Open Access Week: 19 – 23 October 2009

PROMOTING OPEN ACCESS TO THE UJ SCIENCES COMMUNITY

19 – 23 October is the Open Access (OA) week. The library is taking an initiative to promote OA awareness to all University of Johannesburg users. Below you can see the planned activities on each of the Campus Libraries. Please, attend these lectures in the Library and learn how OA can benefit your teaching, research and learning needs. Ask your students also to participate and learn about OA and Institutional Repository.

What is Open Access? What initiatives are available for OA? What resources I can use, which are Open Access (OA)?

Visit the UJ Sciences Librarian “Open Access Portal” to have your questions answered and much more…. I have created one step to most of the resources relevant to you. Comment on this post, how do you feel about the OA initiative.

OA fact:

Astronomy researchers who made their Astrophysical Journal article open access using the arXiv.org e-print server doubled the citation rate of their articles. (Source: Stevens-Rayburn, Sarah. Account of 2003 AAS Publication Board meeting email to PAM electronic discussion list, November 13, 2003.

http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0311&L=pamnet&D=1&O=D&P=1632)

I’m highlighting some of the Top Open Access resources. Full list is available on the Open Access Portal:

• UJDigispace (UJ Institutional Repository and Theses & Dissertations
• Open Science Directory (Open Science Journals)
• ArXiv.org (Physics, Mathematics & Statistics, e-prints)
• South African Open Access Journals, etc.

Visit the official Open Access web.

Open Access initiative is a movement towards opening opportunities for developing countries to have access and to publish their research. Thanks to eIFL.net (Electronic Information for Libraries) and  especially Irina Kuchma, who is visiting many countries, institutions and libraries to promote and train on the usefulness of Open Access and implementation of institutional repositories.

The Library programme for the Open Access week:

APK: Library, 3rd floor Auditorium
Date	Time	Activities
19 October 2009	10:00	Welcome/Exhibition
	10:20	Guest Speaker: Ms Madelein van Heerden, CSIR“Making you famous”
	11:00	Open Discussion
	11:15	Demonstration of UJDigispace
	11:30	Closing
APB: Library Training Room
20 October 2009	10:00	Welcome/Exhibition
	10:15	Presentation: UJDigispace and Open Access
	11:00	Open Discussion
	11:15	Demonstration of UJDigispace
	11:30	Closing
DFC: Library Training Room
21 October 2009	10:00	Welcome/Exhibition
	10:15	Presentation: UJDigispace and Open Access
	11:00	Open Discussion
	11:15	Demonstration of UJDigispace
	11:30	Closing
SWC: Conference Hall
22 October 2009	10:00	Welcome/Exhibition
	10:15	Presentation: UJDigispace and Open Access
	11:00	Open Discussion
	11:15	Demonstration of UJDigispace
	11:30	Closing
APK: Library, 3rd floor Auditorium
23 October 2009	10:00	Review and Closing