Open access institutional repositories for scholarly communication: A developing country perspective

Scholarly communication is the creation, transformation, dissemination and preservation of knowledge related to teaching, research and scholarly endeavours. Nowadays, Open Access Repositories (OARs) and Open Access (OA) has become the emerging ways to share research output, academic result and disseminating information to the academic community for better usability and visibility.

The purpose of this present study is to discuss the role of OAIR (Open Access Institutional Repository) in scholarly communication and focused how does developing country like Bangladesh may be benefited through this system.

The major focus of the present study is to familiar with different initiatives of building OAIR and Open Access (OA) in Bangladesh. In pursuing the above objectives, the present research posed the following research questions (RQs) that will guide the study as well. How OAIR can be used as an effective tool for scholarly communication?

What is the present status of the OAIR and OA initiatives in Bangladesh and what are the prospects of OAIR in Bangladesh? An analysis of the appropriate literature was carried out, focusing on papers explicitly referring to changing roles of OAIR. The study performed online searches and substantial amount of literature has been reviewed. Literature collected through internet, personal visits, and secondary sources of information has been analyzed.

Findings reveal that OAIR is very important for the scholarly communication and Bangladesh is not far behind to get the fullest advantages of the OAIR. It is suggested some directions for building OAIR and OA initiatives in Bangladesh.

It is believed that faculty and research scholars will be able to publish their research output in the proposed IR to visible their scholarly research output globally. This study no doubt will foster more research on OAIR for the improvement of Open Access scenarios in Bangladesh.

URL : https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Anup_Das7/publication/249774716_Open_Access_and_Institutional_Repositories_-_A_Developing_Country_Perspective_A_case_study_of_India/links/00b7d52bbf9f967a64000000.pdf

OAI services in Academicians Looking Forward The…

OAI services in Academicians: Looking Forward :

“The main focus of this paper is to look the forward of Open Access Initiative (OAI) in academicians Were to be tried and perhaps implemented on a global academicians it must made known to the local audience first. This can only be achieved if the OAI services in academicians services such as ‘Information Society’. In the case of the OAI services in academicians used in the study; it has benefits directly or indirectly and eventually become more accepted.”

URL : http://eprints.rclis.org/handle/10760/16166

Has the Revolution in Scholarly Communication Lived Up…

Has the Revolution in Scholarly Communication Lived Up to Its Promise? :

“In the late 1990s the need for an overhaul in the approach to scholarly publishing was recognized. A drastic change would revise the economic model on which publishing was based, give authors rights to their own works in open access repositories and enable consumers across the world to access scholarly materials, building a flow of valuable information for the common good. The revolution has yet to materialize, though small but welcome achievements have been made. The open access business model has gained a foothold with the Public Library of Science (PLoS), and scientists receiving grants through the National Institutes of Health must submit manuscripts to the PubMed Central digital archive. Several universities mandate that faculty members deposit their scholarly articles in institutional repositories, and the Compact for Open Access Publishing Equity promotes open publishing by supporting authors. Librarians are both part of the problem and part of the solution. Instead of worrying about paying rising subscription fees, they could use their position to influence authors to take advantage of open access channels despite publish-or-perish pressures. Recent legislative and presidential initiatives, geared to disseminating publicly funded research, may be effective in moving open access closer to transforming the traditional system of scholarly communication.”

URL : http://www.asis.org/Bulletin/Jun-11/JunJul11_Hahn_Burright_Nickisch.html

Heading for the open road costs and benefits…

Heading for the open road: costs and benefits of transitions in scholarly communications :

“This new report investigates the drivers, costs and benefits of potential ways to increase access to scholarly journals. It identifies five different routes for achieving that end over the next five years, and compares and evaluates the benefits as well as the costs and risks for the UK.

The report suggests that policymakers who are seeking to promote increases in access should encourage the use of existing subject and institutional repositories, but avoid pushing for reductions in embargo periods, which might put at risk the sustainability of the underlying scholarly publishing system. They should also promote and facilitate a transition to open access publishing (Gold open access) while seeking to ensure that the average level of charges for publication does not exceed c.£2000; that the rate in the UK of open access publication is broadly in step with the rate in the rest of the world; and that total payments to journal publishers from UK universities and their funders do not rise as a consequence.

