What is Open Science and what role does it play in Development?
CPD 7 GROUP 7
1. CPD7 GROUP7 2016:
OPEN SCIENCE:
THE ROLE OF ACADEMIC LIBRARIES IN
PROPAGTING OPEN SCIENCE.
1.MBABAALI, MARX . 2.SHEZI, SIMON. 3.TIAMIYU, GANIYATU.
4.OCHIENG, LUCY
6/17/2016
Open Science (Open Access) is an unprecedented public good and to
accelerate research, enrich education, share the learning of the rich with
the poor and the poor with the rich, make literature as useful as it can be,
and lay the foundation for uniting humanity in a common intellectual
conversation and quest for knowledge-Open science is the way to go!
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1.0.INTRODUCTION:
Academic libraries have undergone considerable change in the past decade.With
increasing use of technology to create, organize, store and disseminate information,the
computer has become an important tool for accessing information. Libraries not only
have to provide the technology necessary for patrons to use their OPACs,but also must
supply a means for access to scholarly digital resources and a growing number of
electronic databases (MacWhinnie, 2003).
There is increasing demand for access to information available in multiple formats and
the tools that can be used to incorporate information into work product.
MacWhinnie(2003) added that reliance on technology as a means to information expands
students’ needs for assistance in using technology. Moreover, understanding how
information is organized and finding resources has changed academic libraries, both as
information resources and physical places.
Open Science as a concept has been regarded and defined variously by individuals,
institutions and governing entities. According to Organisation for Economic Co-
Operation and Development (OECD) (2015), the term ―open science‖ was coined by
economist Paul David (2003) in an attempt to describe the properties of scientific goods
generated by the public sector and in opposition to the perceived extension of intellectual
property rights into the area of information goods. Economists consider scientific
knowledge generated by public research as a public good, which means that everyone can
make use of that knowledge at no additional cost once it is made public, generating
higher social returns.
The European Commission report of 2012 referred to open science as the result of rapid
changing in the way research is performed, the way researchers collaborate, the way
knowledge is shared and the way science is organized. The report further stated that open
science is enabled by the availability of digital technologies and driven by the
exponential growth of data and the enlargement of the global scientific population. It
affects the whole science and innovation system. An important aspect of open science is a
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move towards open access to publicly funded research results, including scientific
publications as well as research data. Affordable and easy access to the results of publicly
funded research is important for the scientific community, for innovative businesses and
for society (European Commission, 2012)
1.2 Background to the Study:
Information has been variously defined, Primarily defined as processed data capable of
being communicated. Information is integral to encompassed development. For any
society and or nation to develop, it needs to have and provide relevant and adequate
information. Libraries play a great role in national development through the support they
offer to the education sector by supplying relevant information in multiple formats.The
public library is a key source of information to citizens. All professionals’ skills are
products of information dissemination progress through different libraries. Forsyth (2005)
insists that libraries are integral to community development as they provide access to
information and works of imagination in a variety of formats. Libraries go beyond formal
education; they encourage and sustain literacy, and support development. The
cooperation and assistance of librarians is a basis for any nation to gain development
through information provision. By this cooperation and the provision of useful
information in economic, cultural, social and political contexts, development becomes
possible and Plausible. Krolak (2005) highlights the dynamism of the role of librarianship
when he states that libraries and librarians have evolved to become facilitators and
collaborators of information and lifelong learning opportunities with an emphasis on
service, identifying user needs and communicating solutions. The role of the libraries in
the provision of information for academic, social,economic and scientific development is
trite. No nation can be developed without relevant information to drive its developmental
sustainability. The business of libraries is the acquisition, organization, dissemination
and preservation and conservation of information and resources for access, retrieval,
storage and dissemination for development. It Is against such a back ground that the
study will be conducted to correlate between the academic Library and unlimited access
to Information as a tool for academic, social, economic and political success.
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1.3.RESEARCH PROBLEM
In order to do highest quality and recognized research, one has to have access to prior
published work and research from all the recognizable platforms of scholarships like
journals, magazines, newsletters, bulletins, social media platforms among others. The
most important thing for any given researcher or scholar is to be able to have un limited
access to relevant information without any condition, impediment or restrictions.
