Access Tools and Services to Open Access: DOAR, ROAR, SHERPA-ROMEO, SPARC and DOAJ
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Informatics Studies. ISSN 2320 – 530X. Vol. 4, Issue 3 Third Quarterly Issue. July – September, 2017. P 05-20 Access Tools and Services to Open Access: DOAR, ROAR, SHERPA-ROMEO, SPARC and DOAJ Helen Nneka Okpala Abstract The paper presents the concept and background of Open Access (OA) as well as its benefits. Librarians as information gatekeepers are enjoined to register in the advocacy of OA in a bid to promote scholarly communication and also aid in the building up of institutional repositories. Self Archiving (Green Access) and Open Access Journals (Gold Access) as proposed by the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) are discussed. Describes selected access tools and services to Open Access to explain the topic. Concludes by describing the influence of Open Access movement among information service professionals in Nigeria, and the raising awareness among scholars about self-archiving and Open Access journals. Keywords: Open Access, Green Access, Golden Access, self-archiving, BOAI, OAI-PMH, Z39.50, Nigeria. Introduction digital in nature (e-prints). Why are Open Access works only digital? This question was In universities today, we talk of Open Access thrown by Suber (2013) which he answered to documents of research not just for people by stating that ‘after the creation of the first to peruse and see the local contents of the digital copy of a work, the cost of creating university but also for image boosting of additional copies and distributing them on the university. This entails that such the Internet is marginal. This contrasts with documents can be viewed by virtually paper-based publishing, which not only anybody that finds his or her way to the entails meaningful paper-copy production institution’s repository. Repositories exist for costs, but also physical storage and the main purpose of unleashing the distribution costs. As noted by Bailey (2006), indigenous contents of a particular Open Access works are scholarly works - institution. These contents are the ones romance novels, popular magazines, self- produced within the confines of the help books, and the like are excluded. Most university especially by the researchers in the universities are now aiming to provide Open particular university. There is a strategic link Access to their local contents via institutional between institutional repositories and Open repositories, which typically utilize free open Access resources because institutional source software, such as DSpace, EPrints, or repositories are one of the strategies through Fedora, but may be externally hosted by which self-archiving is achieved and these vendors for designed fees. Institutional repositories house theses, dissertations, term repository staff may offer a range of services, papers and other scholarly works which are such as document deposit, metadata creation, Informatics Studies 4(3), July-September, 2017 5 Access Tools and Services to Open Access repository promotion, training, and user where librarians called ‘research consultants’ support. This means, there is need for are compelled to visit Open Access sites and establishment of repositories in download journals and other e-resources in institutions, but the question is: How many preparation for NUC accreditation exercises. universities in Nigeria have keyed into this Serials crisis referred here, is a situation development? The OpenDOAR has listed whereby universities are not able to afford some universities in Nigeria that provide subscriptions to certain journals and the like. Open Access to their contents. They are: Therefore, the available resources made open Ahmadu Bello University, Covenant on the Internet are downloaded, printed and University, Federal University of Technology bound together by the binders in the library. Akure (Institutional Repository), University This is not just intended for the university of Nigeria Nsukka (Open Repository), and to scale through accreditation exercises, but University of Jos (Institutional Repository). for users to consult such downloaded resources for their research and this boils Repositories adhere to an internationally down to the reason behind Open Access. agreed set of technical standards that means As universities and libraries seek alternative that they expose the metadata (the publishing models to reduce costs and protect bibliographic details such as author names, authors’ rights as much as possible, Open institutional affiliation, and date, titles of Access is considered a feasible system that the article, abstract and so forth) of each item enables archiving and distribution of in their contents on the Web in the same scholarly works with minimal or no cost to basic way. In other words, they are universities, libraries, or readers (Wong, ‘interoperable’. This common protocol to 2009). which they all adhere is called the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata There is a rapidly expanding stock of scientific Harvesting (OAI-PMH). According to Giarlo knowledge. Yet access to this pool of (2005), the OAI-PMH works in much the knowledge is often difficult because of the same way that Z39.50 does, enabling a relatively high cost of scholarly journal, and common set of functions to be accessed via their printed and web -based versions. a standard protocol. The great benefit of Another vital issue is that removing access OAI-PMH is the ability to harvest records barriers will accelerate research, enrich from numerous providers (e.g., Open Access education and share learning. There is journals, institutional repositories, etc.), and therefore a critical need to make research aggregate them under a single search. The results available to as many academics and contents of all repositories are then indexed elite class as possible free of charge. Because by Web search engines such as Google and of this need, concerned institutions and Google Scholar, creating online Open Access organizations feel challenged. One of such databases of freely-available global research. initiatives, which has been undertaken to As the level of self-archiving (the process by demonstrate that scientific knowledge need which authors deposit their work in not be published in forms that make access repositories) grows, the Open Access corpus expensive, is the Budapest (Okoye and will represent an increasingly large proportion Ejikeme, 2011). of the scholarly literature. What is Open Access? Many libraries in Nigeria suffer from what is Tenopir (2004) states that Open Access: called ‘serials crisis’, and this singular reason ‘includes many publication and distribution has made them gun for Open Access schemes. E-journals that are published, materials to augment their collections. This distributed electronically, and subsidized by is practical in University of Nigeria, Nsukka universities, government agencies, and 6 Informatics Studies 4(3), July-September, 2017 Helen Nneka Okpala volunteer organizations are the most The Budapest (Budapest Open Access common. In addition, collections of separate Initiative, 2002) (BOAI) definition of Open articles or research reports could fit the Access explains that scholarship is made definition, including e-print servers such as widely available, but that authors’ rights must arXiv.org, institutional repositories, and be recognized: author web pages.’ (Tenopir, 2004) By ‘Open Access’ to literature reporting ‘Framing the Issue,’ published by the research results, we mean its free availability Association of Research Libraries (ARL, on the public internet, permitting any users 2004) outlines some issues relating to Open to read, download, copy, distribute, print, Access. It addresses questions such as: search, or link to the full texts of these articles, • crawl them for indexing, pass them as data Why is access to information important? to software, or use them for any lawful • What obstacles limit access? purpose, without financial, legal, or technical • barriers other than those inseparable from What is Open Access? gaining access to the internet itself. The only Access to information is important because constraint on reproduction and distribution, society benefits from the open exchange of and the only role for copyright in this ideas. Access to copyrighted materials domain, should be to give authors control inspires creativity and facilitates research over the integrity of their work and the right development in academic disciplines. There to be properly acknowledged and cited (Bailey, are troubling economic trends in scholarly 2007). publishing; the increasing cost of The Bethesda and Berlin statements say that subscriptions, the emphasis on licensing of for a work to be Open Access, users must be access instead of purchasing physical copies, able to ‘copy, use, distribute, transmit and and mergers and acquisitions resulting in display the work publicly and to make and price increases and monopolies. Additionally, distribute derivative works, in any digital various legal and legislative issues constitute medium for any responsible purpose, subject obstacles that limit access. ARL claims that to proper attribution of authorship.’ These Open Access is a cost-effective way to are referred to as the BBB definition by Suber disseminate information and facilitate (2013). Wong (2009) went further to state academic research. Open Access is consistent that the three definitions listed have with the legal framework of copyright and similarities and differences in wording and can include peer-review to ensure the quality focus. Open Access has as its goal the of