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Access Tools And Services To Open Access: DOAR, ROAR, SHERPA-RoMEO,

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 Informatics Studies. ISSN 2320 – 530X. Vol. 4, Issue 3
Third Quarterly Issue. July – September, 2017. P 05-20

Access Tools and Services to Open Access:

DOAR, ROAR, SHERPA-ROMEO, SPARC and DOAJ
Helen Nneka Okpala

Abstract
The paper presents the concept and background of Open Access (OA) as well as its benefits.
Librarians as information gatekeepers are enjoined to register in the advocacy of OA in a bid to
promote scholarly communication and also aid in the building up of institutional repositories.
Self Archiving (Green Access) and Open Access Journals (Gold Access) as proposed by the
Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) are discussed. Describes selected access tools and services
to Open Access to explain the topic. Concludes by describing the influence of Open Access
movement among information service professionals in Nigeria, and the raising awareness among
scholars about self-archiving and Open Access journals.
Keywords: Open Access, Green Access, Golden Access, self-archiving, BOAI, OAI-PMH, Z39.50,
Nigeria.

Introduction digital in nature (e-prints). Why are Open

Access works only digital? This question was
In universities today, we talk of Open Access thrown by Suber (2013) which he answered
to documents of research not just for people by stating that ‘after the creation of the first
to peruse and see the local contents of the digital copy of a work, the cost of creating
university but also for image boosting of additional copies and distributing them on
the university. This entails that such the Internet is marginal. This contrasts with
documents can be viewed by virtually paper-based publishing, which not only
anybody that finds his or her way to the entails meaningful paper-copy production
institution’s repository. Repositories exist for costs, but also physical storage and
the main purpose of unleashing the distribution costs. As noted by Bailey (2006),
indigenous contents of a particular Open Access works are scholarly works -
institution. These contents are the ones romance novels, popular magazines, self-
produced within the confines of the help books, and the like are excluded. Most
university especially by the researchers in the universities are now aiming to provide Open
particular university. There is a strategic link Access to their local contents via institutional
between institutional repositories and Open repositories, which typically utilize free open
Access resources because institutional source software, such as DSpace, EPrints, or
repositories are one of the strategies through Fedora, but may be externally hosted by
which self-archiving is achieved and these vendors for designed fees. Institutional
repositories house theses, dissertations, term repository staff may offer a range of services,
papers and other scholarly works which are such as document deposit, metadata creation,

Informatics Studies 4(3), July-September, 2017 5

 Access Tools and Services to Open Access

repository promotion, training, and user where librarians called ‘research consultants’
support. This means, there is need for are compelled to visit Open Access sites and
establishment of repositories in download journals and other e-resources in
institutions, but the question is: How many preparation for NUC accreditation exercises.
universities in Nigeria have keyed into this Serials crisis referred here, is a situation
development? The OpenDOAR has listed whereby universities are not able to afford
some universities in Nigeria that provide subscriptions to certain journals and the like.
Open Access to their contents. They are: Therefore, the available resources made open
Ahmadu Bello University, Covenant on the Internet are downloaded, printed and
University, Federal University of Technology bound together by the binders in the library.
Akure (Institutional Repository), University This is not just intended for the university
of Nigeria Nsukka (Open Repository), and to scale through accreditation exercises, but
University of Jos (Institutional Repository). for users to consult such downloaded
resources for their research and this boils
Repositories adhere to an internationally down to the reason behind Open Access.
agreed set of technical standards that means As universities and libraries seek alternative
that they expose the metadata (the publishing models to reduce costs and protect
bibliographic details such as author names, authors’ rights as much as possible, Open
institutional affiliation, and date, titles of Access is considered a feasible system that
the article, abstract and so forth) of each item enables archiving and distribution of
in their contents on the Web in the same scholarly works with minimal or no cost to
basic way. In other words, they are universities, libraries, or readers (Wong,
‘interoperable’. This common protocol to 2009).
which they all adhere is called the Open
Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata There is a rapidly expanding stock of scientific
Harvesting (OAI-PMH). According to Giarlo knowledge. Yet access to this pool of
(2005), the OAI-PMH works in much the knowledge is often difficult because of the
same way that Z39.50 does, enabling a relatively high cost of scholarly journal, and
common set of functions to be accessed via their printed and web -based versions.
a standard protocol. The great benefit of Another vital issue is that removing access
OAI-PMH is the ability to harvest records barriers will accelerate research, enrich
from numerous providers (e.g., Open Access education and share learning. There is
journals, institutional repositories, etc.), and therefore a critical need to make research
aggregate them under a single search. The results available to as many academics and
contents of all repositories are then indexed elite class as possible free of charge. Because
by Web search engines such as Google and of this need, concerned institutions and
Google Scholar, creating online Open Access organizations feel challenged. One of such
databases of freely-available global research. initiatives, which has been undertaken to
As the level of self-archiving (the process by demonstrate that scientific knowledge need
which authors deposit their work in not be published in forms that make access
repositories) grows, the Open Access corpus expensive, is the Budapest (Okoye and
will represent an increasingly large proportion Ejikeme, 2011).
of the scholarly literature. What is Open Access?
Many libraries in Nigeria suffer from what is Tenopir (2004) states that Open Access:
called ‘serials crisis’, and this singular reason ‘includes many publication and distribution
has made them gun for Open Access schemes. E-journals that are published,
materials to augment their collections. This distributed electronically, and subsidized by
is practical in University of Nigeria, Nsukka universities, government agencies, and