Open Access has become increasingly important and indispensable, irreplaceable and
significant for any flourishing and effective research and academic environment. The
concept of open Science (Free to end user) therefore the only substrate for Digital aspects
but an essential one. In order to have and amplify the value of research, funding agencies
and institutions, create new formats of Impact, maximize data sharing, support new
scholarly practices and student training, ensure maximum public outreach and
engagement, Increase citations, visibility discoverability and accessibility, Open science
is the only way to go and its worldwide adoption is inevitable.
Open Science (Open Access) is an unprecedented public good and to accelerate research,
enrich education, share the learning of the rich with the poor and the poor with the rich,
make literature as useful as it can be, and lay the foundation for uniting humanity in a
common intellectual conversation and quest for knowledge. One question is at play; To
what extent and how is total Open science a basic necessity achievable together with the
Academic Library?
1.4.OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY:
1.4.1 GENERAL OBJECTIVE;
The general objective of this study was to establish the role of academic libraries in
propagating the open science concept.
1.4.2. SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES:
The specific objectives were to:
1. Identify the current open science activities in selected countries.
2. Assess the level of involvement of academic libraries in open science
practices.
3. Examine the methods used in promoting open science platforms.
4. Determine the challenges that affect the success of open science in the
selected countries.
5. Make appropriate recommendations based on findings of the study.
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1.5.RESEARCH QUESTIONS.
1. What are the current open science activities in selected countries of study?
2. What is the level of involvement of academic libraries in open science
practices?
3. What are the methods used in promoting open science platforms?
4. What challenges affect the success of open science in the selected
countries?
1.6.SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY:
Open science as a concept together with the six elements of open science vastly
facilitate the improved and increased creation, storage,organization and dissemination
of Information and research, the study there fore will explore the relevance of open
science, its applicability in scholarship through academic libraries and open society,
different ways and avenues through which information can be accessed, retrieved,
used and re- used and further disseminated. Scholars, Institutions, Funding Agencies,
society and Governments will realize the relevance of Open science, several ways and
logistics and infrastructure necessary for successful propagation of open science and
not limited to public and social indirect benefits to society. Basically the study wil be
appoint of knowledge and reference to scholars, researchers,Institutions,Agencies and
society in regards to Open Science.
1.7.DEFINITION OF KEY TERMS:
1. Open Science: Is the practice of science in such a way that others can collaborate
and contribute, where research data, and other research processes are freely
available, under terms that eneble reuse, distribution and reproduction of the
research and its underlying data and methods.
2. Open Access: refers to online research outputs tat are free of all restrictions on
access and free of many restrictions on use.
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3. Academic Library: refers to a library that is attached to a higher education
institution which serves institutional purposes of supporting the school’s curriculum
and support the research of the university faculty and students.
4. Propagation; refers to the reproduction or spreading of something.It is when an
idea or a trend spreads to a new area.
5. Promotion refers to the publicizing of a product, organization or venture so as to
increase sales or public awareness.
6.Advocacy refers to the act of pleading for, supporting or recommending for
something.
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2.0.LITERATURE REVIEW;
2.1. Introduction
The process of literature analysis helps in the evaluation of related works in order to
better understand and appreciate the theme of the study.Thus, literature related to the
study of open science is reviewed under the following sub-headings.
2.2.Advantages of Open science
Advantages of Open science
Open science and research leads to surprising discoveries and creative insights. Open
science creates tremendous opportunities, and its benefits extend to all branches of
society. For researchers and research groups, openness conserves resources, improves the
quality of research, and potentially offers increased credits and opportunities for
cooperation.
According to Open access.nl, (2015) the greatest benefit of open access is that it enables
the results of scholarly research to be disseminated more rapidly and widely:
More people can read the results of scholarly research, including those who would
otherwise not be able to access that information because they cannot afford the
subscription to an expensive journal, for example.
New ideas can be disseminated more rapidly and widely, which in turn triggers
new research studies; it serves as an impetus for knowledge.
Businesses also have broad access to the most recent scientific ideas, which they
can then build on. Open access contributes to the knowledge economy and
provides an economic boost.
