Universities to share research with public
AFRICAN universities have agreed to distribute their theses and dissertations to the public as they aim to provide the widest possible access of researches done by the institutions of higher learning.
Speaking during a Database of African Theses and Dissertations ( DATAD) annual conference held at a Bulawayo hotel on Wednesday, Lupane State University Vice-Chancellor Professor Pardon Kuipa said a university must offer members of the community services that help in the management and dissemination of digital materials created by the institution.
DATAD is a programme that helps to improve management and access to African scholarly work and is made up of African universities. Of the 15 universities in Zimbabwe, 13 attended the conference and also representatives were from Kenya, Ghana, South Africa and Namibia.
Prof Kuipa said theses and dissertations represent a significant proportion of Africa’s research activity.
“In most cases repositories are established to provide Open Access to the institution’s research output. A university repository is a set of services that the university offers members of its community for the management and dissemination of digital materials created by the institution and its community member,” he said.
He said the mindful opportunities availed to institutions by developments in information and communication technologies in information dissemination and exchange, were key to support efforts towards putting Africa’s research output into the mainstream of world knowledge.
“For repositories to provide access to the broader research community, users outside the university must be able to find and retrieve information from it. Institutional repository systems must be able to provide access via multiple engines and other discovery tools.
“This will lower the barrier to repository operation for many institutions as it only requires a file system to hold the content and the ability to create and share metadata with external systems,” said Prof Kuipa.
He said an institution can limit access of particular content to a specific set of uses and these circumstances include copyright restrictions, policies established by a particular research community, monetary access fees for certain data.
Prof Kuipa said, “It will offer widest possible dissemination of scholar’s works. Overlay bulletins and journals can increase the visibility and status of an entire academic department. Open access online articles have appreciably higher citation rates than traditionally published articles.”