Capacity building activities on Open Access: the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa Perspective

1. UNECA
Capacity building activities on Open Access:
the United Nations Economic Commission for
Africa Perspective
Ms. Irene Onyancha
Chief, Library and Information Management Services
ICT, Science and Technology Division (ISTD)
United Nations Economic Commission for Africa

2. ECA
Outline
Context – ECA’s vision and programmes
Focus on ICT, Science and Technology Division (ISTD)
Open Access activities at ECA
Open Access Publishing – ECA Institutional Repository
• IR project
• Lessons Learnt
Development of E-learning & Open Educational Resources
Open Access to GeoData & information
Facilitating Open Access & ICT development to member
states
Access Scientific and Socio-economic Information in Africa
(ASKIA) programme
Lessons Learnt

3. ECA
ECA’s mandate & vision
The Economic Commission of Africa:
established 1958
one of the UN Secretariat's five regional commissions
5 Sub-Regional Offices (SROs)
to promote economic and social development, foster intra-regional
integration, and promote international cooperation for Africa's
development

4. ECA
ECA’s Work Programme
•Regional Integration, Trade and Infrastructure
•Meeting the MDGs
Focus on: •Promote good governance & popular participation
•ICTs, Science and Technology for Development
•Statistics and Statistical Development
Responsible for:
• United Nations programme on “harnessing
information for development”;
ICT, S&T • Is an integrated information service:
• to promote accessibility and availability of quality
Division information on African development
• To assist member states build national
capacities in the use of ICTs for accelerated
and sustainable development

5. ECA
ICT, Science & Technology Division (ISTD)..
Work programme in 4 strategic areas of intervention:
Promoting ICTs for development and implementing the African
Information Society Initiative (AISI);
Promoting Science and Technology for development;
Strengthening Geographic Information for sustainable development
Knowledge, Library and Information Management services
ISTD provides these services at 2 levels:
to the Commission
to member states
Open Access activities are integrated across the ITSD work programme

6. ECA
Publishing at ECA:
ECA’s knowledge is presented in:
Flagship publications
Conference proceedings, Resolutions & Speeches
Technical publications, policy briefs, mission reports,
annual reports working papers
other grey literature
all which outline important research or decisions that have been
made on the economic and social developmental aspects in Africa

7. ECA
The status of ECA Publications 2 years Ago
Staff computers
Divisional Collections
Library basement
Electronic copies
ECA Web sites
Library shelves
Catalogued collection
ECA publications

8. ECA
Open Access Publishing at ECA:
The ECA Institutional Repository
ECA IR
Established in 2009:
..is an electronic publishing means of
collecting, managing and preserving the
institutional memory of ECA. It also offe
timely dissemination of this wealth of
knowledge outlining important socio- eco
research and decisions in africa…..
-Green Road to Open Access -

9. ECA
Open Access Publishing at ECA: IR
The green road to OA is to publish in conventional (non-OA) journals
and to make the articles OA (free for the user online) by self-archiving
them in the author's institutional repository.
Defining the project
Implementing the IR project
Populating the IR
Accessing Items in the IR
Lessons Learnt

10. ECA
Open Access Publishing at ECA: IR
Defining the Institutional Repository Project
Build on project 2007
Project documents: Concept note, proposal and Business Plan
Funding
Preliminary activities
Setting up a project team
Contracting a Service Provider for the IR platform development
Purchase of
• equipment servers, computers & scanners
• storage and archival materials

11. ECA
Open Access Publishing at ECA: IR
Project activities & work flow
Cataloging, indexing & reviewing, scanning
ECA publications collection development
• Printed publication
• Digital collection
• Institutional policies promoting OA at ECA
Online platform development
• Software selection & development of systems requirement
• Customization
– Controlled Vocabularies (UNBIS thesaurus & SC, Geo terms, authors,
serials)
– AGRIS AP metadata (submission & export)
• New modules (MQM, CUA and Document Streaming)

