Advancing OA publishing in EIFL partner countries
Advancing OA publishing in EIFL partner countries,
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Category Archives: oa.eifl
EIFL checklist for using OJS in journal publishing | EIFL
We have updated and revised the EIFL checklist of good practices in using the free and open software Open Journal System (OJS) for journal editing and publishing. OJS is the most widely used publishing software in EIFL partner countries.
The checklist, by Iryna Kuchma, Manager of the EIFL Open Access Programme, takes forward a key goal of EIFL – to ensure the growth and sustainability of digital repositories and journal publishing platforms.
OJS is created by the Public Knowledge Project (PKP), which is a multi-university initiative developing free and open source software to improve the quality and reach of scholarly publishing.
This is the second version of the checklist. It includes more details about the current production release of software – OJS 3, and tips on organizational identifiers plugin, DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) registration, copyright and licensing, the PKP Project Preservation Network and journal content accessibility. And we’ve updated the ‘further reading’ list.
EIFL Checklist for DSpace Repositories updated! | EIFL
“We have updated and revised How To Make Your OA Repository Work Really Well, the EIFL checklist that repository managers and administrators, librarians and others can use to improve institutional open access (OA) repositories that use DSpace free and open source software.
DSpace is the most commonly used repository software in EIFL partner countries.
This is the fifth revision of the Checklist. We have included the new DSpace 7.1 software release – the largest release in the history of DSpace software. We have updated information about repository interoperability, and added COAR controlled vocabularies, OpenAIRE and Wikipedia to the discoverability section. We have also updated the repository policy and licensing sections and added more tips on ORCID-DSpace integrations….”
Creating a Campaign to Increase Open Access to Research on Climate Science and Biodiversity: A joint initiative of Creative Commons, EIFL and SPARC
Open Science No Text. By: Greg Emmerich. CC BY-SA 3.0
As the United Nations Climate Change Conference, officially known as the 26th Conference of Parties, or COP26, continues in Glasgow, Scotland, I’m pleased to share some good news. The Open Society Foundations approved funding for Creative Commons, SPARC and EIFL to lead a global campaign promoting open access to climate and biodiversity research. This is a promising new strategy to encourage governments, foundations, institutes, universities and environmental organizations to use “open” to accelerate progress towards solving the climate crisis and to preserve global biodiversity. Catherine Stihler, CC’s CEO and a native of Scotland, publicly announced the campaign during her keynote at the University of St Andrews’ Power to the people event and will have the opportunity to announce the campaign at a COP26 fringe event – Open UK: Open Technology for Sustainability – on 11 November. CC is particularly happy to have the opportunity to work closely with our longtime allies in the open access movement to ensure that this effort is truly a global campaign, and hope that this initiative will help to provide a blueprint for future funding of similar collaborative campaigns.
Additional Detail
Climate change, and the resulting harm to our global biodiversity, is one of the world’s most pressing challenges. The complexity of the climate crisis requires collaborative global interventions that center on equity and evidence-based mitigation practices informed by multidisciplinary research. Many researchers, governments, and global environmental organizations recognize the importance of the open sharing of research to accelerate progress, but lack cohesive strategies and mechanisms to facilitate effective knowledge sharing and collaboration across disciplinary and geographic borders.
During the COVID-19 crisis, the power of open access to democratize knowledge sharing, accelerate discovery, promote research collaboration, and bring together the efforts of global stakeholders to tackle the pandemic took center stage. Scientists embraced the immediate, open sharing of preprints, research articles, data and code. This embrace of openness contributed to the rapid sequencing and sharing of the virus’ genome, the quick development of therapeutics, and the fastest development of effective vaccines in human history. The lessons learned during the pandemic can – and should – be applied to accelerate progress on other urgent problems facing society.
The goal of this project is to create a truly global campaign to promote open access, open science and open data as effective enabling strategies to accelerate progress towards solving the climate crisis and preserving global biodiversity. It will develop effective messaging, strategies, and tactics to empower stakeholders currently leading critical climate and biodiversity work to embed open practices and policies in their operations, and make open sharing of research the default.
We expect to identify the most important climate and biodiversity research publications not already OA and coordinate a campaign to open those publications, remove legal and policy barriers to applying open licenses to research articles, influence key funders (governments, foundations, and institutes) of climate science and biodiversity research to adopt and implement strong OA policies, and identify opportunities to open climate and biodiversity educational resources so students, teachers and citizens can learn about these global challenges and help contribute to solutions.
We will encourage global environment organizations to adopt open licensing policies to ensure all their content is free to be reused, built upon and shared for the global public good, delivering on their SDG commitments. We will engage with researchers, universities and policy makers in the Global South to ensure inclusive outcomes throughout.
We will share additional news on this campaign as it progresses.
The post Creating a Campaign to Increase Open Access to Research on Climate Science and Biodiversity: A joint initiative of Creative Commons, EIFL and SPARC appeared first on Creative Commons.
IFLA WLIC 2021 | EIFL
Ramune Petuchovaite, EIFL Public Library Innovation Programme Manager, will take part in the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) World Library and Information Congress (WLIC) 2021.
COAR Annual Meeting and General Assembly | EIFL
Iryna Kuchma, EIFL Open Access Programme Manager, will participate in the 2021 Annual Meeting and General Assembly of COAR (the Confederation of Open Access Repositories). EIFL is a founding member of COAR.
