UNN Open Access Week Radio Programme

You can now listen to the University of Nigeria Open Access Group Radio Programme.  by clicking HERE!

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Successful Open Access Event at University of Nigeria, Nsukka

 It was really great to host the very first Open Access Week at University of Nigeria, Nsukka which was on 24th October, 2017. The event was organised by a group of Open Access Advocates ranging from Librarians, Pharmacists, Scientists and other lecturers who think that scholarship has come to a point where research data and related resources should be globally visible. The event was well attended and the Vice Chancellor, Prof. B. C. Ozumba declared the event open. 

There was a radio talk show by the University Librarian - Prof. Chinwe Ezeani and two other members of the Open Access Group - Dr. Mrs N. Ekere and Dr. Ubaka C. The topics were on Open Access and Institutional Repositories, Open Education and Open Science. 

After the radio programme which was at 9:am, the workshop kicked off at 11am. The event commenced with video clips on Open Access which were played to participants, after which Dr. Ifeanyi Ezema spoke on Open Access Publishing and and the future of Scholarship in Africa. The second presentation was on Open Science and this was done by Dr. Ubaka, a Clinical Pharmacy lecturer. Dr. Mrs Ekere who is a Reference Librarian at University of Nigeria, spoke on Open Education.

There were lots of on-session social media activities. Participants tweeted about the event using the following hashtags and mentions: 

#openaccess #openaccessng #INASPInfo #OAWeek #OAWeekUNN #OAWeek17

@openaccessunn @open_access @open_con @libraryunn @openaccessng

See more pictures of the event below: 

Presentation by Dr. J. I.

Dr. J. I. Ezema, making the first presentation on 

The University Librarian and Deputy University Librarian

Professor C. O. Omekwu and Mrs N. Uzoagba from Enugu Campus

The Vice Chancellor, Prof. Benjamin C. Ozumba, declaring the event open

Open Access Group, UNN

The University Librarian - Prof. C. N. Ezeani, making a remark

Dr. Mrs Nkechi Idoko, asking a question

Dr. M. O. Okoye (Deputy University Librarian)

Deputy University Librarian, Mr. Vincent Ekwelem and Mrs I. J. Ibegbulam of Enugu campus

Prof. Ezeani and Dr. Mrs Okore

Dr. Mrs Osadebe and Mrs Ify Obim of Library School, UNN. 

Dr. J. .I Ezema, presenting.

Cross section of participants

Registration Point

Participants

Mr. Tochukwu Nwankwo of UNN Library.

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OPEN ACCESS WEEK, UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA NSUKKA

Click HERE  to Register for the event!

You are invited to the first-of its-kind 'Open Access Week' to be held in University of Nigeria, Nsukka on 24th October, 2017. The Theme of the event is "Open in Order to Increase Visibility in Teaching and Research". The event is being organised by a group of Open Access Advocates in UNN to mark the International Open Access Week which is a global, community-driven week of action to open up access to research. The event is celebrated by individuals, institutions and organizations across the world.  

Event  Breakdown

Date: Tuesday 24th October, 2017

Venue: MTN Digital Library, Nnamdi Azikiwe Library, UNN

Time: 9:00am- 9:30am -Radio Call-in Programme at Lion FM    

         11:00am - 1:00pm  - Workshop at MTN Digital Library

Please Note: 

* The official hashtag of Open Access Week is #OAweek. 

* The UNN Open Access Week event hashtag is: #OAweekUNN 

* You are invited to use the hashtag #OpenInOrderTo to start an online conversation about the benefits of an open system of communicating scholarship.

*UNN Open_Con Satellite event comes up in November (Details to be announced during OA Week event)

To register for the event, click here to  fill the short online form

(https://goo.gl/forms/ TEDZ4Q5bsMkk7c9l2)

*Attendance is not restricted to the number of online registrants. 

To learn more about the UNN Open Access Group, visit our blog: www.openaccessunn.blogspot.com

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UNN Open Access Group meets with the Vice-Chancellor

UNN Open Access Group meets with the Vice Chancellor, Prof. B. C. Ozumba

The UNN Open Access Group deemed it fit to meet with the Vice Chancellor, Professor B. C. Ozumba on 25th September, 2017. The meeting was intended to brief him about the vision, mission and objectives of the group. It was a fruitful time as the Vice Chancellor embraced the idea of the group wanting to create awareness to the University Community ranging from scholars and postgraduate students, about Open Access and its components.

The events for the year (Open Access Week and Open Con) were unleashed by the group and the Vice Chancellor was glad to have such events held in the University.

The group is grateful to the Vice Chancellor, for his warm welcome and support to the group.

View more pictures of the visit below:

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Open Access Week 2017, University of Nigeria, Nsukka

Do you wish to learn about unrestricted access and unrestricted re-use of research publications, data, software, etc? University of Nigeria Open Access Group holds her 2017 Open Access Week on 24th October, 2017. All Scholars, researchers and Postgraduate Students are invited to participate. 