Since open access also implies wider reuse, recent knowledge can be put to
immediate use in teaching.
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Disadvantages
It is reported that Researchers experience a number of disadvantages, most of which
relate to the transition to the open access publication model. It is only in the longer term
that the extra effort required brings concrete benefits to researchers themselves. This
affects the priority they attach to switching to this new publication model (open access.nl,
2015).
The disadvantages they experience:
In science and medicine especially, researchers are rated by their ability to publish in
journals with a high impact factor. However, it takes some time before new journals, both
traditional and open access, can acquire an impact factor. Only then are they of interest to
researchers.
The number of high-quality, fully open access journals varies enormously across the
different disciplines. Some disciplines have very few or not enough.
Publishing in open access journals sometimes involves additional administration, whereas
delivering articles to traditional journals can usually be done easily online.
In this transition period most research institutes have not yet made provisions for the
payment of Author Processing Charges (APCs). This therefore entails additional, often
substantial, costs for researchers.Supplying publication data and the full text of
publications to repositories means extra work for researchers.
It is often not clear whether the texts of publications in repositories can in fact be
published in open access. There are sometimes copyright barriers. Researchers may
wonder whether the additional effort will produce the desired result(open access.nl,
2015).
2.4.The open science concept
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There is growing evidence that open science has an impact on the research enterprise,
business and innovation, and society more generally. Recent analysis reveals that
enhanced public access to scientific publications and research data increases the visibility
of, and spillovers arising from science and research (Wikipedia, 2016).
The six principles of open science
Open science is the movement to make scientific research, data and dissemination
accessible to all levels of an inquiring society, amateur or professional. It encompasses
practices such as publishing open research, campaigning for open access, encouraging
scientists to practice open science, and generally making it easier to publish and
communicate scientific knowledge. The European-funded project Facilitate Open Science
Training for European Research (FOSTER) has developed an open science taxonomy as
an attempt to map the open science field as shown the diagram below (Wikipedia, 2016).
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Wikipedia
website, 2016
Open Science Taxonomy
According to the FOSTER taxonomy Open science can often include aspects of Open
access, Open data and the open source movement whereby modern science requires
software in order to process data and information. Open research computation also
addresses the problem of reproducibility of scientific results.
Open science began in the 17th century with the advent of the academic journal, when the
societal demand for access to scientific knowledge reached a point where it became
necessary for groups of scientists to share resources with each other, so that they could
collectively do their work. In modern times there is debate about the extent to which
scientific information should be shared. The conflict is between the desires of scientists to
have access to shared resources versus the desire of individual entities to profit when
other entities partake of their resources (Wikipedia, 2016).
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OECD indicated that there is no formal definition of open science. However, her report
entitled ―Making open science a reality” described the term as efforts by researchers,
governments, research funding agencies or the scientific community itself to make the
primary outputs of publicly funded research results – publications and the research data –
publicly accessible in digital format with no or minimal restriction as a means for
accelerating research. These efforts are in the interest of enhancing transparency and
collaboration, and fostering innovation. The report focuses on three main aspects of open
science: open access, open research data, and open collaboration enabled through ICTs.
Other aspects of open science mentioned are post-publication peer review, open research
notebooks, open access to research materials, open source software, citizen science, and
research crowd funding are also part of the architecture of an ―open science system‖
(OECD, 2015).
Additionally, OECD affirmed that open science commonly refers to efforts to make the
output of publicly funded research more widely accessible in digital format to the
scientific community, the business sector, or society more generally. Open science is the
encounter between the age-old tradition of openness in science and the tools of
information and communications technologies (ICTs) that have reshaped the scientific
enterprise and require a critical look from policy makers seeking to promote long-term
research as well as innovation.
Many international organisations are campaigning for open science. OECD reports and
reviews focus on harnessing open science in industry and innovation. UNESCO’s
focalpoint is, in addition to the civil rights of open science, its use in education. In the
EU, openscience has also been recognised as a key for change. In addition to the EU’s
four freedoms- free movement of people, goods, services and capital – a fifth has arisen:
free movement of information.
Open science means openness of research data, methods, results and publications within
the limits of research agreements. Open science encompasses the entire life cycle of
research. The most important public research funders demand open access publishing of
research results. There are also initiatives to open research data by public funders.
