves the visibility of research journals from the developing world through enhanced meta-data and document mark-up, indexing in major databases, and through the use of international standards that are compliant with other open access initiatives, thereby improving the usage and uptake of the publications. Over 4.2 million full texts were downloaded in 2008 and the number continues to rise.

Open Access workshop in Ethiopia: How to improve accessibility, visibility and impact of your research outputs

On December 22, 2008, Addis Ababa University Libraries and eIFL.net organised a workshop Open Access: How to improve accessibility, visibility and impact of your research outputs for librarians and researchers from Addis Ababa and neighbouring towns. Iryna Kuchma, eIFL OA program manager, talked how open repositories and open access journals improve scholarly communication, accessibility, visibility and impact of research outputs (www.slideshare.net). Ina Smith, Digital Research Repository (UPSpace) Manager & eApplication Specialist, Department of Library Services, University of Pretoria, South Africa, gave a case study about Digital Research Repository UPSpace at the University of Pretoria www.up.ac.za/dspace/. Other presentations cover overview of Open Access Policies (www.slideshare.net) and practical steps how to start an institutional repository, how to launch an Open Access journal or convert a print journal to Open Access journal as well as a discussion on the national strategy on developing Open Access projects in Ethiopia (www.slideshare.net).

Addis Ababa University Libraries manage Open ETD repository (http://etd.aau.edu.et/dspace) that incorporates all campuses of the University and plan a national open ETD repository. Yohannes Mulugeta, Addis Ababa University Libraries, is a member of the DSpace Global Outreach Committee.

On December 23, 2008, InfoCentre of The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) organised a planning meeting with eIFL.net and Consortium of Ethiopian Academic and Research Libraries (CEARL) about setting up an institutional repository. ILRI works at the crossroads of livestock and poverty, bringing high-quality science and capacity-building to bear on poverty reduction and sustainable development. ILRI is a non-profit-making and non-governmental organization with headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, and a second principal campus in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It employs over 700 staff from about 40 countries and represents some 30 disciplines.

Knowledge in the digital age: Open Access and Open repositories in Russia

On December 2-3, Scientific Library of Ural State University after M.Gorky and eIFL.net organized a workshop “Knowledge in the digital age: Open Access and Open repositories” at the Ural State University, Russia, sponsored by Xerox (CIS) and "Fort Dialog-Iset".

Morag Greig, Senior Assistant Librarians, University of Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom, gave Introduction to Open Access and talked about Open access benefits and advantages, Open Access Policies in Scotland and in the UK and about Management, Population and Marketing of Open repositories.

Sergey Parinov, Central Economic-Mathematical Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, presented Open Access projects in the research institutes of Russian Academy of Sciences and a national harvester and a shared open repository Socionet (socionet.ru/) with research outputs from 114 institutions and departments of Russian Academy of Sciences. He also presented the first Russian Open Access mandate in the Central Economic-Mathematical Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences.

William Nixon, Senior Assistant Librarians, University of Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom, gave a case study about Open Access at the University of Glasgow and EPritnts demonstration.

Evgeniy Negulyaev and Elena Okhesina, Scientific Library of Ural State University and eIFL-OA country coordinator presented Institutional Repository of the Ural State University (elar.usu.ru/) - the first institutional repository in the Russian Federation. And Evgeniy Negulyaev, Scientific Library of Ural State University, shared their experience of integrating data about Open Access Journals in the electronic catalogue of the Scientific Library of Ural State University and gave DSpace demonstration.

Vladimir Minyaylov, Department of Chemistry, Moscow State University after M.Lomonosov, presented Open educational resource «ChemNet» (www.chem.msu.su/) and Syb Groeneveld, Creative Commons Russia, talked about Open content licenses and Creative Commons Russia.

Other presentations cover successful Open Access projects in transitional countries; Open Access and Research Evaluation, Citation indexes, Scientific progress; Open Access Policies; Open Access Publishing, Copyright management in Open Access Projects; and a round table on the national strategy on developing Open Access projects in Russia.

Presentations from the workshop (in English and in Russian): lib.usu.ru

Open Access, Libraries, Adult Learning and e-Learning in Lithuania

On November 25, Dr. Gintare Tautkeviciene, Kaunas University of Technology and eIFL-OA country coordinator, Emilija Banionyte, Vilnius Pedagogical University Library and eIFL-IP copyright librarian and Iryna Kuchma, eIFL-OA program manager participated in the International Conference "Adult Learning and e-Learning Quality", Kaunas, Lithuania, organized by Vytautas Magnus University in the framework of Lithuanian Virtual University program funded by the Ministry of Education of Lithuania, with support of Vytautas Magnus University and Centre for Quality Assessment for Higher Education. Open Access initiative was one of the conference topics and Iryna Kuchma gave a plenary speech “Advantages of Open Access, Quality and Progress of Research” (www.slideshare.net) . One of the conference sessions was about Library services and information accessibility where Ž.Petrauskienė, Vilnius University Library, presented Open Access to Scientific Production in Lithuania: Problems and Possibilities and J. Pupeliene, Klaipeda University Library, talked about Lithuanian Academic Library Network (www.labt.lt) managing two national open repositories: Academic Library of Lithuania (elaba.library.lt/) with research output from Lithuania and Lithuanian ETDs (etd.library.lt) and how libraries can help in organizing and managing electronic resources needed to design e-learning programs and courses. Recordings of conference presentations (in English and Lithuanian) are available at the conference website qualityalliance.vdu.lt .

On October 21-25, 2008 The 5th Anniversary International Conference "Central Asia - 2008: Internet and Library and Information Resources in Science, Education, Culture and Business" took place in Fergana city (Uzbekistan)

On October 21-25, 2008 The "Central Asia - 2008: Internet and Library and Information Resources in Science, Education, Culture and Business" 5th Anniversary International Conference took place in Fergana city (Uzbekistan). 170 persons, including representatives of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, USA and Uzbekistan, participated in the Central Asia 2008 Conference. Director of the library of American Universiry in Central Asia and eIFL IP and eIFL OA country coordinator in Kyrgyzstan Safia Rafikova participated in this Conference. She presented two reports: "Electronic Information for Libraries - eIFL in Kyrgyzstan" and Information Technologies in Libraries of Kyrgyzstan - creation of corporate electronic resources".

