Vice Chancellors at the Open Access leadership summit of the Southern African Regional Universities’ Association (SARUA), November 20-22 2007, were told it is important for Africa to generate new knowledge and contribute to internationally knowledge-based development and innovation.
The Minister of Education for Botswana, Jacob Nkate, was giving a keynote address at the 'Open Access' leadership summit of SARUA. He said through research and innovation, tertiary education provides the basis for the society to adapt and advance in this era of modern technology.
"Open access approaches and models promote universal unrestricted free access to full-text scholarly materials and scientific research via the Internet which in turn accelerates knowledge transfer," he said, adding that public good requires the removal of prevention barriers to this research and its publication.
More news to follow.
Posted by Electronic Publishing Trust for Development
Thursday, 22 November 2007
Botswana Open Access Summit
Vice Chancellors at the Open Access leadership summit of the Southern African Regional Universities’ Association (SARUA), November 20-22 2007, were told it is important for Africa to generate new knowledge and contribute to internationally knowledge-based development and innovation.
The Minister of Education for Botswana, Jacob Nkate, was giving a keynote address at the 'Open Access' leadership summit of SARUA. He said through research and innovation, tertiary education provides the basis for the society to adapt and advance in this era of modern technology.
"Open access approaches and models promote universal unrestricted free access to full-text scholarly materials and scientific research via the Internet which in turn accelerates knowledge transfer," he said, adding that public good requires the removal of prevention barriers to this research and its publication.
The Minister of Education for Botswana, Jacob Nkate, was giving a keynote address at the 'Open Access' leadership summit of SARUA. He said through research and innovation, tertiary education provides the basis for the society to adapt and advance in this era of modern technology.
"Open access approaches and models promote universal unrestricted free access to full-text scholarly materials and scientific research via the Internet which in turn accelerates knowledge transfer," he said, adding that public good requires the removal of prevention barriers to this research and its publication.
Friday, 16 November 2007
Now 100 Institutional Repositories in eIFL-net countries
The Open Society Institute-supported eIFL network has helped in the establishment of nearly one hundred OA Institutional Repositories in developing and emerging countries and is moving towards linking up with the EU DRIVER project! This is terrific news and shows that, through hard work, enthusiasm and international cooperation, organisations in these countries are recognising the enormous benefits that open access will bring to their scientific research and economies. Many congratulations to all concerned!
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eIFL INSTITUTIONAL REPOSITORIES SETTING THE PLATFORM FOR INTERNATIONAL CO-OPERATION
Contributed by Susan Veldsman, eIFL, South Africa,
email: susan.veldsman@eifl.net
Over the last year electronic Information For Libraries (eIFL) has been working hard to create a database and record all aspects of Institutional Repositories that have been developed in all our member countries. After a lot of correspondence and updating with countries, we can now report that 17 member eIFL countries currently have:
- 27 repositories in progress
- 69 active repositories,
- Total of 96 institutional repositories
This gave us the opportunity to look for international co-operation with other projects. Being so closely associated with SURF, the Netherlands, eIFL were quite aware of the DRIVER project and its follow up DRIVER II sister project. (Digital Repository Infrastructure Vision for European Research:DRIVER) that they were involved in. One of the objectives of DRIVER is to organize and build a virtual, European scale network (portal) of existing institutional repositories from the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Germany, France and Belgium.
eIFL saw the challenge and decided to piggy back on the expertise and technology infrastructure that the SURF/DRIVER project already had in place. Talks began with all parties involved and during June/July 2007 a similar portal(network) was created and can currently be viewed at http://eifl.cq2.org.
As a result, eIFL has organized and built a virtual eIFL member country scale network (portal) of existing institutional repositories.
This is only the beginning of a long journey. eIFL's ultimate goal is to develop these repositories to reach an international standard. This will be done by training e.g metadata, other standards, linking, setting up repositories, etc These repositories should be at such a level that they could easily feed or be included into, for example, a DRIVER project.
This has brought a very much higher profile to eIFL and we have received enthusiastic and excited feedback.