12. ECA
Open Access Publishing at ECA: IR
Importing MARC21 metadata from the ILS
A crosswalk between MARC21 and AGRIS AP (Qualified DC)
Development import tool
Communities and Collections development
12 communities and 21 collection based on the ECA’s work programme
1 community and 5 collections for ECA sub-regional offices
Uploading digital files
All digital files saved with the accession number of the metadata records
17,000 metadata records & 10,000 files uploaded

13. ECA
Open Access Publishing at ECA: IR
Available at
http://repository.uneca.org

14. ECA
Open Access Publishing at ECA: IR

15. ECA
Accessing content in the ECA IR

16. ECA
Open Access Publishing at ECA: IR
Searching
Simple Search
Advanced search using the AGRIS AP fields
Subject search
Browsing
Dspace features (title, date & Communities and collections)
Subject keyword browse (UNBIS thesaurus)
Thematic collections of ECA conferences & Flagship publications
Harvesting
OAI-PMH (simple DC)
Expose metadata using AGRIS AP for specialized harvesters

17. ECA
Open Access Publishing at ECA: IR impact
IR access Top 10 countries
statistics/month

18. ECA
Other Open Access activities
Open Educations Resources & E-learning
Open Access to Geo-information

19. ECA
Open Access Education Resources (OER) & E-learning
Academy of ICT Essentials for Government Leaders in Africa
8 Modules on ICT4D topics including; ICT policies, e-government,
network security, ICT trends:
 The Linkage between ICT Applications and Development
 ICT for Development Policy, Process and Governance
 e-Government Applications
 Network and Information Security and Privacy etc.
3 new modules are planned as follows:
 ICTs and Regional Integration (Module 9),
 ICT for Disaster Risk Reduction (Module 10)
 Climate Change and ICTs (Module 11)

20. ECA
Open Access Resources: OER & E-learning
can e-learning initiative (http://www.uneca.org/elearna

21. ECA
Open Access to GeoData
Online Metadata Clearinghouse Registry Services
ECA offers “country spaces” for hosting of metadata clearinghouse
nodes at http://geoinfo.uneca.org:8080/geonetwork
Development of interoperability standards for datasets
through regional and international consultations
to promote open geodata architecture for mutual and remote access to
geodata and geo services. http://www.uneca.org/istd/default.htm
Development of data sharing policies
Policy & guidelines development during the biennium 2012-2013 period
Setting up policies at Regional (ARSDI) and National (NSDI) levels

22. ECA
Support to member states
Dual role as regional arm of the UN & part of the
regional institutional landscape
Provides a vantage position to harness resources and make unique
contribution to assist member States' efforts to address their
development challenges

23. ECA
Modalities and services to support member states include:
Policy analysis and advocacy
formulation of national ICT policies, commonly known as NICIs
• Over 43 countries had adopted their NICIs by end of 2010,
• On going implementation of sectoral strategies in key priority sectors
such as e-government, education, health
facilitate implementation of the WSIS Geneva declaration on Open
Access
Enhancing Partnerships
based on comparative advantage and pooling of resources
Examples
• Govt of Finland: Technology in Government in Africa Awards
• Carnegie Foundation & IFLA for ICADLA conference in 2009

24. ECA
Technical Assistance through:
on-demand regional advisory services
training workshops and seminars
fellowship and internship programmes
Communication and Knowledge sharing
CoP platforms: Teamworks knowledge sharing platform in
partnership with UNDP
E-learning platforms: http://www.uneca.org/elearnafrica
Sharing Best Practices
Statutory meetings
Committee on Development Information Science and Technology-CODIST
• Brings together experts, policy makers, researchers from members
states
• KLIS reinstated as a Committee of CODIST in CODIST-II meeting
• Pre-event Open Access workshop pre-event on

25. ECA
ASKIA Programme
Promoting Access to knowledge in
Africa
Access to Scientific/Socio-economic Knowledge in Africa
(ASKIA) Initiative:
defines a framework for bringing together a variety of scientific and socio-
economic and associated information to the African scientific community;
Identifies 5 strategic areas of intervention working in synergy for a common
goal
Initial project cost of $370k. Some activities are on going and seeking
further funding