The Initiative of Open Access and Copyright Issues in using Electronic Resources workshop

On 20-21 October, 2008 two-day workshop on Open Access and Copyright Issues in using electronic resources for the librarians of Osh Regional Library, academic libraries of Osh State University and Kyrgyz-Uzbek University was held. The main instructor of the workshop was Safia Rafikova, Director of the library of American Universiry in Central Asia and eIFL IP and eIFL OA country coordinator in Kyrgyzstan. Total number of participants was 19, including the library directors, their deputies, heads of the departments, programmers and administrators. During the workshop S.K. Rafikova presented short review of International Initiatives on Open Access (Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities, Budapest Open Access Initiative), told about eIFL (Electronic Information for Libraries) program activity in Kyrgyzstan and dwelt on a question concerning creation of full-text electronic resources in libraries by the example of The AUCA Electronic Library and Corporate repository of abstracts of dissertations of Kyrgyzstan's scientists. The second day was devoted to discussion of copyright issues in using electronic resources and providing open access to them. Participants learned how to use electronic databases of scientific publications (EBSCO, Cambridge Journals, AGORA etc.) available thanks to participation of Kyrgyz libraries in eIFL project. Workshop agenda, TV clip about the workshop and Workshop materials (in Russian) are here: http://www.bik.org.kg/en/news/69/

Open Access workshop in Minsk, Belarus

On October 20-21, 2008, eIFL.net, Fundamental Library of Belarus State University and BelLibNet organised Open Access Awareness Raising workshop in Minsk, Belarus. As a result a national project modeling the Netherlands Cream of Science is being planned by Universities and the National library. Presentations (in English and Russian) will appear soon here: http://www.library.bsu.by/?vpath=/about/news/2008/10/17/

The Serbian Citation Index – SCIndeks 1.6. published

The stable version of SCIndeks: the Serbian Citation Index, internally signed as 1.6., was published at the new permanent address http://scindeks.nb.rs/. This extended version contains all papers published from 2002 onwards in more than 350 indexed national professional journals. Articles from more than 130 journals are available in Open Access. SCIndeks is a service of the Centre for Evaluation in Education and Science in cooperation with National Library of Serbia, financed by the Ministry of Science and Technological Development of the Serbian Government. And it is a part of integrated system of bibliographic scientific information of Serbia. The intensive activities to extend SCIndeks coverage retroactively to the period 2001-2002 for all journals and the period of 1996-2002 for humanities journals, are in due course. Almost half of papers from this period has already been uploaded and are visible in SCIndeks. Journals from the field of social sciences are covered since 1991 previously. The planned total coverage is to be achieved before March 2009. Version 1.6. is significantly improved in comparison to SCIndeks beta. Through the system of links it is highly integrated with other domestic and international databases, both at the level of articles and references cited. SCIndeks is equipped with About and Help, allowing users to achieve fast and detailed insight into the content and features of the application, as well as how to use it. Registered users have additional services - My SCIndeks. During October and November there are a series of presentations of SCIndeks at the universities in Serbia. The aim of these discussions is to make researchers better acquainted with the potentials of SCIndeks and to give them opportunity to make comments and suggestions regarding further SCIndeks development.

eIFL.net is joining the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association

The Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association, OASPA offers a forum for bringing together the entire community of Open Access journal publishers. OASPA mission is to represent the interests of Open Access (OA) journal publishers globally in all scientific, technical and scholarly disciplines. This mission will be carried out through exchanging information, setting standards, advancing models, advocacy, education, and the promotion of innovation. Through a shared interest in developing appropriate business models, tools and standards to support OA publishing, OASPA can ensure a prosperous and sustainable future to the benefit of the members and the scholarly communities they serve. SPARC Europe supports OASPA during its initial phase of operation. eIFL.net applied for the Associate (non-voting) Membership. OASPA welcomes OA professional publishing organizations, OA scientist/scholar publishers – individuals or small groups of scientists/scholars that publish usually a single scholarly journal in their field of study and other organizations who provide significant services and/or support for OA publishing. http://www.oaspa.org/

Open Access Awareness Raising workshop in Yerevan, Armenia

On October 15-16, 2008, eIFL.net, Fundamental Scientific Library of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia and Electronic Library Consortium of Armenia (ELCA) organised Open Access Awareness Raising workshop in Yerevan. Fundamental Library of National Academy of Sciences of Armenia supported by the Open Society Assistance Foundation created a platform for high quality newly launched Open Access journals (Armenian Scientific Journals - Open Access: http://www.flib.sci.am/eng/?q=node/55 and more information is here: Armenian Scientific Journals - Open Access: http://www.flib.sci.am/eng/?q=node/55 and more information is here: http://www.eifl.net/cps/sections/services/eifl-oa/oa-news/2008_07_24_two-new-open-access). At the workshop Armenian journal of mathematics and Armenian journal of physics were presented to the directors of research institutes and scholarly publishers. There are plans to publish more Open Access journals (first of all in the area of biology and chemistry) and a national Open Access strategy is being discussed. Presentations (in English and Russian) and photos from the workshop are here: http://www.flib.sci.am/eng/?q=node/66.