Ready to Attend? Fill out the RSVP form: Open Access Week Online Form

Visit our Blog to learn more>>>

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Open Access Institutional Repository - UNN

 University of Nigeria, Nsukka has launched her Institutional Repository also known as UNNSPACE. According to their University Library blog post of June 14, 2017, "he Repository has been upgraded from 3.0 to 6.04, and running on Ubuntu Linux which has also been upgraded from 12.0 to 16.04 LTS.  Right now, University of Nigeria has the latest DSpace-powered Institutional Repository in Nigeria"

For details on this, visit the Library Blog. 

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Open Mind to Open Access - By Helen N. Okpala

On March 18 2017, Helen N. Okpala, wrote: 

"What informs the title of this post is my feeling that open access has to do with openness of the mind where people enjoy sharing information, hoping for it to be used, re-shared and re-used. It is true that publishers have to make money especially after investing so much to come out with a 300-page document or thereabout and so, would need to close-up content, granting access with pay. But then a better truth is that a closed book is a closed generation. With an open mind, we all can achieve Open Access by publishers seeking for grants for instance, to publish their books and journals; authors paying for their articles to be open, even when the journal is closed access. Open Access materials are easily downloaded and cited. It has been found that ‘Open access (OA) to the research literature has the potential to accelerate recognition and dissemination of research findings’ (Eysenbach, 2006) . Paul Jump wrote an article which was published in Times Higher Education (THE)  . The article reads: “Open Access papers gain more traffic and citations’. In 2015, the Cybermetrics Lab commenced with the Webometrics Ranking of Institutions based on Scholarly Publications and Google Scholar is the platform for the ranking. The University of Nigeria, Nsukkahas consecutively come out tops in Nigeria, being number one. The Institutional Repository which is the University LibraryProject, runs on DSpace which is an Open Source software. Materials deposited on Dspace are automatically indexed by Google Scholar.

Looking up the statistics of the University staff publications uploaded on Dspace, I could only find fourteen [14] records which comes under Library Staff Publications. Imagine where all the publications of staff of the University are uploaded on the Repository, how much accessible they would be and also, prone to be indexed by Google Scholar. This will tremendously add to the visibility of the staff and University.

No doubt, most lecturers have an uneasy state of mind due to copyright issues, but then there is need for an open mind due to the provision of the Publisher’s website, a.k.a. Sherpa Romeo. This website xrays vividly, Publisher’s copyright & archiving policies.  As contained in one of the documents which I articulated for a University Committee meeting which held recently:

‘Authors should not sign away their copyright to a publisher, but even if they do, it may be possible to upload a version of their paper to the repository (two thirds of publishers allow some form of ‘self-archiving’). Authors can visit the Sherpa RoMEO website for enlightenment: http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo

***Sherpa RoMEO is referred to as the Publisher’s Website. This website permits authors to view the publishers’ policies and permissions. If an author is confused about depositing his article in a repository, Sherpa Romeo will give guide via the keys provided. Some publishers permit archiving only pre-print of articles, etc. There is what is called ‘Romeo Colours’. If the journal in question is green, it then means the author can archive pre-print and post-print of the article published in the journal’.

For the purpose of emphasis, Matt Todd from the University of Sydney wrote:

“It’s so exciting to see gains being made and to demonstrate to people how much more productive and efficient research can be if you are open.”*

*[https://sparcopen.org/impact-story/open-source-malaria-consortium/]

As found on SPARC website, ‘there is a Consortium called  The Open Source Malaria Consortium which invites scientists to freely share their research on anti-malaria drugs through a transparent, online platform. The hope is to accelerate discovery of new drug candidates to be entered into pre-clinical development. All data and ideas are shared openly. There are no patents.

It has resulted that since its launch, the Open Source Malaria Consortium has attracted more than a hundred contributors who post their drug discovery and development findings, discuss their work, and build on each other’s ideas for potential cures. The project serves as a repository of projects so researchers can see what molecules have and have not proven promising. All information is machine discoverable so others can locate the work and reuse the data (https://sparcopen.org/impact-story/open-source-malaria-consortium/).

To read more about Open Access, please GOOGLE it! (I hope that helps?)

You can also read this article from my ‘Free Information’ Blog: www.frib.info"

Helen Okpala is a member of Open Access Nigeria.
Visit helen's Blog at: www.helenokpala.com

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'Open up to open access!' campaign

 'Open up to open access' is a campaign that kicked off on 15th May, 2017. . The goal is to inform researchers about open access and its possibilities for their research. It has become extremely simple to make publications freely accessible.

For details click here

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Welcome to Open Access Nigeria, University of Nigeria Nsukka Blog

Hello People! We are the members of the Open Access Nigeria, University of Nigeria Nsukka Chapter.

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