Openness will be an increasing subject in commercial research in the cases of joint
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innovations and open developing (Tahvanainen, I. 2015). Open science is more than open
access to publications or data; it includes many aspects and stages of research processes.
Open science is a broader concept that also includes the interoperability of scientific
infrastructure, open and shared research methodologies (such as open applications and
informatics code), and machine-friendly tools allowing, for example, text and data
mining (Tahvanainen, I. 2015).
―We believe that the move towards openness will lead to increased transparency, better
quality research, a higher level of citizen engagement, and will accelerate the pace of
scientific discovery through the facilitation of data-driven innovation.‖ (Reilly, S. 2015).
Open science is zealously propagated by academicians in a bid to make scientific data
and research widely accessible to the public. Apart from the need for researchers to share
their data and make their research open access, wouldn’t it be in line with the open
science movement to make peer review open? (Kulkarni,2015).
Open science means that the research publications, research data and methods used in
research are published openly to be used by all. This has a significant impact on the work
libraries do to satisfy the information needs of their customers (Keskitalo,2015). Libraries
have invested a great deal of work in promoting openness, particularly in relation to Open
Access publications.For a variety of reasons, the number of Open Access publications has
not increased at the rate that was originally hoped for, but the concept of openness has
been recognised as a useful and viable one (Keskitalo, 2015).
The norms of open science promote the rapid diffusion of the latest knowledge, and
invite broader partner participation in the discovery of new knowledge. This deepens the
knowledge, improves its quality, and helps its diffusion (which then leads to another
cycle of discovery and diffusion) (Chesbrough,2015).
The dissemination of knowledge is of great importance to humanity. The ease of
availability of new or additional knowledge is of great importance to development.
Anything that prevents access to or free flow of knowledge is therefore a threat to
humanity because innovation as well as the creation and dissemination of latest scientific
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and technological information, which will enable prosperity will be stalled.This means
that something had to be done to improve the situation(Asamoah-Hassan, 2010).
2.5.0. EMPIRICAL COMPONENTS OF VARIOUS COUNTRIES ON OPEN
SCIENCE.
2.5.1.State of institutional repositories in Africa
Institutional repositories (IRs) are gaining ground in academic and research institutions in
Africa. As at December 2008,there were 20 IRs in Africa. Out of this number 14 were in
South Africa. This was as aresult of a lot of awareness campaigns through series of
workshops on the usefulness of open access institutional repositories that eventually paid
off. As at February 2010 according to OpenDOAR (www.opendoar.org/countrylist.php)
there were 35 IRs inAfrica. Out of this number 23 were in South Africa, two each in
Egypt and Kenya and one each in Botswana, Cape Verde, Ethiopia, Ghana, Namibia,
Nigeria, Uganda and Zimbabwe. Within a period of about a year, IRs in Africa had
increased by 22 indicating the growing understanding by institutions of the usefulness of
IRs and also the acceptance of IRs as the easy mode that makes local research available
globally. Asamoah-Hassan (2010), as cited Christian (2008) added that 23 of the IRs are
located in South Africa while the rest of Africa shares the remaining 12.
There are a number of open-source software packages for running a repository locally.
These include:DSpace, EPrints, Fedora Commons, Invenio,MyCoRe, Opus, SobekCM
and Greenstone.There are also hosted (proprietary) software services such as Digital
Commons and SimpleDL.
2.5.2.Institutional Repositories in Ghana
According to Lynch (2003), the development of institutional repositoriesemerged as a
new strategy that allows universities to apply serious, systematicleverage to accelerate
changes taking place in scholarship and scholarly communication. He further states that
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many technology trends and developmentefforts came together to make this strategy
possible. Online storage costs have dropped significantly; repositories are now
affordable, hence universities andresearch libraries should take advantage. Developing or
establishing institutionalrepositories in Ghana does not require that each institution act
entirely on its own. Consortia like the Consortium of Academic and Research Librariesin
Ghana (CARLIGH) could provide a logical infrastructure for implementinginstitutional
repositories via collective development. Such cooperation could deliver economies of
scale and help institutions avoid the needless replicationof technicalsystems and
information sources. Indeed, consortia might wellprove the fastest path to proliferating
institutional repositories and attaining acritical mass of open access content.Cited by
Lamptey, R. B. et. al. (2015).
