Category Archives: oa.ghana

Challenges with Open Access Institutional Repositories in Ghana

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Abstract:  The libraries of institutions of higher education have developed institutional repositories to manage their research output and showcase the work of their institutions. A variety of software has been used. Most libraries have structured the repositories so that they are available through open access (OA) to the world. Some institutions have mandated that faculty and research staff place their publications in the repositories. Not all has been plain sailing and many issues and challenges have emerged. This chapter examines the nature of open access institutional repositories (OAIRS), outlines their development in Ghana and discusses issues which have arisen. It also reports on a study undertaken of institutional repositories in Ghana and suggests ways to go forward to ensure effective implementation of institutional repositories.

#ODD2023 Stories @ Ghana ??

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“Open Data Day event was held in Tamale, Ghana on 10th March 2023, with the theme “Open Data Revolution, Fueling the Future of AI” organised by Dagbani Wikimedians Usergroup. The event featured three speakers who shared their insights on open data initiatives, AI-powered solutions for various industries, and exploring AI for daily problems. It was attended by an audience from diverse backgrounds, including students, researchers, industry professionals, and open knowledge enthusiasts….”

Collaboratively Exploring Solutions to the Funding Challenge for Open Infrastructure in Africa | Apr 22, 2023 | Invest in Open Infrastructure

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“…We partnered with the West and Central Africa Research and Education Network (WACREN) last month to host a workshop in Accra, Ghana on March 15, 2023. The theme was “charting common pathways for collective action in advancing open infrastructure in Africa”. The workshop was a prelude to the annual WACREN Conference – an annual gathering that brings together researchers, librarians, open infrastructure funders, government officials, and National Research and Education Network (NREN) leaders and other stakeholders to chart common pathways to promote innovation, investment in infrastructure and service development to boost the capacity of the evolving African digital education and research landscape. Our goal for this workshop was to facilitate a conversation between participating research funders, NREN leadership, government officials, and other key stakeholders, for them to share their understanding of the importance of open research infrastructure and the challenges and opportunities they face in their work to develop, maintain, and adopt shared infrastructure. The workshop was also a chance for the IOI team to listen to and learn from open infrastructure practitioners in Africa. This listening process is critical to ensure that our work and engagements in the long term are additive to what the African open science community is building and responsive to the dynamics of the continent….”

Exploring open infrastructure needs in Latin America, Africa, and Asia: a new research project | Invest in Open Infrastructure | March 2023

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“…During the months of March and April, we will conduct initial exploratory research focusing on three regions: Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Our research team has conducted desk research to identify key stakeholders to reach out to each of the world regions and are in the process of setting up interviews and designing a conversation guide for this work. You can find out more on our Regional Research project webpage. We’re prioritizing research on Africa and Latin America in particular. Later this month, members of the IOI team will be in Ghana to learn more about open infrastructure needs and funding and to connect with key stakeholders in the region. Similarly, next month, we’ll be in Argentina, joining csv,conf,v7 and the “Accelerating Open Science in Latin America” workshop hosted by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to learn more about needs and funding in Latin America.. At the same time, we’ve started a virtual listening tour of India. We hope to later expand the tour to include other countries in the vast Asian continent. This exploration is fundamental in informing and shaping key pieces of work that we’re looking to advance this year, including the next phase of the collective funding pilot, funding trends research, the Catalog of Open Infrastructure Services (COIs), and the fund we’re aiming to launch in 2024….”

Escaping ‘bibliometric coloniality’, ‘epistemic inequality’

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“Africa’s scholarly journals compete on an unequal playing field because of a lack of funding and the struggle to sustain academic credibility.

“These inequalities are exacerbated by the growing influence of the major citation indexes, leading to what we have called bibliometric coloniality,” say the authors of the book, Who Counts? Ghanaian academic publishing and global science, published by African Minds at the start of 2023.

“The rules of the game continue to be defined outside the continent. We hope that, in some small way, this book contributes to the renaissance and renewal of African-centred research and publishing infrastructures,” the authors say….”

Open Buildings

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“Building footprints are useful for a range of important applications, from population estimation, urban planning and humanitarian response, to environmental and climate science. This large-scale open dataset contains the outlines of buildings derived from high-resolution satellite imagery in order to support these types of uses. The project is based in Ghana, with an initial focus on the continent of Africa and new updates on South Asia and South-East Asia….”

EIFL support boosts open access in Ghana | EIFL

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“A project supported by EIFL has led to the establishment of seven new institutional open access repositories at institutions in Ghana. The project also improved repositories at nine institutions and strengthened understanding of open access journal publishing at 19 institutions. 

Implemented by our national partner library consortium, the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Ghana (CARLIGH) in 2021/22, the project aimed to increase accessibility and visibility of research at CARLIGH member institutions….”

