Global Open Access Portal.UNESCO
Posted by Celia Walter | 4 Nov, 2011The Global Open Access Portal (GOAP), funded by the Governments of Colombia, Denmark, Norway, and the United States Department of State, presents a current snapshot of the status of Open Access (OA) to scientific information around the world. For countries that have been more successful implementing Open Access, the portal highlights critical success factors and aspects of the enabling environment. For countries and regions that are still in the early stages of Open Access development, the portal identifies key players, potential barriers and opportunities.
The Global Open Access Portal is designed to provide the necessary information for policy-makers to learn about the global OA environment and to view their country’s status, and understand where and why Open Access has been most successful.
At a glance, the portal provides an overview of the framework surrounding Open Access in UNESCO Member States by focusing on:
- the critical success factors for effectively implementing Open Access;
- each country’s strengths and opportunities for further developments;
- where mandates for institutional deposits and funding organization have been put into place;
- potential partners at the national and regional level; and
- funding, advocacy, and support organizations throughout the world...[More]
- Access by Region
- Funding Mandates
- Key Organizations
- Thematic Areas
- Open Access Community
- Contributors and Disclaimer
http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/portals-and-platforms/goap/
South Africa is a leading African country in terms of Open Access (OA) policies on the governmental level and grass-roots OA initiatives in universities and research organizations.
All 11 traditional universities (or at least their departments), two universities of technology (Cape Peninsula University of Technology and Durban University of Technology), three comprehensive universities (University of Johannesburg, University of South Africa and University of Zululand) and Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) have set up OA repositories.
University of Pretoria and University of Johannesburg have adopted OA policies (mandates) to ensure that results of researches funded by institutions are made freely available.
Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) manages the Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO) SA – a premier OA searchable full-text journal database that covers a selected collection of peer-reviewed scholarly journals (20 OA journals and growing) implementing recommendations from its Report on a Strategic Approach to Research Publishing in South Africa. SciELO SA is funded by the South African Department of Science and Technology and endorsed by the South African Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET).
43 OA journals are registered in DOAJ (the Directory of Open Access Journals covering free, full text, quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals).
The Human Sciences Research Council Press has a dual-stream strategy including: OA full texts online and print copies for sale. A groundbreaking ASSAf’s report entitled Scholarly Books: their production, use and evaluation in South Africa today approved by DHET recommends that “the principle of maximising OA, already recommended by the Academy for scholarly journals, be extended as far as possible (and with careful attention to sustainable business models) to books published (or co-published) in South Africa, with the adoption of formats and technology platforms compatible with bibliometric requirements such as citation indexing and information rich online features.”
And a strong OA community of practice has grown up sharing knowledge and expertise in the country, on African continent and worldwide...[more]
