UAB organises the Open Access Week for scientific articles

The UAB Libraries have organised a communication campaign to inform about open access to scientific production, addressed to researchers, as part of the International Open Access Week, which will be celebrated from 20 to 26 October around the world. Conferences will be held throughout the week at the different libraries.

08/10/2014

The DDD represents the UAB's pledge to the open access movement; one third of its contents is made up of scientific papers, which today is made up of almost 30,000 articles.

Open access to scientific information consists in uploading research production onto the network in an open and free manner as an alternative to the paradigm of paying to have access to information generated by the institutions themselves.

In order to reach this objective, first there is the need to stop the inertia under which researchers follow the traditional model of publishing in which publishing houses condition the access to the article published and retain exploitation rights.

The main objective of the sessions will be to explain how the UAB will be dealing with the adaptation to open access. The sessions aim to help researchers, especially young researchers, adapt to the principles and policies of open access in order to share knowledge in accordance with the different public finance programmes available for research (Plan Nacional, Horizon 2002, etc.)

The following issues will be on debate: What are the options available when publishing in open access journals? What legal framework is applied? What happens to author's rights and exploitation rights? How does it affect researchers when they want to publish? What is the UAB doing about open access options? How, and why, is the Library Services participating?

In 2011, the UAB published a mandate in which it recommended its researchers to publish in Open Access.

Open Access and the Digital Deposit of Documents (DDD)
Open Access at the UAB is inevitably linked to the institution's repository, known as the DDD (Dipòsit Digital de Documents). At the moment, repositories are one of the variables that are taken into account and help position universities in international rankings. The DDD only houses open documents and is the UAB's pledge to the open access movement. A third of its contents is made up of scientific papers, which today consists of almost 30,000 articles.

The total of contents of the DDD gives the UAB visibility as a research institute in internet search engines. Currently, the UAB repository ranks 11th in the Ranking Web of World Repositories, far ahead of many other institutions larger in size, specialisations and resources.

Open Access and the European Commission
According to the European Commission, a system which discloses and allows access to research data and publications can contribute to accelerate scientific progress. The objective of the European Commission is to optimise the impact of publicly funded scientific research, and therefore considers it essential to offer free access to knowledge. The European Commission thus declares that the results of publicly funded research can be disclosed in the broadest and fastest manner, with benefits for researchers, innovative industry sectors and citizens, through open access options.

Open access can also increase the visibility of European research and, in particular, offers small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) access to the latest research projects and enables them to use them. The Commission's strategy is to develop and implement the open access to research results of projects financed by programmes under the EU research framework, i.e., the 7FP and Horizon 2020.

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