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UFS talks Open Access 2020

28 November 2019 | Story Legopheng Maphile | Photo Supplied

The Library and Information Services of the University of the Free State (UFS) and the Central University of Technology,Free State (CUT) jointly hosted an Open Science Colloquium on 19 November 2019. The colloquium was in response to the national and international developments in what is referred to as ‘the Open Access 2020 (OA2020) movement’. This movement calls on all parties involved in scholarly communication to take action to make their scholarly outputs open and freely available to all citizens of the world. It is a move against the current subscription-based model of publication, which has proved to be costly and unsustainable, and which limits access to knowledge to a few, making it unacceptable.

Welcoming more than 200 delegates to the UFS, Ms Betsy Eister, Director: Library and Information Services, referred to OA2020 as a disruption in the publishing arena.

Endorsing the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities

The colloquium comes as an endorsement of the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities that the two universities signed eight years ago. As signatories, the UFS and CUT have committed to the wide and free dissemination of its scholarship by means of open access platforms. This declaration was confirmed by the Rector and Vice-Chancellor, Prof Francis Petersen.

“When the UFS signed the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities in 2011, this university committed itself to the wide and free dissemination of its scholarship by means of open access platforms. At that point, we have already made that commitment to open access platforms.”

Open access vs subscription

Prof Petersen said challenging the current status quo will bring equity into the system, which will “ensure that our younger cohort of researchers and scholars have the ability to freely conduct research, to freely access material, so that we can produce high-quality researchers and scholars for our system”.

Also present was Prof Ahmed Bawa, Chief Executive Officer of Universities South Africa, who echoed Prof Petersen’s message by making a case for management, researchers, libraries and research funders to work together to make OA2020 a reality. “These discussions are very important because it provides us with an opportunity to build international consensus on these things, which is critical in moving forward.”

Prof Ahmed Bawa, Chief Executive Officer of Universities South Africa addressed delegates on the importance of open access.

Mr Glenn Truran, Director of the South African Library and Information Consortium (SANLiC), and Ms Eister addressed the national and local roadmaps, respectively. SANLiC, a consortium that negotiates deals for electronic resource subscriptions on behalf of all 26 public universities and eight research councils, has already started transformative agreement negotiations with international publishing company Taylor and Francis.

The colloquium ended with a declaration signed by members present, hoping that it would be signed by all concerned as a commitment to taking action towards open access. The two universities will ultimately sign the OA2020 Expression of Interest.

• The UFS and CUT Libraries are thankful to Mr Gareth O’Neill and UFS colleagues (Mr Charlie Molepo and Mrs Cornelle Scheltema-Van Wyk), who shared information with the attendees on transformation agreements (also referred to as Plan S) and AmeliCA, respectively. Plan S deals with transformation agreements to be signed with publishers, which are about negotiations with publishers to change from subscription-based to open-access journal publishing models. Mr Molepo and Mrs Scheltema-Van Wyk showcased the open access model that the UFS Library has already implemented, which is what AmeliCA is all about. This involves the publication of nine accredited UFS journals on the Open Journals System platform, which enhance its discoverability and accessibility. It was also a pleasure to listen to Prof Abdon Atangana from the UFS Institute for Groundwater Studies – a classic example of an activist and beneficiary of open access publishing – who was recently named as one of the top-10 cited researchers in the Web of Science, thanks to open access publication.

Betsy Eister, Director: Library and Information Services at the UFS.

News Archive

Inaugural lecture: Prof André Pelser

2004-06-04

Tendencies and changes in the South African population structure in future decades.

Within the next five years South Africa will for the first time in the past century enter a period where the death rate will exceed the birth rate, largely due to the impact of HIV / AIDS.

According to sociologist Prof André Pelser, sociologist at the of the University of the Free State’s (UFS) Department of Sociology, the death rate exceeding the birthrate is only one of three demographic trends which will fundamentally change South Africa’s population structure in the following decades.

He was speaking at the UFS in Bloemfontein during his inaugural lecture as professor this week.

Prof Pelser said that according to some models the South African population will decrease within the next five decades by between 10 and 26 percent.

A second important trend which will impact on the population structure is the progressive ageing of the population.

He said the group above 65 years is the only age category in the South African population which will witness sharp increases in the next few decades.

In the next 50 years, the group younger than 15 years will reflect a decrease of 39% and those older than 65 years in South Africa will increase by approximately 110% in the next two decades.

“The systematic “greying” of the South African population will create the same economic and welfare issues as those with which governments in some more developed countries are already grappling,” said Prof Pelser.

A third trend affecting the South African population structure is the constant decrease in life expectancy.

Life expectancy at birth for the total population is projected to decrease from approximately 62 years at the beginning of the 1990’s to 43 years in 2015-2020, with sharp differences between the various population groups.

These tendencies and changes to the South African population structure have serious implications, he said.

For example, he said, the reduction in life expectancy could compromise national development objectives.

“It is estimated that more than a quarter of the economically active population will be infected with HIV by 2006,” said Prof Pelser.

The increase in the population, in age category 65, will place a financial burden on government and the economically active sector.

“Especially worrying is the fact that ever-increasing proportions of the state budget will be allocated to health and welfare services and this at the expense of other priorities like education, infrastructure, criminal justice system and trade and industry, to name but a few,” he said

“A comprehensive and integrated strategy is thus vitally important in addressing the overarching issues caused by changes in the population structure,” said Prof Pelser.

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