EIFL support boosts open access in Ghana | EIFL

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“A project supported by EIFL has led to the establishment of seven new institutional open access repositories at institutions in Ghana. The project also improved repositories at nine institutions and strengthened understanding of open access journal publishing at 19 institutions. 

Implemented by our national partner library consortium, the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Ghana (CARLIGH) in 2021/22, the project aimed to increase accessibility and visibility of research at CARLIGH member institutions….”

WACREN-IOI Workshop: Charting common pathways for collective action in advancing open infrastructure in Africa | March 15, 2023 | Accra, Ghana

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“Globally, there’s increasing acknowledgement that open, community-driven infrastructure is important, and we see that the discussions regarding its development and adoption are starting in Africa. Open infrastructure has huge potential to facilitate innovation, advance science and research, and help bridge inequities in society. This invite-only session will bring together key open infrastructure providers, funders, and intermediaries both from Africa and beyond to discuss challenges hindering the adoption of open infrastructure and the opportunities that can be leveraged through collective action to further the adoption and development of open infrastructure that centers the needs of the African community….”

Two Ghanaian research organisations agree to collaborate – BusinessGhana

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“The Ghanaian Academic and Research Network (GARNET) and the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Ghana (CARLIGH) have agreed to cooperate towards the delivery of relevant infrastructure and interoperable open scholarly services to enhance the delivery of research, teaching and learning in higher education institutions in Ghana….

Under this cooperation, the two organisations, with the support of the Library Support for Embedded NREN Services and E-infrastructure (LIBSENSE) and the West and Central African Research and Education Network (WACREN), will explore the use of federated identities to simplify access to academic and research services. When realised, all libraries, researchers and students under the GARNET, CARLIGH umbrella will have a single sign-on credential to access library resources and services across Africa and the World.

Under this MoU, the two organisations will also explore the provision of national platforms for repositories and scholarly publishing, data management services and storage, library management systems, learning management systems and other systems relevant to their respective communities….”

Environment Minister to deliver keynote speech at LIBSENSE Ghana Open Science Symposium – MyJoyOnline.com

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“Key stakeholders of Ghana’s science, research, education and innovation ecosystem will converge at the ‘LIBSENSE Open Science Symposium – Ghana’ to deliberate on developing and executing a national action plan for Open Science in the country.

The event is slated for Wednesday, October 19, 2022 at the Movenpick Ambassador Hotel in Accra.

 This iteration of the Open Science Roadmap program themed ‘Narrowing the Gap among Research, Policy and Society’, is the latest in a series of Open Science Roadmap events in Anglophone and Francophone countries across Africa, including Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire, Uganda and Tanzania….”

Richard Bruce Lamptey: A librarian glittering in the academic rankings – MyJoyOnline.com

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“[Richard Bruce Lamptey] is known to support the scientists in their research endeavors, provide advanced training for both lecturers and students and supports raising awareness of library resources in KNUST. I.e (Systematic Literature Search, Avoiding predatory journal publishing, Digital Literacy, Plagiarism, Institutional Repositories, Open Access and Open Science)….

Richard has supported national and institutional open access awareness raising and advocacy workshops that have resulted in a number of open access repositories in the country….

He is on the Management Board of SPARC Africa. SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) works to enable the open sharing of research outputs and educational materials in order to democratize access to knowledge, accelerate discovery, and increase the return on our investment in research and education in Africa….”

 

Implementation of promotion standards to discourage publishing in questionable journals: the role of the library – ScienceDirect

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Abstract:  To discourage faculty members from publishing in questionable journals, tenure and promotion standards in which the librarians play an active role can been developed. These standards have been effective in terms of identifying publications in questionable outlets. However, we need to explore how these systems are perceived by the main actors in research, which are the researchers. This study explores the perception of the researchers at a university in Ghana who have been evaluated by a system implemented to discourage publishing in questionable publication outlets. We collected data using an online, largely qualitative questionnaire distributed to all faculty members that had applied for promotion since the implementation of the verification process. The results show that the majority of the faculty members are satisfied or very satisfied with the new tenure and promotion standards. There are differences across faculties, and this seems to be tied to concerns about the choice of publication outlets. Furthermore, the dissatisfied faculty members are concerned with the role of the library in the verification process whereas the satisfied trust the judgement of the librarians. We discuss implications of the results as well as future development of the standards.

 

Crafting an OER network in Ghana using IndieWeb building blocks – Open Repositories 2021

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“Many students are unable to finish their first degrees due to the high cost of higher education in Ghana. Many universities in Ghana lacks access to rich online educational materials to provide an alternative learning module for students who can not afford the standard university education.

This poster focuses on how we are using IndieWeb building blocks to help students and educators to create Open Educational resources. Our program provides free personal websites to students and educators to curate and create OERs on their own websites, the community then write or remix these resources to develop collections of community-approved OER….”