Browsing by Subject "open access"

Now showing 1 - 17 of 17
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    Open Access
    A critical analysis of the participation of the University of Cape Town community in the advancement of open scholarship: towards a strategy for the promotion of open scholarship
    (2023) Nyahodza, Lena; Raju, Jaya
    Open scholarship (OS) plays a significant role in improving access to knowledge as it removes cost barriers and copyright restrictions related to published research. As part of the openness movement, OS, particularly open access (OA), emerged in scholarly communication to bring radical change in scientific publishing through making publicly funded research immediately available to the reader at no cost. The University of Cape Town (UCT) has embraced the openness philosophy through establishing OA and research data management policies and has declared in its mission statement the desire to share its resources, including research to support development on the African continent. The objective of this study was to critically analyse UCT community's participation in the advancement of open scholarship to develop a strategy for the promotion of OS. The study was informed by the transformative worldview and adopted two theories, critical theory and the capability approach (CA) framework. It used a convergent transformative mixed method approach and a case study design to explore the case of OS at UCT. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected using an online questionnaire completed by 207 academics and researchers; interviews with 10 representatives of faculty research committees, with volunteer researchers from faculties and with six key informants; focus group and individual discussions with 30 Masters students, PhD students and post-doctoral fellows; and, through content analysis of 17 documents. Quantitative data were analysed using both Excel and Strata while qualitative data were analysed using NVivo. The study found low uptake across the three open scholarship components (open research, open educational resources and open data) that were covered in this study. There was evidence that UCT academics and researchers view open scholarship as critical in supporting human development and social justice, and that they are motivated by social justice imperatives to engage in open scholarship practices. The study found that while there was the provision of OS infrastructure by UCT, funding for article processing charges (APCs) (albeit inadequate), established OA and open data policies, academic promotion at UCT, however, aligns research impact assessment with traditional bibliometrics indicators such as high impact factor of journals, which influence researchers to embrace a closed publishing culture. Lack of inclusion of open scholarship achievements in promotion criteria and inadequate APCs funding have been identified as major contributing factors in academics and researchers' low participation in OS as a social good. Critical theory was useful for engaging a scholarly communication study within a dominant capitalist society characterised by the commodification of knowledge; and this was evident in this study as the cost barrier has become a hinderance in publishing and in accessing knowledge as some of UCT's knowledge was found behind paywalls. A capability approach framework guided academics and researchers to identify strategies they have adopted to participate in OS and to identify elements they regarded as essential for the development of a strategy to support open scholarship including infrastructure, funding and organisational support. Based on academics and researchers' views of essential elements to support open scholarship and what worked for academics and researchers at UCT, this study proposed a strategy to support OS that could be used as a pilot by universities with similar experiences to those of UCT. The study recommends motivation of researchers to participate more in green OA through the incentivising of green OA practice for universities that have funding challenges to support gold OA. It also recommends prioritisation of accredited African-based diamond and gold OA access journals and collaboration to raise funds to support gold OA. The challenges experienced by UCT academics and researchers may be common among their peers in Africa and other global south regions, and hence the study recommends piloting, with adjustments as required, of the proposed strategy for purposes of advancing open scholarship. This could ground African researchers at the forefront of research production in Africa, as the continent is still grappling with inequalities of apartheid and colonialism and therefore require access to knowledge to support human development.
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    Centering social justice in scholarly commuication to advance research as a public good: diamond open access as an integral part of effective research system
    (2024) Tveit, Mari Sunli
    The presentation explores diamond open access through the lens of social justice and focuses on a publishing system that is free from both conscious and unconscious biases. The session positions diamond open access as an integral part of effective research system.
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    Open Access
    Confronting inequitable power dynamics of global knowledge production and exchange : feature-opinion
    (Water Research Commission, 2015) Czerniewicz, Laura
    The research environment in the global South faces many pressing challenges given resource inequality. Technical and financial issues aside, Laura Czerniewicz asserts it is the values and practices shaped by the Northern research agenda which contribute just as much to the imbalance. In order to confront these inequities, perceptions of “science” and research outputs must be broadened, and the open access movement needs to also broaden its focus from access to knowledge to full participation in knowledge creation and in scholarly communication.