This is not the only activitiy we are envisaging, we are also busy to "mass register" eIFL repositories in IR registers and harvesters (OAIster and OpenDOAR) We are also looking at additional training that could be given to countries to "move" their repositories from an inactive to active status, as well as to start up new repositories.
Monday, 12 November 2007
OA in Brazil
Pushing out the BOAT (Brazilian OA Task Force) – an impressive catalogue of progress toward OA, provided by Professor Sely Costa, IBICT, Brazil. Watch this space for the latest outcome to develop policies and mandates, and to establish a national OA service for institutional repositories and OA journals in Brazil.
The Open Access Movement in Brazil
Sely Costa, IBICT, Brazil
The open access movement in Brazil, as everywhere else, has constituted a challenging cause to embrace. Both IBICT and SciELO have been involved with the movement, taking the lead in most of the initiatives in the country.
Declarations to support OA
From 2005, a number of declarations have been issued in Brazil, undersigned by either individuals or civil society entities, by means of their representatives. There are, so far, at least four major declarations issued in Brazil, following the Berlim Declaration. One has been issued by IBICT at the 57th Annual Meeting of SBPC (http://www.ibict.br/openaccess/arquivos/manifesto.htm). The other three have been issued by a Psychology Learned Society (http://www.bvs-psi.org.br/DeclFlor.pdf), the participants of an international conference in health sciences (http://www.icml9.org/public/documents/pdf/pt/Dcl-Salvador-AcessoAberto-pt.pdf) and a group of researchers from the state of São Paulo (http://www.acessoaberto.org/).
Events to promote OA
A number of events that have taken place in Brazil include OA in their programmes. The last three annual meetings of the Brazilian Society for the Progress of Science (SBPC) had a special session on OA (see http://www.sbpcnet.org.br/livro/57ra/programas/CONF_SIMP/simposios/1.htm and http://www.sbpcnet.org.br/livro/58ra/atividades/ENCONTROS/listagem.html). Proceedings of the 59th meeting, when Stevan Harnad and Brazilians leaders of the movement participated in a special session, will be available soon. OA has also featured in annual meetings of learned societies (eg in information science (http://portal.cid.unb.br/cipeccbr), health sciences (http://www.icml9.org/), communication science (http://www.portcom.intercom.org.br/www_antigo2/index.php?secao=projetos/endocom) and psychology (http://www.anpepp.org.br/index-grupoXI.htm).
In April 2006, the First Cipecc - Ibero American Conference in Electronic Publishing in the context of Scholarly Communication (http://portal.cid.unb.br/cipeccbr), Brasilia, was very successful, with participants from 6 countries (Mexico, Chile, Portugal, Spain, Brazil and Canada), and 13 Brazilian states. It offered a unique opportunity to make open access, institutional repositories and other topics known and discussed by people from Ibero-America as a whole and Brazil in particular. The conference website contains all papers and presentations. In November 2006, a group of researchers from Brazil, along with researchers and librarians from Portugal, as well as a librarian from Mozambique held a meeting at the University of Minho, in Portugal, to discuss the open access movement in Portuguese speaking countries (see (http://www.sdum.uminho.pt/confOA/programa.htm). From this meeting, the Minho Commitment resulted as an important document to this community (see http://www.ibict.br/openaccess/arquivos/compromisso.pdf). As a follow-up to this, on November 13th 2007, a seminar, ‘Open Access Seminar to the Scientific Knowledge in Portuguese Speaking Countries’ (http://www.intgovforum.org/Rio_Schedule_final.html) is taking place in Rio de Janeiro, as part of a Brazil/United Nations meeting (http://www.intgovforum.org/). Representatives of 8 Portuguese speaking countries are expected to sign up the Rio de Janeiro Protocol, which establishes the aims of the commitment. Notices of this event will be delivered soon after the meeting at Dr. Kuramoto’s blog (http://blogdokura.blogspot.com/) and at the Open Access in Portuguese Speaking Countries web page (http://www.ibict.br/alemplus), a site dedicated to the topic for this community.
Steps to implement OA initiatives
The Open Access Movement in Brazil
Sely Costa, IBICT, Brazil
The open access movement in Brazil, as everywhere else, has constituted a challenging cause to embrace. Both IBICT and SciELO have been involved with the movement, taking the lead in most of the initiatives in the country.