Events celebrating Open Access Day in eIFL countries

October 14, 2008 was the world’s first Open Access Day. The founding partners were SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition), Students for FreeCulture, and the Public Library of Science. Open Access Day helped to broaden awareness and understanding of Open Access, including recent mandates and emerging policies, within the international higher education community and the general public (http://openaccessday.org/). Information about Open Access Day activities in Azerbaijan, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Mozambique, Poland, South Africa, Sudan. Azerbaijan: Khazar University Library Information centre translated "A very brief introduction to Open Access" by Peter Suber into Azeri language (http://www.khazar.org/library/news.shtm#news1). Khazar University Library Information Center administrates Khazar University Institutional Repository (KUIR) - the fist institutional repository in Azerbaijan showcasing the research outputs of Khazar University staff (http://dspace.khazar.org; more information about the repository is here: http://www.eifl.net/cps/sections/services/eifl-oa/oa-news/2008_09_18_khazar-university). Contact person: Tatyana Zayseva, Library Information Centre Director, tzayseva[@]gmail.com. Lithuania: Lithuanian research libraries consortium together with Lithuanian Ministry of Education and Science and the Centre for Quality Assessment in Higher Education organized the workshop about Open access in the Lithuanian Academy of Science on October, 14, 2008. Workshop program is available online (http://www.lmba.lt/doc/seminaras_spalio14.doc) and information about open access is also on the Lithuanian Research Library Consortium website (http://www.lmba.lt/OA/liet/oa.htm). Contact person: Dr. Gintare Tautkeviciene, Kaunas University of Technology, eIFL Open Access country coordinator, gintare.tautkeviciene[@]ktu.lt. Macedonia: On the occasion of the International Open Access Day, Metamorphosis Foundation sent an open letter to the Ministry of Education and Science and the Government of the Republic of Macedonia calling them to instigate an initiative for systematic, prompt and efficient resolution for the acute lack of educational contents available online (e-contents) in the local languages in Macedonia (http://www.metamorphosis.org.mk/content/view/1264/61/lang,en/). Contact person: Bardhyl Jashari, Metamorphosis Foundation, bjasari[@]soros.org.mk. Moldova: A blog about Open Access in Romanian language and a directory of Open Access Moldavian resources were launched on the Open Access Day: http://oarm.blog2x2.net/. Natalia Cheradi, eIFL Open Access coordinator in Moldova, Consortium eIFL Direct Moldova, spoke about Open Access on the National Radio and National TV (TV-4 channel). Contact person: Natalia Cheradi, the Open Access Coordinator for Moldova, cheradi[@]lib.ase.md. Mozambique: Aissa Mitha Issak, eIFL country coordinator in Mozambique, wrote an article about Open Access to be published in the national newspaper and participated in the Radio Mozambique show. She also translated "We Support Open Access Flyer" featuring a librarian, teacher, funder, student and patient advocate, into Portuguese language. Earlier this year Aissa Mitha Issak organised a workshop about Institutional Repositories and Open Access in Maputo, Mozambique. The major outcome of this workshop was a project on the shared open repository for Mozambique, gathering the intellectual production of the academic and research staff in the country funded by the Ministry of Education and Culture and at the pilot stage covering three institutions. The University of Minho will assure the technical support. More information: http://www.eifl.net/cps/sections/services/eifl-oa/oa-news/2008_09_17_workshop-on. Contact person: Aissa Mitha Issak, eIFL country coordinator in Mozambique, amissak[@]apolitecnica.ac.mz. Poland: Bożena Bednarek-Michalska, eIFL Open Access country coordinator in Poland, Nicolaus Copernicus University Library in Torun, Poznan Foundation of Scientific Libraries, translated into Polish "A very brief introduction to Open Access" by Peter Suber and "We Support Open Access Flyer"; different institutions put this information with Open Access Day icon on their portals and web-sites on October 14. Bożena Bednarek-Michalska sent letters to the ministries, Universities and other public institutions about Open Access. Web-sites about Open Access Day: http://www.ebib.info/content/view/1568/. ICM (Interdisciplinary Centre for Mathematical and Computational Modelling), Warsaw, Poland posted blog posts about Open Access Day: http://boa.icm.edu.pl/blog/2008/10/open-access-day/ and http://creativecommons.pl/blog/2008/10/open-access-day/. South Africa: In celebration of Open Access Day, Durban University of Technology Libraries hosted an informal open session on the Institutional Repository and how researchers can get their research ready for submission into the Repository. Contact person: Pam Govender, pamgoven[@]dut.ac.za; Web & IT Support Officer, DUT Library, ML Sultan Library, http://library.dut.ac.za. University of Pretoria had an Open Access happening of which the message was "You are in good company if you support open access" with posters all over campus, buttons, a message on the university's main web page (http://web.up.ac.za/default.asp?ipkCategoryID=2843&articleID=997 a powerpoint slide show running constantly in the library (http://hdl.handle.net/2263/7550), students with OA t-shirts speaking to other students. Two open sessions on the open access research repository were organised and attended by 60 researchers from across faculty. Contact people: Monica Hammes, Assistant Director: Open Scholarship, Quality Assurance and UP Centenary Academic Information Service, University of Pretoria, Monica.Hammes[@]up.ac.za and Ina Smith, Digital Research Repository (UPSpace) Manager & eApplication Specialist, Department of Library Services, University of Pretoria, Ina.Smith[@]up.ac.za. University of Johannesburg Library and Information centre promoted Open Access day (UJ Science Librarian Blog: http://ujsciencelibrarianblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/open-access-day-14-october-2008.html and UJ Librarians News: http://ujlibrariansnews.blogspot.com/2008/09/open-access-day-october-14-2008.html). Contact person: Pavlinka Kovatcheva, Subject Librarian: Sciences, University of Johannesburg, Kingsway Campus, pkovatcheva[@]uj.ac.za. Sudan: Abdalaziz Gabir, Open University of Sudan Library and eIFL Open Access country coordinator in Sudan, published at the web-site of the Open University of Sudan (http://www.ous.edu.sd/) selected translations from English into Arabic about benefits of Open Access to contribute to the awareness raising among Arabic countries. These documents will be also disseminated via the web-site of the Ministry of higher education of Sudan. Contact person: Abdalaziz Gabir, Open University of Sudan Library and eIFL Open Access country coordinator in Sudan, abdalazizgabir[@]yahoo.com. More information about events celebrating Open Access Day: http://oad.simmons.edu/oadwiki/Events_celebrating_Open_Access_Day. We are pleased to announce that next year’s Open Access Week will be in October 2009, dates to be confirmed. To hear about the latest development please complete the form here: http://www.formspring.com/forms/?377428-uGOWZXQybK http://openaccessday.org/

DRIVER and eIFL.net sign Memorandum of Understanding

DRIVER and eIFL.net - Electronic Information for Libraries - have identified demand for cooperation in order to progress and enhance the provision, visibility and application of European research outputs through digital repositories. DRIVER is a joint initiative of European stakeholders, co-financed by the European Commission, to establish a flexible, robust, and scalable infrastructure for all European and world-wide digital repositories, managing scientific information in an Open Access model increasingly demanded by researchers, funding organisations and other stakeholders. DRIVER's mission is to expand its content base, supporting the global research community with high quality research output, including textual research papers and complex forms of scholarly electronic publication. Rima Kupryte, Director of eIFL.net, said 'eIFL.net and DRIVER share the vision that research institutions should contribute actively and cooperatively to a global, interoperable, trusted and long-term data and service infrastructure based on Open Access digital repositories. This agreement includes joint approaches to consolidation of national communities for the European repository network and active joint dissemination of best practices of Open Access scholarly communication in countries and regions without such formal policy.' Norbert Lossau, Scientific Coordinator of DRIVER and Director of the Goettingen State and University Library commented: "DRIVER can only be successful through collaborating with all relevant stakeholders and by including all countries. eIfL has an excellent track record in supporting developing countries. Cooperation with eIFL will contribute to the joint vision through an established communication network and enthusiastic pioneers in many countries." PRESS RELEASE: http://www.eifl.net/cps/sections/news/press-area/2008-09-29