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    Open Access
    From consensus to tranformations: contributions to an open responsible and inclusive scientific and academic assessment
    (2024) Naidorf, Judith
    This is a presentation on an open responsible and inclusive scientific and academic assessment.
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    Open Access
    How percived value of scholaly output drives researchers behaviour in publishing
    (2024) Moshabela, Mosa
    The session focused on the importance of what authors as producers of knowledge value in the research ecosystem. The session also deliberates on how ranking and promotion shape researchers' behaviour.
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    Open Access
    How the reform of research assessment supports diamond open access
    (2024) Pölönen, Janne
    This presentation explains the role of the Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR). It also points out disadvantages in research assessment related to diamond open access journals, and explains what difference COAR aspires to make.
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    Open Access
    Open Access Week 2014: Open access and copyright seminar
    (2014-10-30) Schonwetter, Tobias
    In this seminar during UCT Open Access Week 2014, Dr Tobias Schonwetter discusses Open Access publication from a legal standpoint, focusing on issues of copyright and intellectual property as they pertain to academics working in South Africa in general and UCT more specifically. Topics covered in this lecture include the history and definition of copyright; copyright law and case law in South Africa; fair dealing (fair use) and other forms of copyright exemption; and open licensing. This video resource is valuable for academics working within South Africa who wish to publish Open Access materials and create Open Educational Resources.
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    OpeningScholarship
    (2014-08-21) Gray, Eve; Hodgkinson-Williams, Cheryl; Willmers, Michelle
    Publication output from the 2007/2008 OpeningScholarship project which ran in the Centre for Educational Technology (CET) at the University of Cape Town. The main aim of this project was to explore the opportunities that information communication technologies and open dissemination models could offer for enhanced communication and more effective knowledge dissemination at UCT. These resources could be useful in strategic examination of how technology can be applied in higher education endeavour and case studies provide insight into particular UCT initiatives.
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    Open Access
    Optimising benefits from publicly funded research
    (2014) Open A.I.R. Network
    This Briefing Note highlights Open A.I.R. research findings on apparent disconnects between African national policymaking on intellectual property (IP) from publicly funded research and the actual current realities of university research. In both Ethiopia and South Africa, it was found that recent policymaking has focused on university patenting as a key incentive for improved research output. But such a focus has the potential to undermine public researchers' full participation in online international "open science" collaborations.
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    Open Access
    Predatory publishing from the Global South perspective
    (Radical Open Access Conference, 2018-06-29) Raju, Reggie; Nyahodza, Lena; Claassen, Jill
    The publication of research outputs, in the main, has a social justice aim that is enacted by the desire of researchers to share their research findings for the betterment of society. There is a strong belief in the necessity of a symbiotic relationship between reader and researcher. This relationship is supported by the view that access to published knowledge is essential for the production of new knowledge, and new research builds on previous knowledge, establishing its validity through collective scrutiny. Traditionally, research has been made public through journals, meeting proceedings, and books produced largely by commercial publishers, and access to this research has had to be bought.
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    Primary Ear and Hearing Care Training Manual for Health Workers
    (University of Cape Town, 2022-01) McGuire, Jessica; Doyle, Gregory; McNamee, Lakshini; Prinsloo, Lene; Peer, Shazia; McGuire, Jessica
    This resource is on a site that has been designed for medical students and primary healthcare providers to improve knowledge on ear and hearing health.
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    Open Access
    Publishing in the Open
    (30th Annual Conference of the Asian Association of Open Universities, 2017-07-05) Czerniewicz, Laura
    This presentation explores the need for, rationale behind and difficulties of publishing in Open Access journals and other open distributive platforms. It was presented at the 30th Annual Conference of the Asian Association of Open Universities
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    Research assessment within the Global Open Access Framework
    (2024) Cetto, Ana María
    This presentation presents issues related to deep asymmetries that persist because the contributions to science from the so-called South, mostly former colonies, are considered of low value and of little interest in the market. The products of our science [from the South] are largely ignored by practitioners abroad, and they are rarely used in applications of economic value in our own [global south] countries.