6 Informatics Studies 4(3), July-September, 2017

 Helen Nneka Okpala

volunteer organizations are the most The Budapest (Budapest Open Access
common. In addition, collections of separate Initiative, 2002) (BOAI) definition of Open
articles or research reports could fit the Access explains that scholarship is made
definition, including e-print servers such as widely available, but that authors’ rights must
[Link], institutional repositories, and be recognized:
author web pages.’ (Tenopir, 2004) By ‘Open Access’ to literature reporting
‘Framing the Issue,’ published by the research results, we mean its free availability
Association of Research Libraries (ARL, on the public internet, permitting any users
2004) outlines some issues relating to Open to read, download, copy, distribute, print,
Access. It addresses questions such as: search, or link to the full texts of these articles,
crawl them for indexing, pass them as data
• Why is access to information important? to software, or use them for any lawful
• What obstacles limit access? purpose, without financial, legal, or technical
barriers other than those inseparable from
• What is Open Access? gaining access to the internet itself. The only
Access to information is important because constraint on reproduction and distribution,
society benefits from the open exchange of and the only role for copyright in this
ideas. Access to copyrighted materials domain, should be to give authors control
inspires creativity and facilitates research over the integrity of their work and the right
development in academic disciplines. There to be properly acknowledged and cited (Bailey,
are troubling economic trends in scholarly 2007).
publishing; the increasing cost of The Bethesda and Berlin statements say that
subscriptions, the emphasis on licensing of for a work to be Open Access, users must be
access instead of purchasing physical copies, able to ‘copy, use, distribute, transmit and
and mergers and acquisitions resulting in display the work publicly and to make and
price increases and monopolies. Additionally, distribute derivative works, in any digital
various legal and legislative issues constitute medium for any responsible purpose, subject
obstacles that limit access. ARL claims that to proper attribution of authorship.’ These
Open Access is a cost-effective way to are referred to as the BBB definition by Suber
disseminate information and facilitate (2013). Wong (2009) went further to state
academic research. Open Access is consistent that the three definitions listed have
with the legal framework of copyright and similarities and differences in wording and
can include peer-review to ensure the quality focus. Open Access has as its goal the
of scholarship (ARL, 2004). democratization of information access, but
Open Access is an on-going discourse among is also fully compatible with scholarly
practices such as peer review, citation, and
scholars, researchers, and libraries. For the
intellectual property (Lind and Williams,
Open Access movement, the Budapest
2013).
(February 2002), Bethesda (June 2003), and
Berlin (October 2003) definitions of ‘Open The Bethesda Statement builds upon the
Access’ are the most central. In December BOAI, but how does it differ from it? The
2001, the Open Society Institute convened a BOAI does not indicate how copyright
meeting of prominent scholarly owners will operationalize the Open Access
communication change agents in Budapest concept. Aside from being able to access it
that strongly influenced the nascent Open freely, how will users know that a specific
Access movement. The result of this work is an ‘Open Access’ work? By contrast,
meeting was the Budapest Open Access the Bethesda Statement specifies that
Initiative (BOAI) (Bailey, 2006). copyright owners will grant users certain