Declarations to support OA
From 2005, a number of declarations have been issued in Brazil, undersigned by either individuals or civil society entities, by means of their representatives. There are, so far, at least four major declarations issued in Brazil, following the Berlim Declaration. One has been issued by IBICT at the 57th Annual Meeting of SBPC (http://www.ibict.br/openaccess/arquivos/manifesto.htm). The other three have been issued by a Psychology Learned Society (http://www.bvs-psi.org.br/DeclFlor.pdf), the participants of an international conference in health sciences (http://www.icml9.org/public/documents/pdf/pt/Dcl-Salvador-AcessoAberto-pt.pdf) and a group of researchers from the state of São Paulo (http://www.acessoaberto.org/).
Events to promote OA
A number of events that have taken place in Brazil include OA in their programmes. The last three annual meetings of the Brazilian Society for the Progress of Science (SBPC) had a special session on OA (see http://www.sbpcnet.org.br/livro/57ra/programas/CONF_SIMP/simposios/1.htm and http://www.sbpcnet.org.br/livro/58ra/atividades/ENCONTROS/listagem.html). Proceedings of the 59th meeting, when Stevan Harnad and Brazilians leaders of the movement participated in a special session, will be available soon. OA has also featured in annual meetings of learned societies (eg in information science (http://portal.cid.unb.br/cipeccbr), health sciences (http://www.icml9.org/), communication science (http://www.portcom.intercom.org.br/www_antigo2/index.php?secao=projetos/endocom) and psychology (http://www.anpepp.org.br/index-grupoXI.htm).
In April 2006, the First Cipecc - Ibero American Conference in Electronic Publishing in the context of Scholarly Communication (http://portal.cid.unb.br/cipeccbr), Brasilia, was very successful, with participants from 6 countries (Mexico, Chile, Portugal, Spain, Brazil and Canada), and 13 Brazilian states. It offered a unique opportunity to make open access, institutional repositories and other topics known and discussed by people from Ibero-America as a whole and Brazil in particular. The conference website contains all papers and presentations. In November 2006, a group of researchers from Brazil, along with researchers and librarians from Portugal, as well as a librarian from Mozambique held a meeting at the University of Minho, in Portugal, to discuss the open access movement in Portuguese speaking countries (see (http://www.sdum.uminho.pt/confOA/programa.htm). From this meeting, the Minho Commitment resulted as an important document to this community (see http://www.ibict.br/openaccess/arquivos/compromisso.pdf). As a follow-up to this, on November 13th 2007, a seminar, ‘Open Access Seminar to the Scientific Knowledge in Portuguese Speaking Countries’ (http://www.intgovforum.org/Rio_Schedule_final.html) is taking place in Rio de Janeiro, as part of a Brazil/United Nations meeting (http://www.intgovforum.org/). Representatives of 8 Portuguese speaking countries are expected to sign up the Rio de Janeiro Protocol, which establishes the aims of the commitment. Notices of this event will be delivered soon after the meeting at Dr. Kuramoto’s blog (http://blogdokura.blogspot.com/) and at the Open Access in Portuguese Speaking Countries web page (http://www.ibict.br/alemplus), a site dedicated to the topic for this community.
Steps to implement OA initiatives
One of the most promising recent Brazilian initiatives was the meeting held at the University of Brasilia (UnB), as a joint event by IBICT and the university. The purpose of the meeting was to establish the foundations of a Brazilian movement for Open Access to scientific and scholarly publications: the Brazilian Open Access Task Force (BOAT Force). This initiative aims to establish, at the universities and research institutions in Brazil, institutional repositories, mandate policies and the OASIS.Br (http://www.ibict.br/oasis.br/), a central service to both repositories and e-journals published in the country. The University of Brasilia is positioning itself as a pioneer, with the unprecedented support of its rector, Professor Timothy Martin Mulholland. Clearly, much of this movement is now considered the way of the future for scientific publication and the ambition is to spread this message across Brazil.