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    Towards equitable open access: Qatar's perspective
    (University of Cape Town, 2024) Aklhaja, Alwaleed
    This presentation deliberates on the objectives of the Qatar National Library's open access program.
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    Open Access
    The transition to open: a metrics analysis of discoverability and accessibility of LIS scholarship
    (2019) Raju, Jaya; Mfengu, Andiswa; Kahn, Michelle; Raju, Reggie
    Metrics analysis of journal content has become an important point for debate and discussion in research and in higher education. The South African Journal of Libraries and Information Science (SAJLIS), a premier journal in the library and information science (LIS) field in South Africa, in its 85-year history, has had multiple editors and many contributing authors and has published over 80 volumes and 160 issues on a diversity of topics reflective of LIS theory, policy and practice. However, how discoverable and accessible has the LIS scholarship carried by the Journal been to its intended readership? SAJLIS transitioned to open access in 2012 and this new format in scholarly communication impacted the Journal significantly. The purpose of this paper is to report on a multiple metrics analysis of discoverability and accessibility of LIS scholarship via SAJLIS from 2012 to 2017. The inquiry takes a quantitative approach within a post-positivist paradigm involving computer-generated numerical data as well as manual data mining for extraction of qualitative elements. In using such a multiple metrics analysis to ascertain the discoverability and accessibility of LIS scholarship via SAJLIS in the period 2012 to 2017, the study employs performance metrics theory to guide the analysis. We highlight performance strengths of SAJLIS in terms of discoverability and accessibility of the scholarship it conveys; identify possible growth areas for strategic planning for the next 5 years; and make recommendations for further study for a more complete picture of performance strengths and areas for improvement. Significance: The importance of discoverability and accessibility of scholarship carried by a scholarly journal is conveyed. The need to use multiple metrics for objective evaluation of the discoverability and accessibility of the scholarly content of a journal is emphasised. The impact of open access on the discoverability and accessibility of the content of a scholarly journal is assessed.
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    Open Access
    UCT Open Education Week 2015
    (2015-04-07) King, Thomas; Cox, Glenda; Makwande, Tinashe; Kawana, Monde
    On 13 March 2015 the Vice Chancellor's Open Educational Resources Adaptation project hosted an event which focused on the Open Educational activities underway at the University of Cape Town. Emeritus Professor Martin Hall provided the keynote address with '50 Shades of Openness', giving the audience some feedback on the history of the Open movement and sharing insights from his time as XXXX of Jisc, the British library consortium. He was followed by Mark Horner, talking about Open Textbooks in South African schools; Tobias Schonwetter, who provided a brief look at the legal frameworks behind open licensing; Sukaina Walhi, reporting on UCT's MOOCs project; Cheryl Hodgkinson-Williams, talkiing about the Research on Open Educational Resources for Development project; Jill Claassen, the manager of the OpenUCT repository; and Juan Klopper, sharing his experiences of providing Open Education.
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    Open Access
    Visibility of Scholarly Research and Changing ResearchCommunication Practices: A Case Study from Namibia
    (IGI Global, 2016-09-27) Kell, Catherine; Czerniewicz, Laura
    Scholars globally are increasingly required to account for the visibility and impact of their research, and visibility and impact are increasingly digitally-mediated through the platforms and practices associated with Web 2.0. Traditional prestige-based metrics of visibility (ISI/WoS Impact Factor) measure only scholar-to-scholar outputs like journals and books. In many African universities with nascent research cultures, legacies of colonialism and imperatives of national development, these measures present scholars with particular challenges. This paper reveals the pressures shaping African research communication practices and the visibility of research, using data from a case study at the University of Namibia.