Sharing plans for the Open Access day - October 14

Azerbaijan: Tatyana Zayseva, Library Information Center Director, Khazar University tzayseva[@]gmail.com: Khazar University library translated "A very brief introduction to Open Access" by Peter Suber into Azeri language: http://www.khazar.org/library/news.shtm#news1 Lithuania: Dr. Gintare Tautkeviciene, Kaunas University of Technology, gintare.tautkeviciene[@]ktu.lt Lithuanian research libraries consortium together with Lithuanian Ministry of Education and Science and the Center for Quality Assessment in Higher Education organize the workshop about Open access in the Lithuanian Academy of Science on October, 14, 2008. Workshop program is available online: http://www.lmba.lt/doc/seminaras_spalio14.doc. Information about open access is also on the Lithuanian Research Library Consortium website: http://www.lmba.lt/OA/liet/oa.htm. Moldova: Consortium eIFL Direct Moldova - Natalia Cheradi, the Open Access Coordinator for Moldova: - A blog about Open Access in Romanian language and a directory of Open Access Moldovian resources will be launched on the Open Access Day: http://oarm.blog2x2.net/ - Natalia Cheradi, the Open Access Coordinator for Moldova, will speak about Open Access on the National Radio and National TV (TV-4 channel) - News from other libraries and about other events are coming. Mozambique - Aissa Mitha Issak, eIFL country coordinator in Mozambique: - Aissa Mitha Issak will write an article about Open Access to publish in the national newspaper (in the Wednesdays cultural supplement where they also publish academic and research articles) - Aissa Mitha Issak plan to go on a radio show - Radio Mozambique - on the 14th and speak about the Open Access. The format is still discussed - either debates about access to information, or an interview. - Aissa Mitha Issak is translating "We Support Open Access Flyer" featuring a librarian, teacher, funder, student and patient advocate, into Portuguese language (http://openaccessday.org/wp-content/uploads/we-support-oa-flyer.pdf) and will share the translation. Poland: Bożena Bednarek-Michalska, eIFL Open Access country coordinator in Poland, Nicolaus Copernicus University Library in Torun, Poznan Foundation of Scientific Libraries Information campaign about Open Access: - Bożena Bednarek-Michalska translated into Polish "A very brief introduction to Open Access" by Peter Suber and "We Support Open Access Flyer"; - different institutions will put this information with Open Access Day icon on their portals and web-sites on October 14; - Bożena Bednarek-Michalska will send letters to the ministries, Universities and other public institutions about Open Access. http://www.ebib.info/content/view/1568/ http://boa.icm.edu.pl/blog/2008/10/open-access-day/ http://creativecommons.pl/blog/2008/10/open-access-day/ South Africa: Pam Govender, pamgoven[@]dut.ac.za; Web & IT Support Officer, DUT Library, ML Sultan Library, http://library.dut.ac.za: In celebration of Open Access Day, DUT Libraries will host an informal open session on the Institutional Repository and how researchers can get their research ready for submission into the Repository. Ina Smith, Ina.Smith[@]up.ac.za; University of Pretoria: 2 open sessions on UPSpace, the open access digital research repository of the University of Pretoria: what UPSpace is all about, and how researchers can benefit from making their research available on this repository. This includes conference papers, data sets, articles, video clips, sound clips, special collections donated, newspaper clippings etc. This is our way of supporting/ celebrating Open Access Day on 14 October. Sudan: Abdalaziz Gabir, abdalazizgabir[@]yahoo.com Open University of Sudan Library, Open Access Manager, Ministry of higher education About benefits of Open Access at the web-site of the Open University of Sudan - selected translations from English to Arabic to contribute to the awareness raising among Arabic countries http://www.ous.edu.sd/ There is a downloadable Open Access Day icon that you can post on your site together with text promoting the event, as well as downloadable half skyscraper and downloadable horizontal banner: http://openaccessday.org/promote-this-event/ SPARC encourages downloading their brochures: http://www.arl.org/sparc/publications/brochures/index.shtml Folks from the media are echoing our wish to have a good record of the events on OADAY and have asked for us to make pictures available that they might include in news coverage. So, please add photographs and videos (if appropriate) to your preparation check list and plan to upload under a CC license to flickr.com, with the tag "oaday2008." All these and much more are at the wikispace of Open Access Day http://oaday.wikispaces.com/ Please share your plans with us or join this wikispace. And don't forget to follow the news at http://openaccessday.org

Khazar University Institutional Repository (KUIR), Azerbaijan

KUIR is the fist institutional repository in Azerbaijan. Administrated by Khazar University Library Information Center, the KUIR showcases the research outputs of Khazar University staff, http://dspace.khazar.org. Materials in the repository are selected by the university’s research faculty. Pre- and post prints of scholarly articles from the Azerbaijan Archeology, Journal of Azerbaijani Studies and Khazar Journal of Mathematics are the first records in the academic journals collection as well as presentations and conference materials from the Library Information Center. The repository managers received training and advise during the study visit of repository managers from Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan to Ukraine hosted by Informatio Consortium and National University “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy” and organized by eIFL.net on June 18-21, 2008 (http://www.eifl.net/cps/sections/services/eifl-oa/oa-news/2008_06_30_study-visit-repository"). Contact person: Tatyana Zayseva, Library Information Center Director, tzayseva[@]gmail.com

Workshop on Institutional Repositories and Open Access in Mozambique

A Workshop on Institutional Repositories and Open Access was held in Maputo, Mozambique, in July from 28 to 30, 2008. 30 participants from higher education and research institutions from Maputo, the capital city and also from Beira and Nampula attended the workshop. On the July 30th an open session was organized about Open Access and a broader audience attended this event. The workshop was facilitated by Eloy Rodrigues, director of Documentation Services in Minho University, Portugal, which one of the champions of Open Access in Portugal. Topics covered during the workshop included the origins, scope and definitions of Open Access; the two roads for Open Access, journals and repositories; creation and development of institutional repositories and experience gained working with the repository of the of Minho University, Portugal. Presentations from the workshop in Portuguese are here: http://www.eifl.net/cps/workspaces/eifl-oa/training-capacity/about-open-access In terms of financing, this was a joint activity, involving eIFL.net, which supported the travel expenses of the facilitator, Universidade Politécnica in Mozambique, which covered the accommodation expenses for the facilitator and also provided the venue for the workshop and Eduardo Mondlane University/ Documentation Services Directorate, which covered the perdiem costs. The major outcome of this workshop was the intention of building a joint repository for Mozambique, gathering the intellectual production of the academic and research staff in the country. This repository will be funded by the Ministry of Education and Culture and, at the start will be covering three institutions. It’s hoped that, in the future, more institutions will join the project. The technical support will be assured by the University of Minho. Aissa Mitha Issak, eIFL country coordinator in Mozambique

Open repository in Birzeit university: Palestine-Norway Partnership

Birzeit university library in Palestine, Tromsø university library and Telemark university college library in Norway have decided to work together in order to promote the development and establishment of an Open research archive for scientific publications and master and PhD theses from Birzeit university. An open access research archive will give global access to doctoral and master thesis and scientific publications produced at Birzeit University. The partners will meet in Tromsø in Norway 28th until 31st of October 2008 in order to discuss the plans and a major application to the Norwegian Government for funding the common project. Contacts: Birzeit university library: Library director Diana Sayej library[@]birzeit.edu Tromsø university library: Library director Helge Salvesen helge.salvesen[@]ub.uit.no Telemark university college: Library director Frode Bakken frode.bakken[@]hit.no

Approaching eIFL Open Access from different languages perspective

We are going to facilitate information and knowledge exchange about Open Access in different languages. As to the tools - as the first step we have just transformed eiflrussian - Russian speaking eIFL community mailing list - into Open Access discussion forum in Russian language and if you want to be part of it please subscribe here: http://www.eifl.net:8080/mailman/listinfo/eiflrussian or send a message to iryna.kuchma[@]eifl.net. There is also the first edition of the registry of publications and presentations about Open Access in Russian here: http://www.eifl.net/cps/sections/services/eifl-oa/training/readingr. Please send us the links to the materials which are missing. Another language we are going to approach is French. French speaking colleagues - could you please help us with the links to the most important articles and resources about Open Access in French? Do you need a French language discussion list?

DSpace Global Outreach Committee

The primary goal of the DSpace Global Outreach Committee (DGOC) is to help facilitate more regional support, trainings, user group meetings and resources for the DSpace user community world-wide. Among Committee Members there are Ezra S. Gbaje - Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, and eIFL-OA country coordinator in Nigeria, Yohannes Mulugeta - Addis Ababa University Libraries, Elena Okhezina - Ural State University Scientific Library and eIFL-OA country coordinator in Russia, and Iryna Kuchma - eIFL Open Access program manager.

Go here for more information about the DSpace Global Outreach Committee.

