Slovenia has taken initial steps towards open access but lacks comprehensive policies and infrastructure. There are approximately 14,000 researchers but no open access mandates from funders or institutions. Several universities have repositories but they are scattered and contain mostly theses, not research publications. A consortium of institutions recently applied for funding to build a national open access infrastructure connecting existing repositories. Key barriers to further adoption include low researcher awareness, lack of mandates and coordinated repositories. Desired developments include establishing a national open access infrastructure and mirroring the open access mandates in the recent EC recommendation.

1. Open Access in Slovenia
Mojca Kotar, University of Ljubljana
(mojca.kotar@uni-lj.si)
UNESCO Regional Consultation on »Open Access to Scientific Information and Research –
Concept and Policies«, Minsk, 6 September 2012

2. Publications and research data
14.208 registered researchers
National CRIS = SICRIS
Estimate of a yearly number of publications for
deposit into OA repositories
no. of ETDs no. of research total
publications
Univ Ljubljana 9.620 14.600 24.220
Univ Maribor 4.000 4.500 8.500
Univ Primorska 1.000 1.600 2.600
Univ Nova Gorica 140 1.000 1.140
Slovenian Academy of / 2.600 2.600
• Independent country since 1991 Sciences and Arts
• 2 million inhabitants Jožef Stefan Institute / 1.400 1.400
• EU Member State since 2004 National Institute of / 550 550
Chemistry
• Adopted EUR in 2007
• Financial crisis, severe austerity No record of the type and number of research
measures imposed by the datasets per year
government
UNESCO Regional Consultation on »Open Access to Scientific Information and Research –
Concept and Policies«, Minsk, 6 September 2012

3. Current status of Open Access (1/2)
• No OA policies by funders and institutions yet (legal copy of co-financed
journals and final research reports: obligatory deposit into the national
digital library)
• Research Infrastructure Development Plan 2011–2020: establishment of
national OA infrastructures for research publications and data, connected
with SICRIS; when established, deposit will be made mandatory
• Low awareness of researchers, reluctant to publish in gold OA journals –
because of the evaluation metrics they prefer hybrid journals of traditional
publishers; very little open data
• Recently very strong support from the rectors (August 2012)
• None of institutions has signed any of the OA declarations
UNESCO Regional Consultation on »Open Access to Scientific Information and Research –
Concept and Policies«, Minsk, 6 September 2012

4. Current status of Open Access (2/2)
• 36 Slovenian scientific journals listed in DOAJ, no national portal of
journals
• Rare Slovenian OA monographs
• Scattered repository implementations (mostly contain ETDs, very little
research publications), no national portal of repositories:
1 university repository
3 faculty repositories, more non-OAI-PMH compliant ETD archives
1 national digital library
• 1 data archive for social sciences
• Nat & Univ Lib partner in DRIVER projects
• Univ Ljubljana partner in OpenAIRE and OpenAIREplus projects
UNESCO Regional Consultation on »Open Access to Scientific Information and Research –
Concept and Policies«, Minsk, 6 September 2012

5. Key national projects
• openaccess.si (2011, EIFL grant, consortium of 13 institutions):
active national information portal
• Open data project (2010–2013, Ministry grant, Univ Ljubljana):
survey and recommendations on national open data infrastructure
• Portal of Slovenian scientific and literary journals (2010–2011,
Slovenian Book Agency grant, The Peace Institute): Action plan
prepared
• Pilot establishment of a national OA infrastructure for ETDs and
research publications (August 2012, application to the Ministry
tender, consortium of all universities): 4 repositories + national
portal, OpenAIRE compliant, connected with SICRIS, contribute to
DART-Europe and WorldCat, plagiarism detection
UNESCO Regional Consultation on »Open Access to Scientific Information and Research –
Concept and Policies«, Minsk, 6 September 2012

6. Major players
• Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport (funding Open data
project)
• Slovenian Book Agency (funded Action plan for the scientific journals
portal)
• Four universities (openaccess.si consortium with major research
institutes, Open Data Project, tender application for pilot OA
infrastructure)
• The Peace Institute (=NGO, Action Plan for the scientific journals portal)
• Research libraries (Open access to the achievements of Slovenian
researchers conference, 2010)
UNESCO Regional Consultation on »Open Access to Scientific Information and Research –
Concept and Policies«, Minsk, 6 September 2012

7. Potential barriers for further adoption
• Low awareness of researchers
• Lack of OA mandates from funders and institutions
• Lack of repositories for research publications and data
• Lack of coordination of activities
UNESCO Regional Consultation on »Open Access to Scientific Information and Research –
Concept and Policies«, Minsk, 6 September 2012

8. Desired developments
Establishment of a national OA infrastructure for ETDs and research
publications
no. of ETDs no. of research total
Tender application Univ Ljubljana 9.620
publications
14.600 24.220
August 2012 Univ Maribor 4.000 4.500 8.500
Univ Primorska 1.000 1.600 2.600
Univ Nova Gorica 140 1.000 1.140
total 14.760 21.700 36.460
Mirrored OA mandates by funders and institutions, based on EC
Recommendation of 17 July 2012:
all articles openly accessible either immediately by the publisher
and/or available through OA repository no later than 6 months (12
months for social sciences and humanities)
UNESCO Regional Consultation on »Open Access to Scientific Information and Research –
Concept and Policies«, Minsk, 6 September 2012

9. Collaborative and collective efforts to
advance OA in the region
• Draft OA policies for funders and institutions in the region
• Support/help with building the repositories
• Peruse of best practise cases from the region and worldwide for
policies and infrastructures (SCIndeks, Hrčak, NARCIS, RIAN, NORA,
Recommendations for Implementation of Open Access in Denmark
...)
UNESCO Regional Consultation on »Open Access to Scientific Information and Research –
Concept and Policies«, Minsk, 6 September 2012

10. Enabling features and critical success
factors in Slovenia
• Access to the latest information on OA developments (OpenAIRE,
OpenAIREplus, Open Access Tracking Project) + enthusiastic
advocates
• Regular and persistant advocacy to all shareholders, most
importantly to funders and research management, but also to
researchers, librarians, IT professionals
• Use different dissemination channels (direct mailings, web sites, live
presentations)
• Possibility to detect plagiarism in Slovenian language on a national
level
UNESCO Regional Consultation on »Open Access to Scientific Information and Research –
Concept and Policies«, Minsk, 6 September 2012

11. UNESCO Regional Consultation on »Open Access to Scientific Information and Research –
Concept and Policies«, Minsk, 6 September 2012