The IR currently has 101 full text documents in portable document file(pdf) all articles
from the Journal of Science and Technology publications(JUST) which is the university’s
quarterly print journal, 1,110 abstracts ofpostgraduate theses and some individuals
research and conference articles.Since it is an open access IR any person anywhere can
have access to thesedocuments archived in the IR. It can be accessed through the major
searchengines like the Google, Yahoo or Exalead and others with the URL
http://dspace.knust.edu.gh
Lamptey, R. B. et. al. (2015) further stated that the IR is governed by a policy which has
been approved by the University and is managed by the IR team consisting of the
University Librarian, theSystems Librarian and the Institutional Repository Librarian. It
has a policyapproved by the University for students, researchers and faculty members
todeposit their research work, including conference papers, lecture notes andanything of
academic and research use into the institutional repository. It ismandatory for all
postgraduate students to submit their theses in soft copies foruploading online. This will
help populate the repository with the full texts oftheir research work. Even with the
policy in place, the IR team is finding it difficult in getting access to these soft copies
(Lamptey, R. B. et.al. 2015).
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Overview of IR implementation in Ghana
Lamptey, R. B. et.al. (2015) affirmed that the International Network for the Availability
of Scientific Publications (INASP) and the Consortium of Academic and Research
Libraries inGhana (CARLIGH) initiated setting up IR platforms for some CARLIGH
memberinstitutions. So far (5) five of them have the IR platforms, with the onus onthe
institutions to populate the IR. Although this initiative was successfully implemented,the
awareness about its importance is extremely low in Ghana.
The KNUSTSpace in Ghana is a pace setter in the West African sub-region beingone of
the three and the one with the highest number of entries as at 1 February 2010. Itcan
therefore be said that IRs that are being planned by institutions in the sub-regionare likely
to look up to it for guidance in order to avoid costly mistakes that may affecttheir take off
and effectiveness.
The KNUSTSpace
The KNUSTSpace is the Institutional Repository (IR) of the university. It was
officiallylaunched in July 2009 after it had gone through trial runs from February 2009. It
islocated in the university library and run by the library staff who collect and portray
theintellectual output of the university and also to provide an avenue for its faculty
andresearchers to expose their works to the world community. KNUSTSpace runs on the
DSpace software which has been customized to suit theuniversity’s needs. As at the end
of January 2010 the IR had 685 entries consisting of abstracts and full text materials.
The KNUST publishes a print journal, Journal of the University of Science
andTechnology. It is peer-reviewed, submission of articles is open to all scholars
globallyand is published three times a year. It is currently indexed by AJOL and features
onlyabstracts of articles. Plans are far advanced to put the full text articles of staff of
theuniversity published in the journal in the IR and also to publish an Open Access
OnlineJournal of the University to be hosted in the University Library using the
PublicKnowledge Project Software, Open Journal Systems (OJS). (Lamptey, R. B. et.al.
(2015).
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Challenges of IR establishment in Ghana
Establishing IRs in Ghana presumably could be the pad that will launch theAcademic and
research Libraries into the publishing of scholarly communication and the free flow of
scholarly work. There are therefore some challenges in pushing for its establishment. For
instance, Asamoah-Hassan (2009) argues that it is difficult convincing university
management, researchers and academics that it is necessary to have IR and get them to
agree to plan and support it on long term basis. Funding to start and to sustain the IR and
reliably electricity supply, and reliable and good internet connectivity are major issue and
also permissions for licensing and copyright issues and resistance from computer phobia
of some faculty and researchers.
Table 1 below shows the outline of the KNUST Repository as well as other Universities
that have followed suit after the pioneer, KNUSTSpace.
