Open access institutional repositories in universities in East Africa

Kakai, Miriam; Musoke, Maria G. N.; Okello-Obura, Constant

doi:10.1108/ils-07-2018-0066

Cited by 16 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…Several challenges hinder the establishment of institutional repositories in Kenyan universities. These include lack of open access policies necessary for guiding researchers on sharing their work, lack of awareness of open access institutional repositories, and lack of government and funder mandates (Kakai et al, 2018 ).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Open Science in Kenya: Where Are We?

Mwangi

Mainye²,

Ouso

et al. 2021

Front. Res. Metr. Anal.

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According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Open Science is the movement to make scientific research and data accessible to all. It has great potential for advancing science. At its core, it includes (but is not limited to) open access, open data, and open research. Some of the associated advantages are promoting collaboration, sharing and reproducibility in research, and preventing the reinvention of the wheel, thus saving resources. As research becomes more globalized and its output grows exponentially, especially in data, the need for open scientific research practices is more evident — the future of modern science. This has resulted in a concerted global interest in open science uptake. Even so, barriers still exist. The formal training curriculum in most, if not all, universities in Kenya does not equip students with the knowledge and tools to subsequently practice open science in their research. Therefore, to work openly and collaboratively, there is a need for awareness and training in the use of open science tools. These have been neglected, especially in most developing countries, and remain barriers to the cause. Moreover, there is scanty research on the state of affairs regarding the practice and/or adoption of open science. Thus, we developed, through the OpenScienceKE framework, a model to narrow the gap. A sensitize-train-hack-collaborate model was applied in Nairobi, the economic and administrative capital of Kenya. Using the model, we sensitized through seminars, trained on the use of tools through workshops, applied the skills learned in training through hackathons to collaboratively answer the question on the state of open science in Kenya. While the former parts of the model had 20–50 participants, the latter part mainly involved participants with a bioinformatics background, leveraging their advanced computational skills. This model resulted in an open resource that researchers can use to publish as open access cost-effectively. Moreover, we observed a growing interest in open science practices in Kenya through literature search and data mining and that lack of awareness and skills may still hinder the adoption and practice of open science. Furthermore, at the time of the analyses, we surprisingly found that out of the 20,069 papers downloaded from BioRXiv, only 18 had Kenyan authors, a majority of which are international (16) collaborations. This may suggest poor uptake of the use of preprints among Kenyan researchers. The findings in this study highlight the state of open science in Kenya and challenges facing its adoption and practice while bringing forth possible areas for primary consideration in the campaign toward open science. It also proposes a model (sensitize-train-hack-collaborate model) that may be adopted by researchers, funders and other proponents of open science to address some of the challenges faced in promoting its adoption in Kenya.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Open Science in Kenya: Where Are We?

Mwangi

Mainye²,

Ouso

et al. 2021

Front. Res. Metr. Anal.

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“…Similarly, there has been concerted effort by members of the Kenya Library Information Services Consortium (KLISC) in promoting the use of e-resources, particularly through institutional repositories. Indeed, studies by Chilimo (2015), Moseti (2016), Ratanya (2017) and Kakai et al (2018) demonstrate that there is growing ICT literacy amongst academic library users in Kenya and East Africa in general. This explains why many academic library users are proficient in using electronic sources of data.…”

Section: Rdm Literacy Levelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Research data management literacy amongst lecturers at Strathmore University, Kenya

Adika

Kwanya

2020

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PurposeThe purpose of this study was to analyse the skills required by lecturers to be able to support research data management effectively; assess the research data management literacy levels amongst lecturers at Strathmore University; and suggest how research data management capacity can be strengthened to mitigate the knowledge gaps identified.Design/methodology/approachThis study was conducted as a mixed methods research. Explanatory sequential mixed methods approach was used to collect, analyse and interpret quantitative and qualitative data from lecturers at Strathmore University in Nairobi, Kenya. Quantitative data was collected using questionnaires while qualitative data was collected through focus group discussions. Quantitative data was analysed using SPSS while qualitative data was analysed thematically.FindingsThe findings of this study indicate varied levels of research data management literacy amongst lecturers at Strathmore University. Lecturers understand the need of having literacy skills in managing research data. They also participate in data creation, collection, processing, validation, dissemination, sharing and archiving. This is a clear indication of good research data management. However, the study also revealed gaps in research data management skills amongst the lecturers in areas such as sharing of research data on open access journals, data legislation and securing research data.Research limitations/implicationsThe study has been conducted in one university in Kenya. However, the findings have been contextualised in the global landscape through suitable references.Practical implicationsThe findings of this study may be used to attract the attention of lecturers and librarians to research data management. The findings may also be used to develop institutional policies on research data management at Strathmore University and beyond. The suggested ways of research data capacity strengthening can be adopted or adapted by other universities to enhance research data management.Originality/valueThis is an original study.

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“…It is one of the reasons that persuade the researchers to contribute to the repositories (Serrano-Vicente et al, 2016). Kakai et al (2018) observed that East African IRs lack the mandates and it negatively affects the content growth. In India, an open access mandate was possessed by a few institutions (Arunachalam and Mathan, 2011) and the lack of policies was one of the major threats faced by the Indian IRs (Babu et al, 2012).…”

Section: Review Of Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Institutional repositories in South India: an exploratory study

Shajitha

Majeed

2021

GKMC

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Purpose The purpose of this study is to evaluate the institutional repositories (IRs) in South India in terms of policy and procedures, technology, content and contributors, promotion and assessment and personnel. Design/methodology/approach A voluntary survey was conducted to assess IRs in South India. The questionnaire was designed according to the study framework, which comprises 64 indicators across five areas: policy and procedures, technology, content and contributors, promotion and assessment and personnel. Furthermore, all of the 23 IRs identified were monitored over one year period (from February 2018 to January 2019) to analyse the content growth. Findings The Research Archive of Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad was found to provide more services to users than other South Indian IRs and it was the sole IR to embed a metadata field for author identification. Almost all the IRs were actively engaged in promotion and assessment activities. IR performance in the technology area was substandard in comparison with performance in the policy and procedures and promotion and assessment areas. For all South Indian IRs, content growth was low. Originality/value Very few in-depth studies have evaluated South Indian IRs across all five of the areas listed above and in recent years, no such comprehensive study has been conducted in India at all.

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Open access institutional repositories in universities in East Africa

Cited by 16 publications

References 34 publications

Open Science in Kenya: Where Are We?

Open Science in Kenya: Where Are We?

Research data management literacy amongst lecturers at Strathmore University, Kenya

Institutional repositories in South India: an exploratory study

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