Blogs about Open Access from eIFL countries

http://blogs.uct.ac.za/blog/gray-area (in English) Gray Area: Opening up scholarly publishing by Eve Gray, publishing consultant and Open Access advocate in South Africa http://boa.icm.edu.pl/ (in Polish) BOA: Blog o Open Access pisze Justyna Hofmokl, socjolog, koordynator Creative Commons Polska http://cybermongol.blogspot.com (in Mongolian) Cybermon's blog for your access to knowledge by L.Gantulga, System Administrator, Mongolian Academy of Sciences http://moj-blog.org/open-access/ RSS Feed aggregator about Open Access created by Vedran Vucic, Serbia If you are from developing or transitional countries and have a blog about Open Access, please send a link to iryna.kuchma[@]eifl.net

The Open Access Documentary Project

Intelligent Television and BioMed Central are co-producing a set of videos celebrating the benefits of open access to scientific and medical research. Principal production has begun in London, New York, and at CERN in Geneva, featuring video interviews with activists, publishers, and consumers of scientific and medical information in the developed and developing world. The fist video clips feature Science Commons Executive Director John Wilbanks and SPARC Executive Director Heather Joseph. Heather Joseph mentioned eIFL.net activities telling about the equitable distribution of knowledge. http://www.intelligenttelevision.com/index.php/site/production/the-open-access-documentary-project/ In 2007 the Open Society Institute awarded a grant to support the Project.

Open Access and Web 2.0: Improving the scientific communications" workshop

On August 2-3, 2008 Kyrgyzstan Library Information Consortium in collaboration with eIFL.net and American University of Central Asia organized the workshop "Open Access and Web 2.0: Improving the scientific communications " for Kyrgyz librarians. Seminar presentations (all in Russian) are here: http://www.bik.org.kg/ru/news/64/. The Kyrgyzstan Libraries Information Consortium coordinates open access projects in Kyrgyzstan. Among them a pilot open repository in the American University of Central Asia (http://elibrary.auca.kg/dspace/), a national open repository for ETDs – CRAD (http://krad.bik.org.kg/) implemented by 12 leading academic and university libraries of Bishkek and 2 university libraries from Jalalabad and Karakol. There are plans to enrich this repository with any scholarly content materials not only from Kyrgyzstan but also from Central Asia. This new shared open repository for Central Asia will be discussed at the 9-th International conference "Issyk Kul 2008: Libraries and democratization of society", that will take place on the 1st to 5th of October 2008 in Kyrgyzstan (http://conference.bik.org.kg). Among other plans: launching Open Access declaration in Kyrgyzstan to encourage the funders of the research to mandate open access, developing value-added services on top of the repositories (highlighting the best national medical researchers, publications in psychology, etc.), creating a directory of open access scholarly content in Russian language, publishing and disseminating advocacy kits in Russian language about open access for scientists, scholars and students, creating intellectual property policies in research institutions to support open access self-archiving, approaching National Certification Commission (issuing scientific degrees in the country) to cooperate in the CRAD project (ETD repository), encouraging University rectors to practice open access and cooperating with editorial boards of academic journals to upload published articles into the shared open repository, finding synergies and exchanging expertise in open access projects and distance education in the libraries and Universities. Open Access was also presented at the BarCamp Central Asia 2008 – the first non-conference of such kind in Central Asia (the presentation in Russian is here: http://www.slideshare.net/irynak/ss-539771) that took place the same days – August 2-3, 2008 in the American University of Central Asia. BarCamp is an international network of user generated non-conferences — open, participatory workshop-events, whose content is provided by participants — often focusing on early-stage web applications, and related open source technologies, social protocols, and open data formats. New media professionals and bloggers from Central Asia and other former Soviet Union countries attended this event (http://barcampasia.net).

eIFL.net signed Seoul Declaration calling for open access to publicly-funded research

Civil society organizations participating in the OECD 2008 Ministerial Meeting on the Future of the Internet Economy (Seoul, June 17-18, 2008) have issued the Seoul Declaration (June 16, 2008): http://thepublicvoice.org/events/seoul08/signatures.pdf

Ukrainian publisher and scholarly society cooperate with Connexions

Nauka Publishers based in Kyiv, Ukraine, specialised in educational and scientific literature, and the Center for American Literary Studies in Ukraine at the Institute of literature after Taras Shevchenko of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine started cooperation with Connexions – an environment for collaboratively developing, freely sharing, and rapidly publishing scholarly content on the Web (http://cnx.org/). They published two modules and courses: Contemporary Media Systems and Political Communications (http://cnx.org/content/col10539/latest/ based on Ukrainian translation of the book by Daniel C. Hallin Comparing media systems: three models of media and politics supported by International Renaissance Foundation and the British Council Ukraine) and Discourse of Romantism in the US Literature (http://cnx.org/content/col10545/latest/). Andriy Ischenko, director of Nauka Publishers, is devoted to promote and practice open access and open education to improve the access to and distribution of education and scholarly materials. He is also happy that one of the most prominent Ukrainian researchers – Professor Tamara Denysova, head of the Center for American Literary Studies in Ukraine, supports open collaboration and knowledge sharing of educational materials and cooperates with Connexions. Andriy Ischenko learned about Connexions at the seminar about open education for academic publishers organised by International Renaissance Foundation and Open Society Institute and lead by the founder of Connexions Dr.Richard Baraniuk and its Executive Director Dr. Joel Thierstein.

Open Access Presentation at ZIBF Writers Workshop

Jasper Lee Maenzanise, Zimbabwe Open University and eIFL Open Access country coordinator, gave another presentation about open access movement at Zimbabwe Book Fair Writers Workshop on 29th of July 2008. While tertiary institutions are well informed about open access, there is still a dearth of knowledge among most people regarding this new paradigm. It was felt that there is need for more open access workshops that would involve both theory and practical demos on paradigm of scholarly communication and how to access and use some of the open access resource. Such workshops should also include high level Government Officials if the nation is going to mandate Open Access. And this is certainly being planned for through the Research Council of Zimbabwe's (RCZ) Informatics Committee. It was also expressed that most writers would like to contribute their artistic and literally works and make use of the Creative Commons Licence particularly where the local publishing industry is facing several limitations in terms of publishing their works. Details of how they could go the Creative Commons route would be communicated through the Writers Association and the ZIBF Office. It is pragmatic that more OA road shows and workshops should be planned and implemented as a matter of urgency.

Two new Open Access Journals from the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia

Fundamental Scientific Library of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia launched two Open Access journals: Armenian Journal of Mathematics (http://www.flib.sci.am/eng/journal/Math/index.html) and Armenian Journal of Physics (http://www.flib.sci.am/eng/journal/Phys/index.html). Armenian Scientific Journals - Open Access: http://www.flib.sci.am/eng/?q=node/55 The Open Society Institute Assistance Foundation in Armenia has granted the Fundamental Scientific Library of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) with a one year grant to develop an Open Access based scholarly communication system for the national academic community. The Fundamental Scientific Library of the National Academy of Sciences is the main and largest repository of scholarly publication in the Republic of Armenia. The National Academy of Sciences houses 29 research institutions and is an overall leading producer of scientific content. The National Academy of Sciences publishes 13 peer-reviewed journals with an international reputation. The Open Society Institute has been supporting the implementation of digital technologies in Armenia in the last years and this new project will seek to raise awareness and encourage alternative solutions to the traditional system of scholarly communication based on peer reviewed academic journals by commercial publishers. The grant period will run through the whole 2008 and will look into Open Access publishing procedures, institutional repositories and self-archiving toolsets for the local research community. In addition, the project will publish 12 issues of an electronic journal mainly focused on Mathematics and Physics. Tigran Zargaryan, director of the Fundamental Scientific Library of the National Academy of Sciences, will coordinate the project. Chief editor for the Open Access journal 'Armenian Mathematical Journal' is Professor Anry Nersessian, and the chief editor for the Open Access journal 'Armenian Physical Journal' is Professor Vladimir Aroutiounian.