At a time of financial stringency for universities, research funders and publishers, it is important that all the stakeholders in the scholarly communications system work together to find the most cost-effective ways of fulfilling their joint goal of increasing access to the outputs of research. This report provides the first detailed and authoritative analysis of how this might be achieved over the next five years. We hope that it will stimulate new dialogue and new approaches to policy and practice across all stakeholders.”

URL : http://www.rin.ac.uk/our-work/communicating-and-disseminating-research/heading-open-road-costs-and-benefits-transitions-s

The costs and potential benefits of alternative scholarly…

The costs and potential benefits of alternative scholarly publishing models :

Introduction. This paper reports on a study undertaken for the UK Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), which explored the economic implications of alternative scholarly publishing models. Rather than simply summarising the study’s findings, this paper focuses on the approach and presents a step-by-step account of the research process, highlighting the combination of process mapping, activity costing and macro modelling.

Method. The analysis relies primarily on existing sources, collating activity cost information from the wide-ranging literature on scholarly communication. Where necessary, these sources were supplemented by targeted informal consultation with experts.

Analysis. We examine the costs and potential benefits of the major alternative models for scholarly publishing, including subscription publishing, open access publishing and self-archiving. Adopting a formal approach to modelling the scholarly communication process and identifying activity costs, this paper presents activity and system-wide costs for each of the alternative publishing models. It then explores the potential impacts of enhanced access on returns to R&D.

Results. We find that different scholarly publishing models could make a material difference to the costs faced by various parties and to the returns on investment in R&D that might be realised.

Conclusion. It seems likely that more open access could have substantial benefits in the longer term. While the benefits may be lower during a transitional period they would be likely to be positive for both open access publishing and self-archiving alternatives.”

URL : http://informationr.net/ir/16-1/paper469.html

Survey of University of Toronto Faculty Awareness Attitudes…

Survey of University of Toronto Faculty Awareness, Attitudes, and Practices Regarding Scholarly Communication: A Preliminary Report :

“This report presents the results from a 2010 online survey of the University of Toronto faculty on their awareness, attitudes and practices regarding scholarly communication. The objectives were to collect evidence regarding the current practices of faculty with regard to scholarly communication – primarily scholarly publishing and dissemination; to obtain evidence of their awareness and attitudes toward the changes in practices and forms that are occurring in publishing and dissemination with the turn to the digital, and to stimulate conversation on these topics among faculty within departments, faculties and academic units across the university, as well as with other members of the scholarly communication ecosystem. The survey has five sections that ask about i) current practices ii) scholarly publishing, including copyright and peer review iii) newer practices relating to open access, subject or institutional repositories, policies and mandates iv) costs associated with scholarly communication and iv) local services. Detailed findings, including faculty comments, and a summary of findings organized around a number of broad themes that emerged out of the detailed findings are included. The summary includes comparisons with the results from a 2006 survey of faculty at the University of California.

URL : https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/handle/1807/26446

It’s not filter failure it’s a discovery deficit…

It’s not filter failure, it’s a discovery deficit :

“The web has changed our information-seeking behaviour radically, yet scholarly communication remains firmly embedded in the traditions of the print world. Here, I argue that the dropping costs of publication and distribution mean that effort and resource expended on preventing publication is wasted and that developing the tools and culture for post-publication annotation, curation and ranking is more productive. Rather than see this as information overload, or in Clay Shirky’s words, a ‘filter failure’, I propose that it is more useful to see the problem as a ‘discovery deficit’. This flood of content, instead of being a problem, is an opportunity to build technical and cultural frameworks that will enable us to extract more value from the outputs of research by exploiting the efficiencies that web-based systems can provide.”

URL : http://uksg.metapress.com/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,7,25;journal,1,71;linkingpublicationresults,1:107730,1