Additional websites

EADIs dossier on open access gives information on the publishing of scientific information on the internet.

eIFL.net is a not for profit organisation that supports and advocates for the wide availability of electronic resources by library users in transitional and developing countries.

I-commons provides information on use of creative commons and copyright around the world.

The African Copyright & Access to Knowledge (ACA2K) Project is probing the relationship in African countries between national copyright environments and access to hard-copy and digital learning materials.

Open Access for development

Open Access (OA) refers to the immediate and free access for any user to full text online scientific and scholarly material, primarily research articles published in peer-reviewed journals. Open Access means that any user who has access to the Internet, may link, read, download, store, print-off, use, and data-mine the digital content of that article. An Open Access article usually has limited copyright and licensing restrictions.

Open Access has numerous benefits for both authors and publishers including wider dissemination, multiple degrees of copyright and cost effectiveness. Furthermore, it has wider advantages for people in resource poor settings and those working in the field of development.

Eldis supports the distribution of free online and offline information, self-archiving and creative commons.

A handbook on Open Access

M. Ostergaard / Panos Pictures

The current digital age has opened up unprecedented opportunities for the dissemination of knowledge. One much debated way of sharing information, and in particular peer-reviewed academic publications, is open access. This handbook aims to inform stakeholders and the society-at-large of the opportunities and challenges surrounding open access, and to promote a broad and inclusive debate on the future of scientific and academic publishing.

The following pages will outline the options available for authors and publishers wishing to use open access in promoting research.

For authors

As an author you have two options for making your work available free of charge to all audiences – in other words Open Access. One is to publish in a peer-reviewed open access journal making your research immediately available to all audiences without subscription. The second option is to publish in a subscription based peer-reviewed journal and then self- archive your work in an open access repository, The following segments will outline these options further. More..

For publishers

As a publisher you may have some reservations about open access due to issues surrounding copyright of your publications. There are ways that you can retain certain rights to your publications and at the same time support open access. One way is through an alternative copyright agreement like the Creative Commons which allows for varying levels of licensing agreements, enabling publishers/ editors to choose from a range of possibilities. More...

Recommended reading

Open access publishing: a developing country view: ( J. I. Papin–Ramcharan;R.A. Dawe / First Monday (USA) , 2006); This paper presents the experience with open access (OA) publishing by researchers in an academic research institution, the University of the West Indies (UWI) in Trinidad and Tobago. It descr...
Open access archiving: the fast track to building research capacity in developing countries: ( L. Chan;B. Kirsop;S. Arunachalam / SciDev.Net – the Science and Development Network , 2005); Scientific progress in developing and emerging countries is greatly hampered by their inability to afford essential journals. At the same time, research generated in these regions is 'missing' to the ...
Open Access: scientific publishing and the developing world: ( First Author , 2006); Advances in science, medicine, technology and agriculture have the potential to contribute to the reduction of disease and poverty worldwide. Communications and information technology (ICT) ha...

Credits

Thank you to Mr. Shamprasad Pujar for his valuable contribution to this dossier.

Shamprasad Pujar
Deputy Librarian
Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR)
Mumbai, India

Profile

Mr. Shamprasad Pujar is working on an Open Index Initiative, a new online and searchable bibliographic database for Indian Social Science literature and resources available in Indian libraries.

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