Internet Governance Forum 2021 | EIFL
Ramune Petuchovaite, EIFL Public Library Innovation Programme Manager, will participate in the 16th annual Internet Governance Forum (IGF) – a global forum that brings together stakeholders from government, industry and civil society to discuss public policy issues relating to the internet governance.
EIFL agreements result in increased OA publishing | EIFL
“The EIFL Licensing Programme has been negotiating open access agreements with publishers since 2016. These include waived and discounted Article Processing Charges (APCs), as well as free and discounted read & publish terms, and aim to increase the amount of open access publishing output. We currently have 11 agreements with publishers, six of which were signed in 2020.
Many publishers have APC waiver and discount schemes for authors from developing and transition economy countries. However, publishers’ eligibility criteria can change unexpectedly; hybrid journals are usually excluded, and many researchers are not aware of these schemes as they are not always well publicized….”
Webinar: Community Open Principles | EIFL
Join this webinar on Community Open Principles: Before, During and After the Global Pandemic, which is part of the Reimagining Educational Practices for Open (REPO) Community Event Series.
Date and time: 30 June, 1pm UTC
Registration: You can register here.
Speakers – Dr Ana Persic, UNESCO, Dr Arianna Becerril García, AmeliCA, Dr Johanna Havemann, Open Science MOOC, and Osman Aldirdiri, AfricArXiv – will lead the discussion by addressing the following questions:
When we talk about Open what do we mean?
How can we navigate the different definitions of what it means to be a community and to be Open?
How do we engage with communities and train members around Open?
What evidence are we using of how we are addressing Open?
How can we be more inclusive and align our Open principles to foster norms, incentives, and recognition?
Have our understandings around Open shifted during the pandemic?
The webinar aims to include open science perspectives from a diverse group of communities, to learn from different approaches, and identify next steps that everyone in our global community can consider. More about REPO in this blog by Iryna Kuchma, EIFL Open Access Programme Manager.
Fee-free Open Access publishing in leading biological science journals now available to researchers in developing and transition economy countries
“From Albania to Zimbabwe, researchers in 30 developing and transition economy countries can benefit from immediate and fee-free Open Access publishing in The Company of Biologists’ subscription journals following a Read & Publish agreement with Electronic Information for Libraries (EIFL).
This landmark agreement runs until 31 December 2023 and institutional members of EIFL-partner library consortia in eligible countries can participate free of charge.
Researchers in eligible countries will be able to publish an uncapped number of Open Access research articles in Development, Journal of Cell Science and Journal of Experimental Biology without paying an article processing charge (APC). They will also benefit from free and unlimited access to the journals and their archives dating back to 1853….”
Civil society statement supporting WTO TRIPS waiver proposal | EIFL
“EIFL and partner consortia in Kenya, Lesotho, Lithuania, Uganda and Zimbabwe joined over 250 organizations, prominent researchers and copyright experts calling for a reduction of copyright barriers to COVID-19 prevention, containment and treatment at the World Trade Organization (WTO).
The statement by global civil society groups and prominent researchers focuses particular attention on the need to include copyright rules within the waiver….”
Statement on Copyright and Proposal of a Waiver from Certain Provisions of the TradeRelated Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement for the Prevention, Containment and Treatment of COVID-19 (IP/C/W/669)
“We support the work and interests of millions of researchers, educators, libraries, archives and museums around the world who are contributing to the prevention, containment and treatment of the COVID-19 pandemic through promotion of access to knowledge. We applaud the efforts of World Trade Organization (WTO) Members to address copyright barriers to an equitable response to COVID-19. Access to copyrighted works, in addition to patents and know-how, is needed to prevent and contain COVID-19 and to develop treatments. COVID-19 has aggravated deep inequalities in access to knowledge. In some countries with flexible copyright systems, residents are able to access and use essential materials in remote educational, learning and research activities, virtually access and use the collections of libraries and other institutions, and contribute to research on treatments using advanced processes such as text and data mining. But these activities are not taking place everywhere because they are not lawful everywhere….”
EIFL, IFLA issue call on World Trade Organization | EIFL
“EIFL and IFLA (the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions) have called on the Members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to extend international trade law measures which reduce burdens on the poorest countries, and allow them to set regulatory frameworks for copyright to enable their libraries to support education, research and cultural participation….
The meeting, that takes place on 10-11 March 2021, will discuss, among other issues, a request by Least Developed Countries (LDCs) to extend an exemption for LDCs from implementing the substantive obligations for protection and enforcement of IP rights, including copyright, in the TRIPS Agreement….
For the library community, it [extending the exemption] would have the practical effect of enabling governments freely to craft modern copyright exceptions to maximize possibilities to use copyright-protected content for education, research and innovation, without fear of sanction. For example, it would facilitate classroom use and online education, support world-class research, and enable the use of digital tools, such as text and data mining (TDM) for medical and scientific discovery….”
International and national copyright policy action for OA – SPARC Europe
“A joint webinar between SPARC Europe and EIFL
Target audience
Open Science policymakers, Research Funding Organizations and Research Performing Organizations managers, librarians, repository managers and academic institutional copyright experts.
We will organise a separate event for publishers….”
EIFL renews Bookshare agreement | EIFL
“EIFL has renewed its three-year agreement with Benetech, a technology company based in Silicon Valley, California, USA, for access to Bookshare, the world’s largest accessible online library for people with print disabilities….
As part of the renewed agreement, libraries in 20 EIFL countries can sign up for free to allow their print-disabled readers to use Bookshare:
Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lesotho, Malawi, Moldova, Myanmar, Nepal, Senegal, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Zambia, Zimbabwe….”