TWAS & OWSDW Thesis Repository February 9, 2011
Posted by Linda in : Open Access Scholarly Publishing, Uncategorized , add a comment
The Scholarly Publishing Unit of the Academy of Science in South Africa (ASSAf), has created an open accessible Institutional Repository(IR) for theses resulting from TWAS, the Academy of Sciences of the Developing World and OWSDW (Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World), particularly for those by African students or carried out in African institutions.
TWAS is an autonomous international organization, based in Trieste, Italy, that promotes scientific excellence for sustainable development in the South.
The repository was developed by using the DSpace software. Currently 22 theses have been loaded onto the repository covering the Heath, Medical, Natural and Agricultural Sciences, and more to be added on a monthly basis. Theses accessible on the database were produced from countries like Nigeria, Sudan, Brazil and South Africa.
The purpose of the IR is to:
a) showcase the TWAS funded research as a collection
b) make them easily accessible for the TWAS community
c) serve as a record what has been funded over the years by TWAS
d) ensure open accessibility of research to all users
To visit and search this site : http://twas.assaf.org.za:8080/jspui/
To learn more about TWAS: http://www.twas.org
Open Access Week: 18 – 24 October 2010 October 19, 2010
Posted by Andrea in : Open Access Scholarly Publishing , add a comment
The week of 18-24 October is global Open Access Week.
- What Open Access is: The Open Access research literature is composed of free, online copies of peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles and conference papers as well as technical reports, theses and working papers. In most cases there are no licensing restrictions on their use by readers. They can therefore be used freely for research, teaching and other purposes.
- What Open Access is not: It is not self-publishing, nor a way to bypass peer-review and publication, nor a kind of second-class, cut-price publishing route. It is simply a means to make research results freely available online to the whole research community.
- How is Open Access provided? A researcher can place a copy of each article in an Open Access archive or repository (known as the green route), or can publish articles in Open Access journals (known as the gold route). In addition, a researcher may place a copy of each article on a personal or departmental website. Whilst all three routes to Open Access ensure that far more users can access such articles than if they were hidden away in subscription-based journals, the first two constitute much more systematic and organised approaches than the third and maximise the chance of other researchers locating and reading articles.
2010 is the 4th time Open Access Week is being celebrated.
SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) invited Prof Robin Crewe, the President of the Academy of Science of South Africa, to create a video clip for their Open Access Week initiative.
Click here to open the Word transcript
The Academy of Science of South Africa, through its Scholarly Publishing Programme, has created the SciELO South Africa platform to promote open-access publishing of the best South African journals. This online platform is free-to-publish and free-to-access and will benefit both authors and readers by increasing the visibility and accessibility of research outcomes.
SciELO SA is growing! June 10, 2010
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The Scholarly Publishing Unit of the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) is happy to report that four more journal titles are in the process of being added to the SciELO SA Open Access platform! They are:
- Psychology in Society (PINS)
- South African Journal of Industrial Psychology (SAJIP)
- South African Journal of Animal Science (SAJAS)
- South African Journal of Agricultural Extension (SAJAE).
This will bring the total number of journals on the SciELO SA platform to eleven titles. ASSAf is continually negotiating with the editors of prestigious South African journals regarding placing their titles on this platform.
To date, 1064 articles have been added to the SciELO SA collection. According to Google Analytics, the SciELO SA site has been visited 14, 830 times by 163 countries and 2 112 cities between 10 May 2010 and 9 June 2010. At present, the countries accessing SciELO SA the most are South Africa, the United States, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Australia, India, Germany, Canada and China.
SciELO SA goes live! August 13, 2009
Posted by Susan in : Open Access Scholarly Publishing , add a commentASSAf’s Open Scholarly Publishing team has been involved in the launch of a pilot site for SciELO SA, initially on the ScieELO Brazil site, has been established using their existing hardware, software, and mark-up processes. (more…)
South African Journal of Science first on SA Open Access platform August 13, 2009
Posted by Andrea in : SAJS , add a commentThe 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. (more…)
