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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

UFS extends footprint abroad

2015-12-14

In its constant pursuit of research excellence, the UFS has this year performed well in mainly two areas.

Apart from the research done by the UFS on national level, e.g. the involvement of its researchers with the SKA telescope, the pioneering work they do with the satellite tracking of giraffes, as well as research on trauma, forgiveness and reconciliation – to name but a few of the research areas, the university also has a research focus abroad.

Japan, Europe, America and Botswana. These are just some of the places where academics from the university are involved in research abroad.

Japan

Dr Dirk Opperman, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Microbial, Biochemical and Food Biotechnology, and Carmien Tolmie, a PhD student in the same department, visited the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology in Onna, Japan, during November and December 2014. During the visit, experiments were performed in the Microbiology and Biochemistry of Secondary Metabolite Unit of Dr Holger Jenke-Kodama.

This formed part of a larger NRF-funded project on carcinogenic toxins produced in certain Aspergillus fungi. These fungi infect food and feedstuff and are a big concern in developing countries because it may lead to severe economic losses. The research ultimately aims to find inhibitors to block the production of these fungal toxins.

Europe and America

In 2012, an international network was established in the frame of the FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IRSES programme, called hERG-related risk assessment of botanicals (hERGscreen). The South African group included Dr Susan Bonnet and Dr Anke Wilhelm, both from the UFS Department of Chemistry.

Extracts from more than 450 South African plant species have been investigated systematically to assess the potential cardiotoxic risk of commonly consumed botanicals and supplements. The idea of the project, funded by the European Commission, is to identify safety liabilities of botanicals.

Other international partners included the University of Innsbruck, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Biomedical Research Foundation of the Academy of Athens, University of Basel, University of Vienna, University of Florida, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina.

Botswana

A memorandum of understanding was signed between the UFS and Botho University in Botswana in September 2015, which will be valid for three years.

The agreement, includes student and staff exchange programmes, collaborative research, teaching and learning and community engagement activities, sharing of results, and PhD/ MPhil guidance.

Young researchers

Another research focus of the UFS is the development of its young researchers. In 2015, the UFS has delivered 13 Y-rated researchers. Ten of the researchers are from the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences and three from the Faculty of the Humanities. Three of them received an Y1 rating from the NRF.

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