Open Access: Exploring Scholarly Communication – workshop in Moldova

Consortium eIFL Direct Moldova and eIFL.net organised a workshop Open Access: Exploring Scholarly Communication on June 23-24 in Moldova Economics Academy, Chisinau. Open Access is gaining the momentum in Moldova. National Council for Accreditation and Attestation maintains an Open Access ETDs collection with 855 current theses, including 94 theses for the degree of doctor habilitate (http://www.cnaa.acad.md/en/theses/). There are at least 10 Open Access journals published in Moldova by the scientific and research organizations of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova (some of them are listed here: http://www.asm.md/?go=activitatea&csdt=2&new_language=1). Presentations from the workshop are available here: http://www.eifl.net/cps/sections/services/eifl-oa/training/2008-chisinau

Study visit of repository managers to Ukraine

On June 18-21 Informatio Consortium, National University “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy” and eIFL.net organised a study visit of repository managers from Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan to Ukraine. Together with their Ukrainian colleagues they discussed strategies for securing faculty and administration support, management, copyright and interoperability issues, etc. Presentations from the study visit Open repositories are here: http://www.eifl.net/cps/sections/services/eifl-oa/training/2008-kyiv

The advantages of Open Access presented at the Zimbabwe International Bookfair

On June 13 2007 Kathy Matsika, Chief librarian, National University of Science and Technology, and head of Zimbabwe University Libraries Consortium presented Open Access: advantages and disadvantages for users, librarians and rightsholders at the Writers, Librarians and Copyright Workshop during Zimbabwe International Bookfair in Bulawayo. She focused her presentation at the advantages of Open Access to authors/writers/academics and users. Most of the participants – writers, teachers, lecturers from local Tertiary Colleges, librarians from universities, Tertiary Colleges, schools and public libraries, and academics from the two universities in Bulawayo – heard for the first time about Open Access and the presentation received and made the desired impact – generated a lot of positive debates.

A meeting on Open Access in European Union and Lithuania

Under the initiative of the Ministry of Education and Science, with the help of the Lithuanian Research Libraries Consortium a meeting on Open Access in European Union and Lithuania was held at the office of the Government of the Republic of Lithuania on May 7, 2008. Agenda of the meeting: http://www.lmba.lt/doc/agenda.doc Power point presentations: Open Access and the Future of Scholarly Communication by David Prosser, SPARC Europe Director: http://www.lmba.lt/ppt/SPARC%20Europe%20Vilnius.ppt Open Access in Lithuania by Vilius Kučiukas, KTU ITDC: http://www.lmba.lt/ppt/LABT-OA-2008-05-07-Kuciukas.ppt (http://www.lmba.lt/reng/angl/eindex.htm)

Open Access Awareness Raising workshop in Georgia

On May 14-15, 2008, Georgian Integrated Library & Information System Consortium (GILISC) and eIFL.net organised a workshop Open Access: New Models for Scholarly Communication. Hosted by Ilia Chavchavadze State University the workshop addressed Open Access policies and recommendations and highlighted the benefits of Open Access journals and Open repositories. Publishers of Georgian Open Access journals – Computer Science and Telecommunications, Education Sciences and Psychology, Physics, Jurisprudence, Musicology and Cultural Science, Germanistische Studien all published by Georgian Internet Academy (http://gesj.internet-academy.org.ge/) and Bulletin of the Tbilisi International Centre of Mathematics and Informatics (TICMI) published by the I.Vekua Institute of Applied Mathematics, I.Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University and Georgian Academy of Natural Sciences (http://www.emis.de/journals/TICMI/blt/bulletin.htm) shared their experience in publishing Open Access journals in Georgia. And Georgian Internet Academy is open to collaboration with other journal publishers in the country suggesting them to use its publishing software and ICT support. The National Parliamentary Library of Georgia (http://www.nplg.gov.ge/ ) presented the first open repository in the country with more than 200 full texts dissertations. Scholars and researchers, editors-in-chief of peer review scientific and scholarly journals and University librarians discussed how to launch a new Open Access Journal or to convert a subscription based journal to Open Access as well as management of Open repositories, copyright and open content licenses. International cooperation and research development – better quality research and education – were mentioned as the benefits of Open Access projects in Georgia during the round table discussion “How to move forward – Open Access Policies, Open Access repositories, Open Access Journals”. Libraries seem to be the best managers of open repositories, because they are good in metadata and long-term preservation. Although there is still a need for adding English fields to the bibliographic descriptions and metadata fields (at the moment all bibliographic descriptions in the country are done in the language of the original document which is in most of the cases – Georgian language). And journal publishers are natural partners for the libraries to provide post-prints for open repositories. The workshop participants agreed to create an Open Access working group and to develop a pilot project for the national open repository with centrally managed infrastructure and virtually different repositories managed by institutions. Articles already published in the peer-reviewed journals are planned to be the initial content for this repository and annual reports of the Universities and research institutions will be used to identify the lists of these articles. New approaches to quality control were also addressed during the workshop and there was a suggestion that a University can announce a call for proposal for reviewing a yearly estimate number of articles published in this University and the editorial boards of the journals can provide peer-reviewing services to the University on the conditions defined by the University. Presentations from the workshop are available here: http://www.eifl.net/cps/sections/services/eifl-oa/training Contact person: Irakli Garibashvili, eIFL country coordinator, igar[at]hotmail.com, iraklig99[at]yahoo.com

Extended deadline for submission of abstracts to the International Conference on Open Access and Quality Assurance in Higher Education Libraries, organized by Zimbabwe University Libraries Consortium (ZULC)

The deadline for submission of abstracts has been extended to 30 June 2008. The theme of the ZULC International Conference on Open Access and Quality Assurance in Higher Education libraries will include the following sub-themes for discussion: 1. Quality Assurance (QA) in higher education libraries in Africa 2. Open Access in higher education libraries 3. Library and Information Services (LIS) standards as quality assurance measures 4. Institutional Repositories (IRs) and quality assurance in higher education institutions 5. Quality Assurance in the preservation and archiving of digital documents 6. Open Access and quality information resources 7. Indigenous Knowledge Information Systems and Quality Assurance Deadlines: Submission of abstracts (approx. 300 words): 30 June 2008 Notification of selected abstracts: 16 July 2008 Submission of full paper PDF format (1500-2000 words) Plus 3 print copies: 31 August 2008 Abstracts must be sent electronically to: Mr. J L Maenzanise, Zimbabwe Open University: maenzanisejl [at] lis.zou.co.zw

Strategic Approach to Open Access in Nigeria

International Workshop On Open Access Repositories: New Models For Scholarly Communication

28th - 29th April, 2008, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria

Eighty-nine participants – policy makers and ICT experts from university and research institutes, scholars and researchers, editors-in-chief of peer reviewed scientific and scholarly journals, university and systems librarians - from forty-five institutions met at the Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, Nigeria to discuss a strategic approach to open access (OA), important for academia and society at large. A Communiqué issued after the workshop endorsed the open access model and made a set of recommendations for government and stakeholders. In addition to formulating policies for implementing and sustaining open institutional repositories, participants updated their knowledge of copyright issues and open content licenses and developed strategies for the promotion and marketing of institutional repositories.

