Group items tagged

Publishing has transited from traditional to Electronic format making information resources available to users without much subscription. E-publishing is engendered by the introduction of information and communication technology (ICT), this development has brought about increase in the number of scholarly communication in circulation. The awareness and rate of e-publishing differs among faculties, it based on this that this study was carried out to survey the situation of e-publishing and open access of librarians in three federal universities in Southern Nigeria, five research questions were formulated to guide the study. The methodology adopted is descriptive survey, questionnaire was given to a total population of 64 librarians consisting of librarians from the institutions understudy, the data collected from the study shows that though librarians are aware of e-publishing but they have not being publishing as should have been expected in University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN) out of the 95% that aware of electronic publishing only 30% have published there articles electronically, in University of Lagos (UNILAG) 100% indicated that they have published electronically while in University of Benin (UNIBEN) 45.4% percent indicated yes while 54.5% said they have not published their articles electronically. On availability of open access it was discovered that they have access as a total of 84% from UNN responded Yes, UNILAG 100% said Yes while in UNIBEN 90.9%. The following problems based on their scoring militating against e-publishing and open access in Nigeria. Inadequate power supply; inadequate computer terminals; inadequate funding for subscription payment.

The different approach needed to market traditional educational resources and OER

Thank you for sharing. The article highlight a real-life problem. I am sure in my country many faculty members and librarians of higher educational establishment are not aware of OER and therefore they prefer safe and sure textbooks. Librarians should be first to explore, understand and market this type of resources. At the same time time may be needed in order to change educational policy and choice of textbooks.

This is an interesting article in the Guardian reporting on Harvard's move against rising prices of journal publications. It calls for Faculty to make their research freely available.

Well worth reading. It also mentioned a model of how publication of the article could be paid for: "Open access comes in various guises, but one model requires authors to pay to have their articles published and made freely available to anyone." In the academic world, research /grant monies would allow authors to build the cost of publishing into their research/grant applications.

Very interesting article. Especially because it relates to Harvard who (alongside with Stanford) is an opinion leader among universities. Other universities watch Harvard (and Stanford) and it is highly likely that these two universities are able to influence the trend.

This report addresses four main questions: * How can sustainable cost/benefit models for OER initiatives be developed? * What are the intellectual property rights issues linked to OER initiatives? * What are the incentives and barriers for universities and faculty staff to deliver their materials to OER initiatives? * How can access and usefulness for the users of OER initiatives be improved? This is part of an OECD series of reports looking at the impact of Open Knowledge on education systems and learning

Hi Matt, Thanks for sharing this OECD report from the year 2007. The OECD is really forward looking. One sentence strikes me: "Wikipedia has two employees and well over a million articles in multiple languages." Yes, that was true, back in the year 2007.

A very interesting paper that discusses issues around OER, as well as some topics already covered in the course is, "Giving Knowledge for Free: The Emergence of Open Educational Resources" (Centre for Educational Research and Innovation, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). The paper highlights some of the barriers, sustainability issues, and how to improve access and usefulness of open educational resources. I found the paper very comprehensive, with many additional resources. While published in 2007, when conversations around OER were fairly new, many of the points they raise are still in discussion and relevant.