Informatics Studies 4(3), July-September, 2017 7

 Access Tools and Services to Open Access

rights under licenses, and these rights shall Internet are: (1) authors’ personal Websites,
be ‘free, irrevocable, worldwide, perpetual.’ (2) disciplinary archives, (3) institutional-unit
A license is a contract, with terms and archives, or (4) institutional repositories. But
conditions that describe permitted uses. As authors at times find it difficult to do self-
such, it supercedes users’ copyright rights if archiving due to some apprehensions about
it specifies terms and conditions that negate publishers’ policies. This is why SHERPA-
them. One such right under the Bethesda RoMEO is existing - to offer list of publisher
Statement, which the BOAI doesn’t specify, permissions policies with respect to self-
is the right to make derivative works. For archiving.
example, a work could be translated into
Open Access Journals (Gold OA)
another language without requiring
permission (Bailey, 2006). These are journals that are freely available to
scholars online for downloads and use.
To achieve Open Access to scholarly journal
According to Suber (2013) as cited in
literature, BOAI (2002) recommend two
complementary strategies. Wikipedia (2013b), Open Access journals are
scholarly journals that are available online to
Self Archiving (Green OA) the reader ‘without financial, legal, or technical
First, scholars need the tools and assistance barriers other than those inseparable from
to deposit their refereed journal articles in gaining access to the Internet itself.’ Some
open electronic archives, a practice commonly are subsidized, and some require payment
called, self-archiving. When these archives on behalf of the author. Second, scholars
conform to standards created by the Open need the means to launch a new generation
Archives Initiative, then search engines and of journals committed to Open Access, and
other tools can treat the separate archives as to help existing journals that elect to make
one. Users then need not know which the transition to Open Access. Because
archives exist or where they are located in journal articles should be disseminated as
order to find and make use of their contents. widely as possible, these new journals will
When authors make their articles freely no longer invoke copyright to restrict access
available in digital form on the Internet, they to and use of the material they publish.
are said to be ‘self-archiving’ them. These Instead they will use copyright and other
articles can be either ‘preprints’ or ‘post tools to ensure permanent Open Access to
prints.’ Preprints are draft versions of articles all the articles they publish. Because price is a
that have not undergone peer review or barrier to access, these new journals will not
editorial review and modification. Most charge subscription or access fees, and will
preprints are intended for submission to turn to other methods for covering their
journals, but some are not. Post prints are expenses. There are many alternative sources
the final published versions of articles. They of funds for this purpose, including the
can either be the publisher’s version of the foundations and governments that fund
article or an updated preprint that the author research, the universities and laboratories that
creates to reflect any changes made during employ researchers, endowments set up by
the peer review and editorial processes. discipline or institution, friends of the cause
(BOAI, FAQ). There are different forms of of Open Access, profits from the sale of
Open Access archives, including institutional add-ons to the basic texts, funds freed up by
repositories and subject or disciplinary the demise or cancellation of journals
repositories (Morrison, 2006). Self-archiving charging traditional subscription or access
has some strategies in itself, as identified by fees, or even contributions from the
Bailey who stated that ‘the most common researchers themselves. There is no need to
ways that e-prints are made available on the favor one of these solutions over the others