The knowledge-sharing event was co-organised by the Department of Library and Information Science at Ahmadu Bello University, eIFL.net and the Nigerian University Libraries Consortium (NULIB). “NULIB’s mandate is only half fulfilled if we cannot also provide access to Nigerian scholarly output. That is why we are so excited about this workshop, which, through its advocacy and training, will encourage and enable Nigerian universities and research institutes to organise their scholarly output into institutional repositories that, through open access, will be available to many both within and outside the country”, said Professor Doris O. Bozimo, Chairperson of NULIB in her opening remarks.

“Communicating scholarly information through open access repositories provide the added advantages of faster publishing opportunities, greater visibility for authors and institutions and cheaper access”, said Victoria Okojie, President of the Nigerian Library Association, referring to the agreed need for a national policy on open access and institutional repositories. “The Nigerian Library Association supports open access and commits to promoting it within the Nigerian community. We endorse open access for all journals, dissertations and conference proceedings in the LIS sector in Nigeria. We shall continue to provide open access to our conference papers and shall employ all legitimate means to encourage our members to archive their pre-prints and post-prints in open access, OAI-compliant archives. Open access repositories provide an excellent opportunity for researchers and librarians in Nigeria to gain leverage, and to leapfrog and become a part of an international community of researchers.”

David Prosser, Director of SPARC Europe commented, “In organising this exciting workshop, the Nigerian academic community has taken an important and timely step towards ensuring that the fruits of Nigerian research are made more widely visible, both within Nigeria and worldwide. By embracing open access and making a commitment to institutional repositories, the participants recognised the great benefits that can come from sharing scholarly resources. I look forward to working further with the participants to build on the success of the workshop.”

“The next step is for policy developments within individual universities, as well as in the research sector as a whole. It has been proven that policies mandating open access to publicly funded research enhance access to, and greater use of research findings, increase R&D efficiency, accelerate innovation and stimulate the economy”, said Iryna Kuchma, eIFL Open Access Program Manager.

Several open access initiatives are already underway in Nigeria. Kaduna State University and the University of Benin (Pharmacotherapy Group, Faculty of Pharmacy) both publish open access journals. Academic Journals, a Lagos-based publisher, currently has twenty OA journals and Bioline International hosts eleven OA titles from Nigeria. Ezra Shiloba Gbaje from Ahmadu Bello University runs the first pilot open access institutional repository in Nigeria, a second pilot will soon be launched by Emmanuel Babatunde Ajala of Kenneth Dike Library, University of Ibadan.

The workshop Communiqué recommended that the Federal Government of Nigeria develop a multi-level strategic plan of action and establish a National Coordinating Committee for open access journals and institutional repositories in Nigeria. Stakeholders are encouraged to source and to make available funding for open access and institutional repository projects.

“Challenges in realising the open access model in Nigeria include lack of awareness by stakeholders and lack of appropriate implementation policies, hence the need for this workshop”, said Ezra Shiloba Gbaje. “By bringing together stakeholders from different institutions and different parts of Nigeria, the workshop has sown the seed of the open access model. Hopefully, this seed when well nurtured will germinate and blossom for the benefit of Nigeria and the world at large.”

More information and presentations from the workshop are here: www.nulib.net

eIFL Open Access mailing list

If you want to learn and share more about Open Access in developing and transition countries, we invite you to subscribe to eIFL Open Access mailing list – please send a subscription request to iryna.kuchma[at]eifl.net.

Call for Papers: Zimbabwe University Libraries Consortium (ZULC) International Conference on Open Access and Quality Assurance in Higher Education Libraries, 25-26 September 2008

The theme of the ZULC International Conference on Open Access and Quality Assurance in Higher Education libraries will include the following sub-themes for discussion: 1. Quality Assurance (QA) in higher education libraries in Africa 2. Open Access in higher education libraries 3. Library and Information Services (LIS) standards as quality assurance measures 4. Institutional Repositories (IRs) and quality assurance in higher education institutions 5. Quality Assurance in the preservation and archiving of digital documents 6. Open Access and quality information resources 7. Indigenous Knowledge Information Systems and Quality Assurance

eIFL OA becomes the moderator of the BOAI Forum

The BOAI Forum is a low-traffic moderated discussion list to support the Budapest Open Access Initiative. It was launched on February 14, 2003.
- Post
Subscribers may post messages to the list by sending email to boai-forum@ecs.soton.ac.uk.
- Subscribe
To subscribe or unsubscribe to the Forum, use our web-based form http://www.soros.org/openaccess/forum.shtml. Only those who have signed the BOAI may subscribe.
- Archive
Forum postings are available at the Forum Archive, and may be read by non-subscribers: http://www.soros.org/openaccess/forum.shtml. We thank the ECS Department of the University of Southampton for hosting the archive.
This discussion list was moderated by Peter Suber, Senior Researcher, SPARC, Visiting Fellow, Information Society Project, Yale Law School, Research Professor of Philosophy, Earlham College. As of March 31, Iryna Kuchma, eIFL Open Access Program Manager, takes over moderation of this list.

eIFL OA Call for Cooperation

eIFL-OA Program seeks to enhance access to, and greater use of research findings, increase the efficiency of research and developments, accelerate use and innovation, stimulate economy. To achieve this, we apply the developing practices of Open Access as defined by the Budapest Open Access Initiative.
eIFL-OA Program:
1. builds networks of Open Access repositories, Open Access journals, Open Access education materials;
2. provides training and advice on Open Access policies and practices;
3. empowers library professionals, scientists and scholars, educators and students to become open access advocates.
We invite libraries, Universities or any other research and development organisation from eIFL.net countries that are interested in Open Access projects, plan activities listed above, and ready to organise local and national events to make themselves known to the eIFL-OA Program Manager, Iryna Kuchma, iryna.kuchma[at]eifl.net.

Presentations from the SYReLIB Open Access and Institutional Repository Workshop in Syria available online

As part of the TEMPUS funded SYReLIB one year project where eIFL.net is a partner, librarians Morag Greig and William Nixon from University of Glasgow and Ian Johnson from Robert Gordon University delivered a workshop on Open Access basics and Institutional Repositories at the University of Aleppo, Syria, in December 2007. The local library communities from the University of Aleppo and Al-Baath University attended the workshop.
Presentations by the resource people are available online at http://hdl.handle.net/1905/761. Topics covered include Open Access; Open Access Advantages; Glasgow Case Study; Open Access Journals; Technology; Policy Issues; Advocacy; Copyright and Open Access Global Perspective.

eIFL Open Access Institutional Repositories Setting the Platform for International Co-operation

eIFL.net has launched a portal for 97 institutional repositories from 16 developing and transition countries (Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, China, Croatia, Estonia, Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania, Mongolia, Namibia, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Slovenia, South Africa, Ukraine and Zimbabwe) and this number is growing. It now gives every visitor free access to 141,165 full-text research findings in a consistent and harmonised way. To visit the portal, please go to http://eifl.cq2.org

eIFL.net signed the Cape Town Open Education Declaration

eIFL.net joined early signatories list before this declaration will be formally launched on January 22. This declaration of principles is very closely aligned with eIFL's values and mission. Libraries are important in the "open education resources" area and we would like to congratulate the group on this initiative.

eIFL and DOAJ

eIFL is supporting the development and operation of the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) by becoming a member of the DOAJ. Today the DOAJ includes 2963 open access peer-reviewed scholarly journals. The Directory covers all subjects and languages. If you are interested in becoming a member, more information can be found here.

