Academic libraries in four Sub-Saharan Africa countries and their role in propagating open science

Abstract

The study aims at examining libraries in four Sub-Saharan Africa countries and their role in propagating open science. It also seeks to explore existing open science practices, ascertain the level of participation of academic libraries in open science activities, identify the strategies used in marketing open science platforms and enumerate the challenges hindering the success of open science in the selected countries. The study was guided by the qualitative school of thought where the researcher builds a complex, holistic picture, analyses words, and reports detailed views of informants, and conducts the study in a natural setting. The study employed the multiple case study research design approach to assess how academic libraries in Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda promote open science. The findings show that there are few scholarly journals which exist in open access for most African academies in Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda. Though not massively adopted, open access institutional repositories have been used to preserve and publicize the digital contents in some academic institutions in Africa such as theses, dissertations, administrative and heritage materials, conference proceedings as well as pre-prints and post-print of journal articles. The study recommends the intensification of open science advocacy in academic libraries in Sub-Saharan Africa; institutions should ensure that there is a stable electricity supply as well as reliable internet connectivity, introducing regular training on emerging media technologies to the community members and strengthening the libraries consortium in Sub-Saharan Africa as an enabling platform to share intellectual productivity of their member countries.

Research Librarians' Experiences of Research Data Management Activities at an Academic Library in a Developing Country

“…Research data access, sharing and reuse permit the development of new knowledge through building on previous research, discoveries and open scientific enquiry. Siyao, Whong, Martin-Yeboah, and Namamonde (2017) aver that it is an effective vehicle of information exchange and a way of maximizing on discoverable data as users explore diverse lines of inquiry, and more resourcefully conduct comprehensive research. Consequently, the study investigated the access, sharing and reusing of data at the UON Library.…”

Institutional repositories in Africa: Regaining direction

“…Several universities have already developed their open-access policies (Kakai, Musoke, and Okello-Obura, 2018). Now, hope of open access scholarly communication for knowledge sharing rests with COTUL (Mgonzo and Yonah, 2014; Siyao et al, 2017).…”

“…Currently, seven out of the 12 journals listed on the AJOL platform from Uganda are on open access. Over 24 public and private universities and research organizations adopted campus-based, faculty-driven open access policies in Uganda through the Consortium of Ugandan University Libraries, (CUUL) (Siyao et al, 2017).…”

“…Currently, Ghana has 15 open-access journal titles out of the 27 journals listed on the AJOL database (AJOL, 2019), 5 institutional repositories registered with OpenDOAR, and 37 institutions have joined the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries (CARLI) for the smooth implementation of open access in Ghana. Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) was the first institution to install an institutional repository in 2009, followed by the University of Cape Coast (UCC) and the University of Ghana (UG) (Lamptey and Corletey, 2011; Siyao et al, 2017). The misconception that open access is not credible, lack of IT experts and copyright issues seriously defeat several efforts of implementing open access services in Ghana (Bossaller and Atiso, 2015).…”

Ciencia abierta y bibliotecas académicas: una revisión sistemática de la literatura

“…Su desarrollo se realizó mediante una revisión sistemática de la literatura, teniendo en cuenta los diferentes parámetros que desde el Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions (HIGGINS;GREEN, 2011) son mencionados, y las recomendaciones que Salvador-Oliván, Marco-Cuenca y Arquero-Avilés (2018) indican, en este reciente trabajo, sobre revisiones sistemáticas desde nuestra área del conocimiento.…”