8 Informatics Studies 4(3), July-September, 2017

 Helen Nneka Okpala

for all disciplines or nations, and no need to markets for services related to curation,
stop looking for other, creative alternatives. preservation, analysis, and visualization.
Policies that mobilize these publications and
Suber characterizes the core concept of Open
data for re-use through preservation and
Access this way: Open Access removes price
broader public access also maximize the
barriers (e.g., subscription fees) and
impact and accountability of the Federal
permission barriers (e.g., copyright and
research investment. These policies will
licensing restrictions) to royalty-free literature
accelerate scientific breakthroughs and
(i.e., scholarly works created for free by
innovation, promote entrepreneurship, and
authors), making them available with
enhance economic growth and job creation.’
minimal use restrictions (e.g., author
attribution). To the author, Open Access is very beneficial
not only by making their works visible, but
Open Access has the following characteristics by increasing the authors’ prestige. This in
as given by Jain (2012): agreement with CASLIN (2009)’s statement
• It is free availability of scholarly that ‘Open Access generates more citations
publication. and thus contributes to status and prestige
• It is free of copyright and licensing of the author which in turn benefits their
restrictions career and the granting of their research
proposals’.
• Materials are available online or on the
Internet. The Open Access Movement: Roles of
• Material is full text. Professionals
• Material can be accessed by anybody from Open Access is especially important for
anywhere without any discrimination. research and academic libraries since all
academic institutions are research-intensive
• Material can be freely used by anyone.
and a library’s main mandate is to support
• Open Access contents can be in any the teaching, learning and research activities
format from texts and data to software, of their parent institutions. All three activities
audio, video, and multi-media, scholarly are research-based (Jain, 2012). While the
articles and their preprints. growth of Open Access presents a number
Benefits of Open Access of challenging hurdles to academic libraries,
there are a number of notable benefits that
Open Access is beneficial to a many as listed it offers as well. Moreover, it seems clear that
by Jain (2012) which include: teaching staff this is no longer a subject to be read about
and students, authors, readers, society, and debated; Open Access has arrived and is
journals and publishers, funding agencies, being rapidly adopted (Giarlo, 2005). Gedye
governments, citizens, libraries, universities (2004) claimed that in an Open Access era, ‘a
and nations. Open Access also accelerates new role for librarians needs to be discussed,
research, enriches education, and shares defined, and promoted’ in order to better
learning across rich and poor nations (Bhat, apply their research and instruction expertise
2010). to facilitate and instruct their users in accessing
Lind and Williams (2013), asking the and evaluating the quality of Open Access
question: ‘Why Open Access?’ made the articles. Some of the roles played by libraries
following citation from the Executive Office and librarians in regard to the Open Access
of the President of the United States: movement are as follows:
‘...Wider availability of peer-reviewed Libraries as Publishers
publications and scientific data in digital This creates room for libraries to manage
formats will create innovative economic their own electronic journals and

Informatics Studies 4(3), July-September, 2017 9

 Access Tools and Services to Open Access

institutional repositories. One of the key ensuring that the computer facilities and
goals of the institutional repository, simply software are compatible with Open Access
stated, is to capture the intellectual output materials. Open Access also requires policy
of an institution and make it available via a and procedure changes, in order to
single interface, so that one no longer needs accommodate the additional collections of
to scour disparate faculty and graduate institutional repositories and Open Access
student websites in order to find their journals. Subject specialists, bibliographers,
research. A single point of access, search, and and cataloging librarians need to establish
organization of scholarly materials within guidelines to perform quality control and
the institution would be of value to the regular catalog maintenance on these titles
communities served by academic libraries, (Wong, 2009).
and there are certainly other values of
Librarians as OA Promoters
institutional repositories. One such value is
digital preservation, as ‘libraries are in a better Morrison (2004) is of the view that
position than individual academics to professional library associations should rise
guarantee that the collection is systematically to the challenge of promoting OA.
available even after decades’ (Björk, 2004).
Open Access Repositories
Librarians as Educators
Ideally, a repository is a place or container
Librarians all over the world have become where anything could be kept for safekeeping.
advocates of Open Access. It has been But whenever ‘repository’ is mentioned,
observed that when authors self-archive their ‘books’ come to mind, especially where
works, it lessens the burden on librarians. librarians are concerned. A library could be
Hence, the need to educate researchers in likened to a repository where books are
universities on Open Access and its place in stored for safekeeping and easy reference.
research - how authors can put up their works More recently, a repository is usually
not only for the world to see, but to boost associated with digital contents due to the
their careers as this will encourage scholarly advent of the Internet. Ideally, a repository
communication. When another author cites ought to be a storehouse of archival contents
an author’s work, it goes a long way in career whereas a digital repository is where digital
promotion. At times, collaboration between content and assets are stored and can be
such authors is birthed. That is why it is searched and retrieved for later use (Hayes,
important for authors to leave their contact 2005). With the advent of the Open Access
(especially e-mails) on their articles so as to Initiative (OAI), the advocates never really
enable communication from other authors, differentiated between these two terms;
which can give rise to writing or sharing ideas rather, it is assumed that repositories are
together, which is same as collaboration. digital in nature. So, when a repository is
Many librarians have been vocal and active mentioned, ‘digital repository’ comes to
advocates of Open Access. These librarians mind. Recently, higher institutions are
believe that Open Access promises to remove fighting so hard to push their contents up
both the price barriers and the permission and make them accessible by researchers and
barriers that undermine library efforts to scholars all over the world. This is in a bid to
provide access to the journal literature (Suber, break the barrier of digital divide whereby
2013). ubiquitous access to digital documents
thrives. A study by Stanger and McGregor
Librarians as OA Guideline
(2006) revealed that an institutional
Establishers
repository could have a positive impact on
There will also be some technological the visibility and accessibility to an
challenges; there are access issues when institution’s intellectual output.