Publications to disseminate OA
A growing number of articles have been published on open access and the open archives initiatives in Brazilian scholarly journals. Early articles mostly describe open archives initiatives. A special issue of Ciência da Informação, published by IBICT in 2006 (http://www.ibict.br/cionline/viewissue.php?id=40#Acesso_Livre_à_Informação:_aspectos_socioculturais ), is entirely dedicated to the subject, with articles from Kuramoto, Southwick, Sinay; Michelson, and Rosales, Bauste, Guzmán and Bianco reporting ongoing projects in Latin America countries. A new ‘open philosophy’ and a new model for scholarly publishing was the subject of Costa. Mueller discusses the degree of acceptance related to the level of legitimacy in which open access publications are held. Finally, Schirmbacher, from the Humboldt University at Berlin, describes some actual changes that are taking place in communication processes, in services department held by research institutions, libraries and computer centers. Another recent article from Baptista, Costa, Kuramoto and Rodrigues was published in a special issue of Encontros Bibli, published by the Post-Graduate Programme in Information Science at the University of Santa Catarina and also dedicated to OA (http://www.encontros-bibli.ufsc.br/especial.html).
Courses to teach OA
In a very recent activity, OA is being taught in a special seminar (http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/acessoaberto/), as part of the Post-Graduate Programme in Information Science at the University of Brasilia. The seminar is part of the activities of the research group in electronic publications, named moitarah and lead by professor Sely Costa (http://moitarah.wordpress.com). The seminar includes collaboration of specialists like Stevan Harnad, Peter Suber, Leslie Chan and John Willinsky, who have provided suggestions on both the content of the seminar and readings for the students. Besides studying the topic, students are working on a book to be published. The specialists are also expected to contribute with a chapter to the book, and some of them should participate in the next event n OA, to be held at the University of Brasilia, in April 9-11, 2008. The OA Brazilian book will be launched during the event, and openly distributed on the Internet. News about April’s meeting will be available soon at moitarah blog and, later on its own web page.
Note: a number of the URL’s in this piece are from sites or blogs still under construction, and many in Portuguese.
A growing number of articles have been published on open access and the open archives initiatives in Brazilian scholarly journals. Early articles mostly describe open archives initiatives. A special issue of Ciência da Informação, published by IBICT in 2006 (http://www.ibict.br/cionline/viewissue.php?id=40#Acesso_Livre_à_Informação:_aspectos_socioculturais ), is entirely dedicated to the subject, with articles from Kuramoto, Southwick, Sinay; Michelson, and Rosales, Bauste, Guzmán and Bianco reporting ongoing projects in Latin America countries. A new ‘open philosophy’ and a new model for scholarly publishing was the subject of Costa. Mueller discusses the degree of acceptance related to the level of legitimacy in which open access publications are held. Finally, Schirmbacher, from the Humboldt University at Berlin, describes some actual changes that are taking place in communication processes, in services department held by research institutions, libraries and computer centers. Another recent article from Baptista, Costa, Kuramoto and Rodrigues was published in a special issue of Encontros Bibli, published by the Post-Graduate Programme in Information Science at the University of Santa Catarina and also dedicated to OA (http://www.encontros-bibli.ufsc.br/especial.html).
Courses to teach OA
In a very recent activity, OA is being taught in a special seminar (http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/acessoaberto/), as part of the Post-Graduate Programme in Information Science at the University of Brasilia. The seminar is part of the activities of the research group in electronic publications, named moitarah and lead by professor Sely Costa (http://moitarah.wordpress.com). The seminar includes collaboration of specialists like Stevan Harnad, Peter Suber, Leslie Chan and John Willinsky, who have provided suggestions on both the content of the seminar and readings for the students. Besides studying the topic, students are working on a book to be published. The specialists are also expected to contribute with a chapter to the book, and some of them should participate in the next event n OA, to be held at the University of Brasilia, in April 9-11, 2008. The OA Brazilian book will be launched during the event, and openly distributed on the Internet. News about April’s meeting will be available soon at moitarah blog and, later on its own web page.
Note: a number of the URL’s in this piece are from sites or blogs still under construction, and many in Portuguese.
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