Open access and institutional repositories in research and academic institutions

OPEN ACCESS AND INSTITUTIONAL REPOSITORIES IN KENYA
BY
ROSEMARY OTANDO
E-RESOURCES LIBRARIAN
UNIVERSITY OF NAIROBI LIBRARY

Why open access?
For long term preservation, organization and access or distribution of scholarly work to accelerate research and enhance progress in science and development.

Ways of providing Open Access
OA Journals – Peer reviewed
OA Repositories – Regional or Institutional Repositories
Institutional Repositories? - Set of services that a university offer to the members of its community for the management and dissemination of digital materials created by the institution and its community members.

WHY IR IN ACADEMIC AND RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS IN KENYA?
To provide for an effective system to disseminate and access research information, digitize and preserve digital content that is in danger of extinction.
Provide avenue for scholars and researchers to publish their intellectual and scholarly works

Why IR IN KENYA? (Cont.)
Adding to Inst./faculty prestige through showcasing their academic research
Gives authors and their works immeasurable publicity and increased visibility

Why IR IN KENYA?
To create mechanism for sharing information with other institutions in Kenya and beyond. Do we want to participate in our country’s development? – share scientific findings
Others are sharing
why not us?

Others are sharing!
Opendoar – http://www.opendoar.org/
AJOL – African Journal Online - http://ajol.info/
OAISTER – Digitised material http://oaister.worldcat.org/
WorldWideScience.org – International scientific databases - http://worldwidescience.org/
Biomed Central: http://www.biomedcentral.com/
WHO publications - http://www.who.int/en/
NDLTD – Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations - http://www.ndltd.org/find
BioOne.org - sciences. http://www.bioone.org/
Open J- Gate - http://www.openj-gate.org/Footer/About.aspx

Others are sharing!
Plosone – peer-reviewed science publications http://www.plosone.org/static/guidelines.action
Open Humanities Press - http://openhumanitiespress.org/index.html
Oxford Open Access Journals - http://www.oxfordjournals.org/oxfordopen/
Kenya Law Reports - http://www.kenyalaw.org/update/index.php
African Digital Library – free for Africa http://www.africaeducation.org/adl/
OER sites - OERAfrica – Established by SA Inst. - http://www.oerafrica.org/Home/tabid/36/Default.aspx
Lawyers in Africa http://www.apkn.org/dspace/xmlui/

KLISC INSTITUTIONS AND IR PROJECTS
Concept of IR Introduced earlier (ILRI, Moi)
2008, 2009,2010- workshops on Open Access and free software that can be used for IR e.g. DSpace and Greenstone software.
Follow-up visits and workshops to enhance skills and to sensitize staff on IR.

KLISC INSTITUTIONS AND IR PROJECTS (Cont.)
Currently, most inst. are in the development stage, i.e.
Installation
Customization
Submission stage

KLISC INSTITUTIONS AND IR PROJECTS (Cont.)
Involving key stakeholders e.g. university administrators, policy makers, students, academic staff etc
Policy issues
Sensitization and training

Identified KLISC institutions implementing IR (Mostly full text items)
ILRI (Online)
KARI (Online)
University of Nairobi (60 items - LAN)
Kenyatta University (Past Papers)
College of Insurance (30 items)
KMFRI (Advanced stage – 400 items)
The Kenya Polytechnic University College (Project collapsed)
Kabarak (Advanced stage – (3000 items)
Baraton (Development stage - customization)
Agha Khan University (Development stage)

Identified Institutions (Cont.)
Strathmore (Advanced stage – LAN/WAN)
Marist International (55 items)
Moi (Advanced stage – LAN)
KCA (Initial stage – Customization and policy issues)
JKUAT (Initial stage – Policy Issues)
KEMRI (full-text)
Egerton (Initial – Policy issues)
Maseno University (Initial-customization, Policy issues)
Daystar (Initial – Policy Issues)
St. Paul university (Initial – customization, policy issues)

KLISC Institutions Implementing IR

Choice of software (Greenstone/DSpace)

Type of Content/collections Submitted to IRs in Kenya
Audio and video files, films and images of distinguished staff, visitors, monuments, and buildings.
Conferment of Honorary Degrees
Presentations/speeches from distinguished guests.

Type of Content/collections (Cont.)
Book chapters and
Newspaper articles

Technical reports, theses and dissertations, gray literature, teaching modules, manuals and guides.

Type of Content/collections (Cont.)
Television broadcasts/interviews
Research articles, workshop materials
Working papers and conference proceedings

Level of access
Allowed to search, access and download full text, bibliographic and abstracts.

Sample of Screen-shot of IR homepage

Challenges
ICT infrastructure
Inadequate staff – need for adequate staff to run the project i.e. full time administrator, ICT person, Digitization expert
Policy Issues (Expert guidance on copyright issues)
Promotion – concept is foreign (Convincing faculties to contribute in the development of the project – faculty adoption disappointing)

Future plans For KLISC
Follow-up workshops and visits
Follow-up visits, workshops and training to sensitize academic staff and researchers on the need for IR and sharing of information.
Sustainability (Proposal for budget for sustainability)

Future plans
Deal with licensing, privacy issues and Copyright issues (Develop IR policies)
Suggestion - government and funding bodies to mandate their funded researchers to deposit a copy of the articles in their IR.
Deal with staffing and training.
Raising awareness – aggressive marketing to solicit content by collaborating with faculties to build the repository.

Future Plans(Cont.)
Launching IRs – ILRI and KARI, the only IR that is alive on the web; Strathmore, UoN on LAN but launching soon; others in the development stage
Training trainers for Kenyan institutions – have local experts in the two software to support the upcoming institutions.
Soliciting for funds and a budget for sustainability of the IR projects.

Future plans
Activation of full-text access to users.
Reach other institutions that have interest to establish IR (Both government and private institutions)
Follow-up visits to enhance skills and provide additional support.
Increase collectionsand provide access via the WAN (Open Access )

CONCLUSION.
Scientific findings do not belong to a country but to the whole world
Thank you!

Open access and institutional repositories in research and academic institutions

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