10 Informatics Studies 4(3), July-September, 2017

 Helen Nneka Okpala

Open Access Tools Science Direct; more non-embargoed, peer-

reviewed journals in DOAJ than in EBSCO’s
Access tools are pointers to information
Academic Search Premiere or Gale’s OneFile.
obtained in databases and repositories. ‘Lib
Full Open Access means no journals are
111 Glossary on Information Technology,
embargoed, and articles are available for use,
Internet and Library Terms’ defines access
a significant strength of DOAJ. The DOAJ
tools as bibliography, catalog, database, or
vetting process involves querying journal
other information source, which leads us to
editors to ensure that peer-review or
information on our topic. An access tool
equivalent quality controls are in place and
helps a researcher, student or librarian gain
that journals meet the criterion of true Open
access to relevant documents located on the
Access as per the Budapest Open Access
web. Some of the Open Access tools as
Initiative definition. To be included in DOAJ,
discussed in this paper are: DOAJ, DOAR,
a journal must have an ISSN. Journals
ROAR, SHERPA-ROMEO, and SPARC.
included in DOAJ go through a periodic
The Directory of Open Access Journals review process to ensure that the journal
(DOAJ) continues to meet the criteria for inclusion
DOAJ: The Directory of Open Access (Morrison, 2007).
Journals ([Link] is a The aim of the DOAJ is to increase the
website that lists Open Access journals and visibility and ease of use of Open Access
is maintained by Infrastructure Services for scientific and scholarly journals, thereby
Open Access (IS4OA). Until January 2013, promoting their increased usage and impact.
the DOAJ was maintained by Lund The DOAJ aims to be comprehensive and
University. The project defines Open Access cover all Open Access scientific and scholarly
journals as scientific and scholarly journals journals that use a quality control system to
that meet high quality standards by exercising guarantee the content. In short, the DOAJ
peer review or editorial quality control and aims to be the one stop shop for users of
‘use a funding model that does not charge Open Access journals.
readers or their institutions for access.’ The
Selection Criteria
Budapest Open Access Initiative’s definition
of Open Access is used to define required Coverage:
rights given to users, for the journal to be
• Subject: All scientific and scholarly
included in the DOAJ, as the rights to ‘read,
subjects are covered
download, copy, distribute, print, search, or
link to the full texts of these articles’. Open • Types of resource: Scientific and scholarly
Access journals are defined by DOAJ as periodicals that publish research or
‘journals that use a funding model that does review papers in full text.
not charge readers or their institutions for • Acceptable sources: Academic,
access’ (Wikipedia, 2013a). government, commercial, non-profit
Critical Evaluation private sources are all acceptable.
DOAJ is the most recognized and most • Level: The target group for included
authoritative list of scholarly, peer-reviewed, journals should primarily be researchers.
fully Open Access journals. More than 10 • Content: A substantive part of the
percent of the world’s peer-reviewed journals journal should consist of research
are now included in DOAJ, making DOAJ papers. All content should be available
among the world’s largest collections of peer- in full text.
reviewed scholarly journals, period. There are
more peer-reviewed journals in DOAJ than • All languages

