Research Articles (Library and Information Service)

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Browsing Research Articles (Library and Information Service) by Author "Smith, Ina"

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    A day in the life of an open scholarship manager : Ina Smith
    (UKSG - United Kingdom Serials Group, 2014-03) Smith, Ina
    Making research openly accessible and marketing research are Ina’s passions. Since being trained as a secondary school teacher and librarian, she has come a long way and her career has steered her in a direction she never would have expected!
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    Open access : are we there yet? - the case of Stellenbosch University, South Africa
    (LIASA, 2012-09) Raju, Reggie; Smith, Ina; Talliard, Paulette; Gibson, Hilton
    It is often acknowledged that African and other developing countries have a desperate need for quality scholarly information to advance their research output and to make a contribution to the world of scholarly communication. In terms of Africa, South Africa is the most significant producer of research output in sub-Saharan Africa and has, therefore by default, become a beacon of hope for Africa in the area of research production. This case study focuses on the contribution of Stellenbosch University (SU) to the African research agenda through making its research output available via two different publishing models. The first model is the hosting and preservation of its research output via an institutional repository (the green route to open access). The second model is hosting and publishing open access journals, following one of two ‘streams’ in the gold route. In this paper, the authors contextualize open access. The two publishing models in support of the Strategic Plan for the Environment of the Vice Rector (Research) are discussed as it applies to SU. The Library’s adoption of the role of ‘publisher’ is also examined. In the case of SU, Open Journal Systems (OJS) is the software of choice for hosting open access online journals. The paper provides background on OJS, and also discusses the significance of OJS publishing for the University and its researchers. It concludes with the view that despite the perceived success of the Library and Information Service in making available research output in open access format, there are still many challenges that need to be overcome, and that this process is a continuous one and should remain so in order to continuously take advantage of opportunities offered by evolving technology.
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    Opening access to African scholarly content : Stellenbosch University’s AOARI platforms
    (UKSG, 2013-03) Raju, Reggie; Smith, Ina; Gibson, Hilton
    Africa is viewed as a consumer of the world’s knowledge production. A significant factor influencing this status is the low research output, with the main contributor to this status being minimum access to scholarly content to support research. Stellenbosch University, a leading research institution on the African continent, is committed to contributing to changing this status quo through the distribution of its own research output utilizing open sources. Given the challenges that have plagued Africa in developing processes for the distribution of their research, Stellenbosch University has developed the African Open Access Repository Initiative (AOARI) which uses open source software for two platforms that support the ‘green’ and ‘gold’ route to sharing scholarly literature: Ubuntu is used as the operating system, DSpace is used for its repository and Open Journal Systems for its publication platform. It is anticipated that AOARI will be the bridge that facilitates the sharing of research output and nurtures a culture of research production in Africa.
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    Stellenbosch University’s AOARI platforms : opening access to African scholarly content
    (African Academy of Sciences, 2013-06) Raju, R.; Smith, Ina
    In the current knowledge economy, Africa is relegated to the periphery of knowledge production as it is considered to be more of a ‘consumer’ of the world’s knowledge as opposed to a ‘producer’. There is sufficient evidence to show that a significant factor contributing to this low research output is limited access to scholarly content to support research. An influential element to this limited access is the exorbitant cost of information. Exacerbating this status is that research conducted by Africans is not easily accessible to the international audience, as the dissemination of African research content is severely prejudiced by the propensity of international publishers to focus on output from the north which generates larger profit margins. This prejudice relegates Africa further into the status of being a silent and invisible contributor to research production.