EBIB Open Access Conference

Elektroniczny Biuletyn Informacyjny Bibliotekarzy (EBIB) is organizing the Second Open Access Conference in Poland on December 7-9, following the first one coorganised by eIFL last year. The EBIB Open Access Conference will bring together senior representatives from the research and university communities in Poland as well as Open Access advocates internationally to discuss OA policies in Europe, technical and practical considerations in the setup of institutional repositories,open archives, the impact of open access journals in the publishing industry and legal related matters. Jan Andrzej Nikish, eIFL country coordinator for Poland and eIFL Advisory Board member, is on the Organizing Committee. Top speakers from SPARC Europe, DOAR, Creative Commons and University of Padova will be amongst the participants, and a few Polish Universities will share their Open Access related initiatives. The programme is available here .

Nigerian eIFL-OA coordinator recognized for his work on DSpace
Ezra Shiloba Gbaje has been awarded the Dr. James O. Daniel prize for the Most Innovative Library-based ICT project by the Nigerian Library Association (NLA) for his Open Access work. Ezra installed and configured Dspace for his university, Ahmadu Bello University. During the award presentation at the NLA meeting this September, Ezra demonstrated the role of an institutional repository and there was great interest from the 400 participants to learn more. eIFL is working with Ezra to organize an open access workshop in Nigeria next year which will build upon this enthusiasm.

Open Access Briefing Paper also available in Armenian and Bulgarian
The short briefing paper on Open Access prepared by Key Perspectives is a useful resource to understand what Open Access is and what it is not. eIFL has encouraged the translation of this work in the local languages within its network. The latest contributions have been kindly made by the Armenian and Bulgarian library consortia which add to the translations into Arabic, Chinese, Croatian, French, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Macedonian, Portuguese, Slovenian, Russian, Serbian, Spanish, Turkish and Ukrainian that can be downloaded from http://www.keyperspectives.co.uk/openaccessarchive/briefingpapers.html

U.S. petition to support free and open access to research funded by the U.S. government

Dear Friends,
Momentum for public access to publicly funded research reached a height last month with the celebration of a National Day of Action by students across the U.S. and the presentation of over 21,000 individual and organizational signatures to the European Union's Commissioner for Science and Research.

To build on this momentum, several leading American organizations - representing libraries, health groups, students, and consumers - are jointly supporting a Petition for Public Access to Publicly Funded Research in the United States.

This petition, which is open to supporters around the world, will demonstrate clearly to U.S. policymakers the depth and breadth of support for access to federally funded research in the United States. As U.S. lawmakers consider policies and legislation to advance public access, it is critical that supporters step forward and be counted.

Even if you signed the European petition, it's important that you sign the U.S. petition as well. Here's why:

* The European Commission petition was written explicitly to support Recommendation A1 of the EC's Study on the Economic and Technical Evolution of the Scientific Publication Markets of Europe.

* The U.S. petition is written to support public access to research funded by the U.S. government as well as the reintroduction and passage of the Federal Research Public Access Act.

* The U.S. petition collects state-specific information, which is essential to making the case for public access to individual lawmakers.

The Petition for Public Access to Publicly Funded Research in the United States is open to individuals and organizations of all types. If you are a researcher whose work is funded by the federal government, your signature is especially important since it shows that you want your work to be shared and used.

Please distribute this message and invite your members, friends, and colleagues to sign the petition immediately in order that as much progress as possible may be made in the 110th Congress.

Sincerely,
Heather Joseph
Executive Director, SPARC

Petition for guaranteed public access to publicly-funded research results
In the wake of the publication of the report from the "EU Study on the Economic and Technical Evolution of the Scientific Publication Markets of Europe" a consortium of organisations working in the scholarly communication arena is sponsoring a petition to the European Commission to demonstrate support for Open Access and for the recommendations in the report. Signatures may be added on behalf of individuals or institutions.

Please register your support for Open Access in this way. To sign the petition, please go to www.ec-petition.eu.

The sponsoring organisations are JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee, UK), SURF (Netherlands), SPARC Europe, DFG (Deutsches Forschungsgemeinschaft, Germany), DEFF (Danmarks Elektroniske Fag- og Forskningsbibliotek, Denmark).

European Commission Meeting on Scientific Publishing

More than 550 delegates from nearly 50 countries attended a major European Commission conference on 15-16 February to discuss the future of scientific publishing in the European Research Area. Held in Brussels, the conference attracted researchers, publishers, policy makers, research funders, and librarians drawn to debate the issues of Open Access of research outputs, dissemination of research and preservation in the digital age. eIFL was represented by Emilija Banionyte, Biljana Kosanovic, Iryna Kuchma and Melissa Hagemann.

Discussion focused on the policies of research funding bodies, especially the European Commission, new opportunities for the research community in widening access to their research outputs, and a debate on the scientific publication market, which saw many publishers react quite defensively to any suggestion that a change was needed. As a result of the meeting, the Commission pledged to undertake specific actions (see below). Of particular importance, please note that the Commission will now include the costs of Open Access publishing as an eligible cost in Community funded projects which is a HUGE step forward. The Commission is also starting discussions with the European Parliament and the Council, thus for the eIFL members who are interested in Open Access, it will be important that we begin to liaise with the Members of Parliament from your countries to advocate for Open Access.

Actions to be undertaken by the EU Commission:

A. ACCESS TO COMMUNITY FUNDED RESEARCH RESULTS

– Costs for publishing, including Open Access publishing, defined as eligible costs in Community funded research projects.

– Specific guidelines to be issued, within specific programmes, on the publication of articles in open repositories.

B. CO-FUNDING THROUGH COMMUNITY PROGRAMMES

– Approximately €50 million for work on infrastructures, in particular digital repositories, in 2007-2008.

– Approximately €25 million for digital preservation and collaborative tools in 2007-2008.

– Approximately €10 million on access to and use of scientific information through eContentplus programme.

C. INPUT FOR THE FUTURE POLICY DEBATE

– Study on the economic aspects of digital preservation.

– Funding of research on publication business models and on the scientific publication system.

D. POLICY CO-ORDINATION AND DEBATE WITH STAKEHOLDERS

– Deliberations in the European Parliament and Council; further discussions with stakeholders.

– Exchange of good practices for new models of access to, dissemination of, and preservation of scientific information

SPARC recognizes Open Society Institute's Melissa Hagemann as newest SPARC innovator

Washington, DC - SPARC has selected Melissa Hagemann, the Program Manager of the Open Access Initiative at the Open Society Institute (OSI), as the newest SPARC Innovator. Hagemann was chosen in recognition of the new possibilities that now exist for scholars, institutions, and the public since the introduction of the Open Access movement and in honor of Hagemann's seminal role in launching the movement with her OSI colleagues.

Please read the press release.