Access to information has no boundaries: Stellenbosch University engaging Open Access to information

Editor's Notes

• #6: Strategic objectives Strategic objective of Vice Rector Research Leave a scientific footprint in Africa Action plans associated with this strategic objective 􀂾Supporting, developing and contributing to high-level scholarly publication output and sharing research data and results with the rest of the world, especially with researchers from the developing world 􀂾Establishing a Central Open Access fund to support and facilitate the University’s Open Access mandate 􀂾Establishing an e-Repository Research system (for primary data, research output, Open Access publication based content, digitized special collections, and rich media content types) to ingest, preserve and disseminate the intellectual output of the institution 􀂾Organising an African Conference on Open Access and Scholarly Communication The University has positioned itself as a builder of hope by aligning its core activities with the following development themes from the international Millennium Development Goals: Eradicating poverty and related condition Promoting human dignity and health Promoting democracy and human rights Promoting peace and security Promoting a sustainable environment and a competitive industry
• #7: Comments by Lor (2007) Aptly describes the path followed by academic and research institutions in developing repositories. States that: an old tradition, a new technology and a new role have converged to make possible an unprecedented public good. The old tradition is the willingness of scientists and scholars to publish their research in scholarly journals without payment, for the sake of inquiry and knowledge. The new technology is the internet. And, the new role is that of the librarian as the publisher of the scholarly information for public good.
• #9: Implementation of strategy 􀂾Growth of the repository into SUNScholar 􀂾Exploitation of technology 􀂾Cataloguers creating expert metadata 􀂾Use of cell phone technology and satellite television technology 􀂾BioMed Central 􀂾Berlin 10 Conference
• #10: Strategic objective of library: Support, develop and contribute to high-level scholarly publication output Full text central digital research repository of the University of Stellenbosch Dspace open source software 907 instances Provide open access where possible Digitally preserve research output
• #16: BioMed Central is committed to providing immediate and barrier-free access to all the research they publish. We work with many institutes around the world that advocate open access to their intellectual output and help them to make the most of an integrated OA policy, involving both open access publishing and policies encouraging or mandating open access deposit. Repositories are now rapidly gaining pace as institutes start to feel the benefits that they bring, although many organizations find populating their repositories a challenge. BioMed Central's Automated Article-Deposit helps institutes populate their repositories remotely with the SWORD (Simple Web-service Offering Repository Deposit) protocol. What is SWORD?The SWORD vision is 'lowering the barriers to deposit'. BioMed Central's Automated Article-Deposit is a standard protocol for transferring complete article content (including PDFs, additional files, and article metadata) from one repository to another. How does BioMed Central's Automated Article-Deposit work?As soon as the official final version of an article is published in a BioMed Central journal, we will automatically populate the author's institutional repository with the published article. (Articles are transferred on a nightly basis.) Automated Article-Deposit feeds are offered as standard, at no additional charge to: BioMed Central MembersOpen Repository Enhanced Customers Automated Article-Deposit feeds are also available as a separately-chargeable service to non-Members - please contact our institutional sales team for more information. Effortless ~ Reliable ~ Flexible ~ Cost-effective Open Repository is available in two editions, Standard and Enhanced, offering different levels of service depending on the needs of your organisation.  Standard: Complete set-up within 3 months Standards-based Open Source technology platform: DSpace Nightly back-up of all data files Technical support Training materials for users and administrators Content is organised in a hierarchical manner Multiple ways to browse and search the content All data entries can use the full uniform character set Any file format can be submitted Interface customization options RSS feeds and email alerts for new submissions Enhanced: The Enhanced edition includes all of the above Standard features plus: Batch uploading of content to pre-populate repository for customers Automatic conversion of proprietary file formats to PDF and other formats, e.g. html Institutional authentication integration Datafeeds to automatically populate repository with new open access articles' metadata from your organization
• #17: That sounds correct – you should also have received another dozen or so articles this afternoon. I’m glad the deliveries are coming through fine, I will continue to trawl our historical archive for Stellenbosch authored articles until I have reached year zero! Will let you know once the whole process is complete. Automated delivery will now be up and running, so the next time an article by one of your researchers is published with us, you will receive it automatically.   Our database will have recorded successful delivery for the articles we have previously reported as being delivered, but following a clean up of that data I will also be able to arrange delivery of historical articles that have been published with us.   I’ll speak to our developers tomorrow and see when we can arrange it.