Table 1: Institutions with Repositories in Ghana
Institutional Repositories Institution Responsibility Established Items
KNUSTSpace
ir.knust.edu.gh
KNUSTSpace
ir.knust.edu.gh
Library and ICT 2008 7, 050
UGSpace
ugspace.ug.edu.gh
UG The library, ICT
and
UG Archives
2011 4,387
UCC
ir.ucc.edu.gh/dspace
UCC Library and ICT 2012 1,390
AIR
www.air.ashesi.edu.gh
AUC Library and ICT 2013 112
CUCAR
www.dspace.central.edu.gh
CUC Library and ICT 2014 119
Institutional Repositories websites
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The way forward
Academic and Research libraries in Ghana have a substantial role to play ingrowing the
information and knowledge pool and to ensure quick access.Lamptey R. B. and
CorleteyA. (2015) cited Johnson (2002) as confirming that providing no or low-barrier
access to the intellectualproduct generated by an institution increases awareness of
researchcontributions. This should be the motivating factor for academic and
researchinstitutions in Ghana to create and maintain a digital repository. Librarians
andInformation professionals in Ghana are urged to demonstrate leadership in the IRfield,
creating IRs and encouraging open access mandate, and preparing keydecision makers to
understand the importance of digital archiving (Lamptey R. B. and CorleteyA. 2015).
UGANDA:
Uganda in Particular has not been swift in the adoption and reception of the idea of Open
Science but the trend has changed in the past three years; 7 OA journals are known to be
published In Uganda, every Author is required to submit 3 copies of his/ her published
work to the National Library, Associations like CUUL have risen up to the task and call
to promote and advocate for OA policies and Infrastructures, The Uganda National
Council for Science and Technology developed and recommended Open Digital Science
(ODS) and Open Science describing new and open practices in science, research and
innovation that make extensive use of digital technologies. The use of digital
technologies facilitates openness regarding data, methods, results, actors or publications
with an emphasis on scalability of the approach in terms of data, access or computation.
The impact of Open Science practices in Uganda is most evident in scientific publication
(Open Access). A new generation of researchers uses digital tools in practically all steps
of the scientific workflow, from research funding to critical discourse. This has led to
concepts such as Citizen Science, Open Innovation, Open Methodology and Open
Notebook Science, for which good practice examples are described and implemented in
most Institutions of higher Learning, More access to social media through increase of
band width capacity, National Library, and Archives, support of Research through
research schools and special budget allocations, Launching of Institutional repositories by
almost 80% of the Universities in Uganda, Government parastatals like the Parliament
and Bank of Uganda and other Bodies. Makerere University is ranked number thirteen in
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the Africa Ranking Web of Universities and their Research Repository is ranked number
twenty-two in Africa. Advocacy groups have been set-up to promote and develop
institutional and national OA policies. Over 08 institutional and national OA advocacy
groups (researchers, students, librarians, research managers) have been set up and
institutional and national OA campaigns have been implemented to promote and develop
institutional and national OA policies and practices and to encourage use and reuse of OA
content in education, science and research.
Precisely, some of the challenges that Uganda is currently facing in the
Initiation,promotion and advocacy of open science together with its propagation are not
limited to; Funding, which is necessary for more trained staff, system upgrades and
procedural changes. Additionally, there is a bottle neck of insufficient infrastructure such
as the bandwith capacity of the whole country and to institutions and regions in
particular, most of the Open Science requirements and logistics operate with Online
accessibilty which has not been fully realised and stabilised. Furthermore, the limitation
of chauvernistic perception of both the scholars and the Institutions, some of which have
not effectively grasped and appreciated the need for Total open science either due to lack
of awareness,financial back bone or have not yet embraced the wave of technological
change and or human resource capacity to fully initiate and implement Open science.
TANZANIA.
Open Access is a new term to most scholars working in academic institutions in
Tanzania. It has not yet to become popular and only few institutions in Tanzania are
implementing and propagating it until now. According to UNESCO (2016) until May,
2015 only two Open Access journals published in Tanzania are registered in DOAJ and
these are
Dar Es Salaam Medical Students' Journal published by Tanzania Medical Students’
Association and Tanzania Journal of Health Research published by the National Institute
for Medical Research.