Informatics Studies 4(3), July-September, 2017 11

 Access Tools and Services to Open Access

Access:
• All content freely available.
• Registration: Free user registration
online is acceptable.
• Open Access without delay (e.g. no
embargo period).
DOAJ Services Figure 2: Advanced Search Interface
DOAJ offers the ‘Search’ and ‘Browse’ quality-controlled list of repositories. As well
interfaces, which offer users opportunity to as providing a simple repository list,
gain access to all the journals available in the OpenDOAR lets you search for repositories
directory. See Figure 1. or search repository contents. OpenDOAR
is one of the SHERPA Services including
RoMEO and JULIET, run by the Centre for
Research Communications (CRC).
OpenDOAR has also been identified as a
key resource for the Open Access community
and identified as the leader in repository
directories in a study by Johns Hopkins
University. OpenDOAR was one of the
services, which contributed to SHERPA
Figure 1: DOAJ Search Interface being awarded the 2007 SPARC Europe
Award for Outstanding Achievements in
This ‘search’ interface is a service that enables Scholarly Communications.
researchers search the directory by journals Oliver and Swain (2006) conducted a research
or articles by typing a desired title or subject. on ‘Directories of Institutional Repositories:
This is similar to a library user who visits the Research Results & Recommendations’ and
library for research, needing a material came to a finding that ‘ the University of
without knowing the author or name of the Nottingham’s OpenDOAR, stands out as
book or journal he/she is looking for. the leader among the directories identified,
Therefore, the user consults the access tool particularly for the purposes envisioned at
(catalog) using either the subject or title the Section’s 2005 business meeting. It is
catalog, especially when the author is international in scope. Subject coverage is
unknown. There is also the ‘advanced search’ noted and it is possible to browse and
option whereby journals can be searched for retrieve repositories with health and
using either the title, ISSN, author, keyword, bioscience content’. A directory such as
abstract, publisher (See Figure 2). OpenDOAR makes it easier to identify and
The Directory of Open Access mine the individual repositories.
Repositories (OpenDOAR) DOAR Services
OpenDOAR is an authoritative directory of The website of DOAR is: [Link].
academic Open Access repositories. Each org and therein are listed as a submenu, the
OpenDOAR repository has been visited by services offered by the directory such as:
project staff to check the information that is Search for repositories, Search repository
recorded here. This in-depth approach does contents, List of repositories, Repository
not rely on automated analysis and gives a Statistics (See Figure 1).

12 Informatics Studies 4(3), July-September, 2017

 Helen Nneka Okpala

(a) Search for Repositories: This platform (c) List of Repositories: This showcases the
enables you to search for the existing list of repositories by countries and
repositories using either of the search query organizations. See Figure 6.
fields such as: ‘any subject area’, ‘any content
(d) Repository Statistics: This offers the data
type’, ‘any repository type’, ‘any country’, ‘any
of the OpenDOAR charts worldwide. See
language’, ‘any software’, etc. (See Figure 3).
figures 7 and 8.

Figure 3: Home Page of DOAR

Figure 6: List of repositories

Figure 4: ‘Search’ Interface of DOAR

Figure 7: OpenDOAR Charts - Worldwide

Figure 5: Search Repository Contents

(b). Search Repository Contents: This service, Figure 8: Proportion of Repositories by

based on the Google Custom Search engine, Continent - Worldwide
lets you search the contents of the
repositories listed in OpenDOAR for freely DOAR’s Strengths.
available academic research information. This
quality assured approach minimises (but • It is user-friendly
does not eliminate!) spurious or junk results, • It offers Open Access to over 2200
and leads more directly to useful and relevant listings
information. Full texts are available for most
results ([Link] • It gives a quality-controlled list of
php). See Figure 5. repositories.