• #18: “Thank you very much for staging this great event. I watched the whole session and think it can be a best practice for other organizations contemplating signing the Berlin Declaration. Thanks again to you and all who helped organizing this event!” – Christoph Bruch, Head of Open Access, Max Planck Digital Library (MPDL) (Berlin) “Congratulations on all the achievements and excellent presentation of the event.” – Rima Kupryte, Director: eIFL.net (25/10/2010) “Congratulations to Stellenbosch University for signing the The Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities.” – Prof Pierre de Villiers, AOSIS (22/10/2010) “Good News for world research and open source accessible education which must be use to implement activities to improve comprehensive community and social progressive advancement in the spirit of ubuntu.” – Khuluma, YouTube “Finally! We are heading in the right direction:) This is a huge milestone for the continent . I expect the transaction cost of acquiring information to be reduced significantly. Shuttleworth for Ministry of Science and Technology. Forget Ms Pandor! The future is right here. Now:).” – daHumbleOne, YouTube “Open strategy steers profound collaborations in the research sciences through information technology for future institutional and communities progressive social advancement via both Open Access and Open Source.” – mandysauls1, YouTube “What an excellent idea. Sharing information, whether on a small project with colleagues or on a massive scale such as this, is a vital requirement for success for both the individual/organization sharing and the whole team. For SU to be adopting this great trait, greater success is headed their way and more and more collaborative opportunities will be created to better the country, the continent and the world as a whole. Well done SU!” – Masike Malatji “This is a big step for South Africa and Maties are leading the way in this regard.” – David Duarte (social media expert for the show), Good Hope FM Jane H Smith & Peter Millington, SHERPA Services, Centre for Research Communications, University of Nottingham: “We just received this praise for your repository.” “Just a heartfelt word of thanks for this product.  In local government you have to share knowledge and continuously search for best practise and insight that can better service delivery. Access to SUNScholar is one of the best things to happen in this respect. Thank you.” - A. Vorster
• #23: “Thank you very much for staging this great event. I watched the whole session and think it can be a best practice for other organizations contemplating signing the Berlin Declaration. Thanks again to you and all who helped organizing this event!” – Christoph Bruch, Head of Open Access, Max Planck Digital Library (MPDL) (Berlin) “Congratulations on all the achievements and excellent presentation of the event.” – Rima Kupryte, Director: eIFL.net (25/10/2010) “Congratulations to Stellenbosch University for signing the The Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities.” – Prof Pierre de Villiers, AOSIS (22/10/2010) “Good News for world research and open source accessible education which must be use to implement activities to improve comprehensive community and social progressive advancement in the spirit of ubuntu.” – Khuluma, YouTube “Finally! We are heading in the right direction:) This is a huge milestone for the continent . I expect the transaction cost of acquiring information to be reduced significantly. Shuttleworth for Ministry of Science and Technology. Forget Ms Pandor! The future is right here. Now:).” – daHumbleOne, YouTube “Open strategy steers profound collaborations in the research sciences through information technology for future institutional and communities progressive social advancement via both Open Access and Open Source.” – mandysauls1, YouTube “What an excellent idea. Sharing information, whether on a small project with colleagues or on a massive scale such as this, is a vital requirement for success for both the individual/organization sharing and the whole team. For SU to be adopting this great trait, greater success is headed their way and more and more collaborative opportunities will be created to better the country, the continent and the world as a whole. Well done SU!” – Masike Malatji “This is a big step for South Africa and Maties are leading the way in this regard.” – David Duarte (social media expert for the show), Good Hope FM Jane H Smith & Peter Millington, SHERPA Services, Centre for Research Communications, University of Nottingham: “We just received this praise for your repository.” “Just a heartfelt word of thanks for this product.  In local government you have to share knowledge and continuously search for best practise and insight that can better service delivery. Access to SUNScholar is one of the best things to happen in this respect. Thank you.” - A. Vorster