26. ECA
Strategic intervention 1
• a one stop shop to all knowledge
types from/on Africa
ASKIA Online portal • contextualized access to information
services
• Biblios, maps, news, stat. data etc.
Using a Web Content Management System (Web 2). Platform will host
ASKIA Federated Search Engine, (CoPs) for Library and information
Managers across the continent; E-Forums; RSS feeds for news and events
on science and socio-economic development issues from the continent;
Directories of African scientists and researchers etc.; Databases on Open
source tools and Information Management standards and; the ASKIA blog
to promote exchange of best practices etc.

27. ECA
Strategic intervention 2
• facilitate the collation of different
knowledge types on/from Africa
ASKIA Federated
Search • enable discovery, access to free and
subscribed to information resources
• through a single search
Different competing online sources Bioline, BMC,DOAJ, PMC, AJOL, Scirus,
Research4Life, Google etc.
The federates search engine is a one stop window facilitating
searching across different knowledge bases, including Open Access
and commercial databases & journals source for scientific and socio-
economic content
Facilitates discovery, collation and contextual rendering of content
including bibliographies, geo-data, news, blogs, statistical data

28. ECA
Ex. Federated Search Engine

29. ECA
Ex. Contextual rendering of results

30. ECA
Strategic intervention 3
• access to thousands of maps at the
ECA Library and nationals libraries
Repository on African
maps & geodata • Input to google maps
formerly the Map Reference Section of the Cartography and
Remote Sensing Unit at ECA
comprising of topographical maps, soil survey maps, geologic
bedrock an invaluable historical record
Developed through member states contributions and purchased
materials.

31. ECA
Strategic intervention 4
• Values added services e.g.
 theses and dissertations
Knowledge hub &
 Country profiles: news, maps, biblos etc.
information services
• New emerging technologies on information
delivery
Wider dissemination of ECA knowledge
Mirrors of the ECA IR at the ECA Sub Regional Offices
Mirrors of the ECA IR at the United Nations Depository Libraries across
Africa
Use of new emerging technologies to deliver services:
e.g Social media and mobile technology proliferation in Africa
Better connectivity with the Fibre cable around Africa completed

32. ECA
Strategic intervention 5
• Partnerships with Development
partners for funding
Strengthening member • Training in IM standards and tools
states capacities to
• fellowships and internships
document local knowledge
• digitization equipments
Use different business models for capacity building activities
Hosting services e.g. the Open Access Package by Biomed Central covers
issues such as:
• Relatively high cost of infrastructure development to set up repositories
• Lack of required skills and technical know-how to set-up and maintain the
IR
• immediate availability and visibility of IR
Other models of technical assistance
• Tranining workshops
• Project funding
• Purchase of digitization equipments

33. ECA
Service A Service B Service C
Service D
Country Specific Media stories on
University Theses Maps, Media, Documents African development Digital Maps
of Africa
ASKIA Online Platform Community Corner
•Members information
ASKIA •E-forums
Tools & standards
Federated •Blog- Best practices
Search •RSS feeds
E-Learning
Data Harvester
E-Registries
CoPs
Scientific DATAD/
E- Maps &
WWW Databases E-Journals Library Research ASKIA
Directories Geo Data
OPACs 4Life
Information Resources on the Internet
ASKIA: http://www.uneca.org/askia University University
A B

34. ECA
Lessons Learnt
Need to share best practices on IR development between
member states libraries;
Need to bring coherence in various Open Access activities
across the continent;
Development partners need to assess comparative advantage
and pool resources to support OA activities;
Poor access to ECA knowledge by member states due to
connectivity problems – replication of IR at SROs & UN
Depository Libraries;
Need to incorporate sustainability strategies in project
planning and implementation;
Good project planning is critical in the implementation of OA
activities in the African Libraries given the limited funds

35. ECA
THANK YOU!!!