Most of Researchers from Tanzania publish their articles in international Open Access
journals. For example in 2013, 504 articles have been published with Bio-Med Central
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and 272 articles have been published in Public Library of Science (PLoS) Open Access
journals.(UNESCO,2016)
There are currently only seven OA repositories registered in Open DOAR which are;
Digital Library of Open University of Tanzania, Digital Library of the Tanzania Health
Community (e-Health), Mario Mgulunde Learning Resource Centre Repository (MLRC
Institutional Repository), MUHAS Institutional Repository, Tanzania Climate Change
Information Repository (TaCCIRe), Mzumbe University Scholar Repository and Sokoine
University of Agriculture Institutional Repository.
Theres also various challenges that hinder open access in Tanzania.Just to mention a
few,the biggest problem is still lack of funds to launch the appropriate infrastructure for
open science in Tanzania, Lack of knowledge on the importance and benefits of
implementing open science is also one among the challenges,Theres also no clear
national and institutional open science policies and Comprehensive open science
infrastructures to facilitate open science and open research like availability of stable
internet connections and power are not there.
Therefore from the look above, open science in Tanzania is not that much implemented
and propagated. More efforts and hard working still need to be done in implementing and
propagating open science in Tanzania.
SOUTH AFRICA:
In 2003 most of academic libraries in South Africa are moving from tradition library to
virtual library. The academic libraries in South African are putting the theses and journal
articles on open access. They put all theses on Research Space to make their material
accessible to the world.
In the past years the South Africa researchers and scholars were not happy for
introduction of open access. They were thinking about copy right act and author –pays.
The defined open access as negative term in term of money. In 2008 all academic
libraries were putting their material online. The national research encourages all
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academic libraries to digitize the theses. The institutional repositories were introduced to
all Academic libraries in South Africa (Czerniewicz1, Laura 2014).
The study has been conducted in South African University showing and how open access
publishing occurs.In a study conducted at the University of Cape Town( Czerniewicz1,
Laura 2014) reported on the success Free online and open Access.The results from the
study indicated that academic libraries in South Africa had a positive attitude towards
open access as alearning tool. In South Africa some academic libraries were introduced
digitized department within the library. Therefore, the university libraries achieved its
objectives of promoting open access for teaching and learning
Furthermore there was an increase of open access in Kwazulu-Natal University
Institutional Repository (IR) known as Research Space contains more than 10000
research findings including dissertation, research articles, conference proceedings, peer
reviewed journal articles and videos. Moreover the university of KwaZulu-Natal is using
the system is called icatalogue. This system allows you to search across all types of
resources in print and online format, (books, theses, journals, articles, DVD, eBooks and
more) available in UKZN libraries as well as libraries around the world.
Propagation
Open science is a means and not an ends. Open science strategies and policies are a
means to support better quality science, increased collaboration, and engagement between
research and society that can lead to higher social and economic impacts of public
research.
Universities play a key role in the advancement of knowledge which is vital for the
development of key economic and social sectors in any country. The kind of open science
enabled by the digitalization of the research process has become a globally significant
way to promote both science itself and its societal impact.
Although openness has always been and always will be a fundamental principle of
science and research, these new open operating models will make science more
democratic than ever before. Open science is a human rights issue, and this is beautifully
encapsulated inArticle 27 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
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―Everyone has the rightfreely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy
the arts and to share inscientific advancement and its benefits.‖ (MoECOSRI, 2014).
3.0.METHODOLOGY:
3.1.INTRODUCTION.
According to Kothari (2004), a research methodology(design) is the arrangement of
conditions, tools and methods for collection and analysis of data in a manner that aims to
ensure relevance to the research process in procedure. In fact, the research design is the
conceptual structure within which research is conducted.
Research design facilitates the smooth attempt of the various research operations, thereby
making research as efficient as possible yielding maximal information with minimal
expenditure of effort, time and money.
A research design appropriate for a particular research problem, usually involves the
consideration of the following factors:
The means of obtaining information;
The availability and skills of the researcher and his staff, if any;
The objective of the problem to be studied;
The nature of the problem to be studied; and
The availability of time and money for the research work.
The research methodology of this study was based and carried out using online databases,
journals and journal articles, prior publications and online submissions as presented
below.
3.2.Databases in detail
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ScienceDirect (scientific database)
Journal Title: Bioinformatics, 20(9), 1453-1454.