Informatics Studies 4(3), July-September, 2017 13

 Access Tools and Services to Open Access

Scholarly Publishing and Academic promote changes to both the infrastructure

Resources Coalition (SPARC) and culture needed to make ‘open’ the default
mode in scholarly communication. SPARC’s
SPARC(r), the Scholarly Publishing and
Academic Resources Coalition, (URL: http:/ activities are centered on the following broad
/[Link] ) is an international issue areas:
alliance of academic and research libraries Open Access to Scholarly and Scientific
working to create a more open system of Research Articles: SPARC supports the
scholarly communication. SPARC was immediate, barrier-free online availability of
developed by the Association of Research scholarly and scientific research articles,
Libraries in 1998 and believes that faster and coupled with the rights to reuse these articles
wider sharing of the outputs of the scholarly fully in the digital environment, and supports
research process increases the impact of practices and policies that enable this.
research, fuels the advancement of
knowledge, and increases the return on Open Data: SPARC recognizes that the
research investments. SPARC focuses on conduct of scientific and scholarly research is
taking action in collaboration with increasingly digital, and that its advancement
stakeholders - including authors, publishers, is predicated on being able to access,
and libraries - to build on the unprecedented comment on, build upon and reuse data.
opportunities created by the networked SPARC supports practices and policies that
digital environment to advance the conduct promote broad, Open Accessibility and utility
of scholarship. SPARC Europe was of scholarly and scientific research data.
established with LIBER in 2001 (Wikipedia, Open Educational Resources (OER):
2013c). SPARC believes that Open Education makes
As a catalyst for action, SPARC’s pragmatic the link between teaching, learning and the
agenda focuses on supporting the emergence collaborative culture of the Internet. SPARC
of new scholarly communication models supports the open creation and sharing of
that expand the dissemination of scholarly materials used in teaching, as well as new
research and reduce financial pressures on approaches to learning where people create
libraries and create a more open system of and shape knowledge openly together, and
scholarly communications. supports practices and policies to advance
this vision.
SPARC’s Strategy
SPARC’s role in stimulating change focuses
Reducing barriers to the access, sharing, and
on the following:
use of scholarship and their highest priority
is in advancing the understanding and • Educating stakeholders about challenges
implementation of policies and practices that in the scholarly communication system
ensure Open Access to scholarly research and the opportunities for change;
outputs. SPARC’s primary focus is on
• Advocating for policy changes that
journal literature, but their evolving strategy
reflects an increasing focus on Open Access leverage technology to advance scholarly
to research outputs of all kinds - including communication and that explicitly
digital data and open educational resources recognize that dissemination is an
(OER). essential, inseparable component of the
research process;
What Does SPARC Do?
• Incubating demonstrations of business
SPARC’s activities will advance acceptance and and publishing models that leverage
long-term sustainability of an open system openness for the benefit of scholarship
for scholarly communication. SPARC will and academe.

14 Informatics Studies 4(3), July-September, 2017

 Helen Nneka Okpala

SPARC has two partner organizations, open educational resources are likewise
SPARC Europe and SPARC Japan and today, handled.
membership numbers nearly 800
Advocacy: Here the ‘support the FASTR
institutions in North America, Europe,
act’, ‘national and state policies’, ‘campus
Japan, China, and Australia. SPARC also is
policies’ and one can get involved in this
actively affiliated with major library, academic
advocacy, are unleashed.
and advocacy organizations through our
active coalition work. In summary, SPARC Initiatives: To advance its vision of a more
raises awareness and advocates for Open open system of scholarly communication,
Access. SPARC is committed to producing SPARC supports an evolving suite of
resources to promote the establishment, use, initiatives designed to drive meaningful
and improvement of open digital change across our main issue areas. SPARC’s
repositories. Digital repositories have been a initiatives are designed around three main
central theme in many of the events that goals:
SPARC hosts for its members and the • Educating stakeholders about challenges
community. In 2008 and again in 2010, in the scholarly communication system
SPARC convened the SPARC Digital and the opportunities for change;
Repositories Conference in Baltimore,
Maryland to advance the potential of open • Advocating for policy changes that
online repositories to expand the leverage technology to advance scholarly
dissemination of scholarship and transform communication;
scholarly communication. The broader issue • Incubating demonstrations of business
of Open Access itself took center stage at and publishing models that leverage
the 2012 SPARC Open Access Meeting in openness for the benefit of scholarship
Kansas City, Kansas; however, repositories and academe.
remained at the heart of discussions
throughout the conference. See Figure 9 for SPARC currently supports active initiatives
the SPARC home page. in the following areas: advocacy, article-level
metrics, author rights, campus-based
publishing, campus Open Access funds,
digital repositories, right to repositories, and
right to research coalition.
News: The SPARC blog, newsletters, etc are
embodied here.
Resources: Resources can be searched here.
See Figure 10:

Figure 9: SPARC Home Page Memberships: SPARC’s over 200 North

American members represent seven
Canadian provinces as well as 45 of the
SPARC Services United States and the District of Columbia.
Issues: On Open Access, open data, open The membership includes several
educational resources: Here, SPARC defines institutions from outside North America
Open Access, the reasons for Open Access, and affiliate memberships of six major
how Open Access works, why one should library associations. In addition to SPARC’s
care about Open Access, how one can learn close ties to its sister organizations SPARC
more about Open Access and also get Europe and SPARC Japan, this broad and
involved in Open Access. Open data and comprehensive representation from libraries

Informatics Studies 4(3), July-September, 2017 15

 Access Tools and Services to Open Access

ROAR Services
Account Creation: ROAR offers
opportunity for individuals to create an
account for their institution’s repository in
order to submit records to the registry.
Browse Facility: Repositories can be
browsed by either by country, year, repository
type, or repository software. See Figure 12.