Article Title: de Hoon, M. J., Imoto, S., Nolan, J., &Miyano, S. (2004). Open
source clustering software.
GoogleScholar
Journal Title: Program, 39(3), 198-212
Article Title: Jones, R., & Andrew, T. (2005). Open access, open source and e-
theses:the development of the Edinburgh Research Archive.
Ebscohost
Journal Title: Program, 39(3), 198-212.
Article Title: Jones, R., & Andrew, T. (2005). Open access, open source and e-
theses:the development of the Edinburgh Research Archive.
Web of Science
Journal Title: Library & Information Science Research, 38(1), 18-29.
Article Title : W., & Proferes, N. (2016). An Examination of North American
Library and Information Studies faculty perceptions of and
experience with open-access scholarly publishing. Library &
Information Science Research, 38(1), 18-29.
10.1016/j.lisr.2016.01.003.
Sage publications
Journal Title: Policy Futures in Education, 10(3), 315-327.
Article Title: Quint-Rapoport, M. (2012). Open Source in Higher Education:
Towards an understanding of networked universities.
Taylor and Francis:
Journal Title:Canadian Journal of Communication, 29(3).
Article Title: Chan, L. (2004). Supporting and enhancing scholarship in the digital
age: the role of open access institutional repository.
3.3. Search terms used:
(a) Open Science
(b) Open Access
(c) Open learning
(d) CollaborativeLearning
(e) Academic libraries and open science
(f) Promotion of open science and the role of academic library
(g) Propagation
(h) Promotion and advocacy
(i) Institutional Repository
23. 23
4.0. RECOMMENDATIONS:
Many of the academic universities have become strongly interested in implementing
Open Science practices as it has been proven to be important and beneficial in academic
environment. This is because open science has the potential to increase the quality,
impact and benefits of research and scholarship. Moreover, the availability of
increasingly powerful digital technologies as well as the increasing demand of open
science from the society has impacted an ongoing transformation and opening up of
science and research. Therefore, the followings are some of the recommendations of what
should be done to reach better and or total implementation and propagation of open
science activities in academic institutions.
National and institutional open science policies should be formulated in
which peer-reviewed versions of all future scholarly articles by faculty
members are deposited in the institution’s designated repository.
University policies should encourage publication in OA journals, and
should help faculties understand the difference between depositing in an
OA repository and publishing in an OA journal.
Comprehensive open science data infrastructures like Virtual Research
Environments should be built to facilitate open science and open research
data sharing and management in academic institutions.
Research information availability and open science platforms should be
promoted so as to facilitate openness and sharing of research information
through open science in academic institutions/research community.
Not only free repositories should be provided but the awareness about
their existence should also be made to the research community for the
success of an open science initiative.
Awareness about the benefits and impact of open science, open research
data and open access should be raised as its importance and benefits are
not yet well known especially in most of the African countries.
Academic librarians’ skills in the framework of the open access repository
services should be developed as most of them do not have the necessary
skills required. Therefore, training should be done to them to impart skills.
24. 24
Enough budget/fund should be allocated on open science to facilitate
better implementation and propagation of open science activities in
academic institutions.
5.0.CONCLUSION.
Conclusively, the open science movement broadly states that science must be
done in an open and reproducible fashion where all components of research are open.
Many journals remain stuck in a mode where journals were physically printed, despite
being largely distributed online in this day age. They still use PDF’s as a form of
―electronic paper‖ with fixed publications, closed peer review processes and little to no
access to data.
Generally, there should be unrestricted online access to research articles. Access
can occur via a number of channels, such as institutional repositories, journal publishers’
websites, researchers’ webpages, social medias such as wikis,, blogs, twitter etc. Open
science involves open access of data, source, and as well as open standards and should
offer unfettered dissemination of research information discourse and as a result enable
reproducible result outputs of research from any paper as well as open peer reviews by
giving full access to the major components of a scientific research.
Therefore, the way open science is now being done in various academic
libraries/institutions should change to reproducible research, comparability of research,
open methodology, interoperability and empowering everyone to take part in research
with the internet as a primary vehicle for the wide dissemination of
information/knowledge.
25. 25
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