Figure 10: SPARC Resources Page

helps reinforce the coalition’s international

focus. New members may choose to join
with full, consortia, supporting, affiliate,
international supporting, or European
status. To view current members, visit: http:/ Figure 12: ROAR ‘Browse’ Interface
/[Link]/membership/current-
members. Search Facility: See Figure 13:
Registry of Open Access Repositories
(ROAR)
The aim of ROAR is to promote the
development of Open Access by providing
timely information about the growth and
status of repositories throughout the world.
Open Access to research maximizes research
access and thereby also research impact,
making research more productive and Figure 13: ROAR Search Facility
effective. ROAR is hosted at the University
of Southampton, UK and is made possible
by funding from the JISC. ROAR is part of SHERPA-RoMEO
the [Link] network. See Figure R for The original SHERPA partnership was
ROAR homepage: (Website: http:// formed for the SHERPA project (2002-2006)
[Link]/) and drew from research-led universities with
an active interest in establishing an example
of a then-new concept - an Open Access
institutional repository. (Website: http://
[Link]/)
SHERPA is investigating issues in the future
of scholarly communication. It is developing
Open Access institutional repositories in
universities to facilitate the rapid and efficient
worldwide dissemination of research.
Figure 11: ROAR Home Page SHERPA ser vices and the SHERPA

16 Informatics Studies 4(3), July-September, 2017

 Helen Nneka Okpala

Partnership are both based at the Centre for copyright policies and self-archiving can be
Research Communications at the University looked up. The title, ISSN, publisher, etc of
of Nottingham. SHERPA services include: a particular journal can be used as a key term
to search for the archiving policy. When
• RoMEO - Publisher’s copyright &
reading a SHERPA RoMEO record or the
archiving policies
publisher’s policy, pay particular attention to
• JULIET - Research funder’s archiving the version of the paper you may self-archive
mandates and guidelines and any embargo periods you are expected
• OpenDOAR worldwide Directory of to adhere to. On this page, the keys to the
Open Access Repositories archiving policy can be viewed too. See
Figures 14 and 15.
• SHERPA Search - Simple full-text search
of UK repositories
RoMEO-(Publishers’ Copyright and
Archiving Policies) Website: (http://
[Link]. uk/ romeo/)
RoMEO is part of SHERPA Services based
at the University of Nottingham. RoMEO
is a searchable database of publisher’s policies
regarding the self- archiving of journal Figure 14: SHERPA-RoMEO Search
articles on the web and in Open Access Interface.)
repositories. If an academic author wants to
put their research articles on-line, they are
faced with an increasingly complex situation.
Evidence shows that citations to articles
made openly accessible in this way are taken
up and cited more often than research that is
simply published in journals. Also some
funding agencies require Open Access
archiving for their research, to increase the
use of the information generated. However,
Figure 15: Publishers’ Policy. Source:
some publishers prohibit authors from using University of Ottawa).
their own articles in this way. Others allow it,
but only under certain conditions, while
Browse Romeo Journals: All the journals
others are quite happy for authors to show
in RoMEO can be browsed here. See Figure
their work in this way. Authors can be left
16:
confused: RoMEO helps to clarify the
situation. RoMEO contains publishers’
general policies on self-archiving of journal
articles and certain conference series. Each
entry provides a summary of the publisher’s
policy, including what version of an article
can be deposited, where it can be deposited,
and any conditions that are attached to that
deposit. RoMEO Services are as follows:
Search Options and Publishers’ Policy: Figure 16: Browse RoMEO journals
This offers a platform where publishers’ interface)

Informatics Studies 4(3), July-September, 2017 17

 Access Tools and Services to Open Access

List of Publishers: (See Figure 17).

Figure 20: Publishers Permitting Self

Figure 17: RoMEO List of Publishers Archiving
Interface)

Suggest to RoMEO: Here, one is of their papers. And 70% of publishers on

encouraged to suggest publishers to be SHERPA-RoMEO list formally allow some
included in RoMEO. See interface at Figure form of self-archiving, with a total of 2339
18: publishers as at November 2016. See Figure
19 and 20:
Conclusion
Open Access and institutional repositories
is here to stay. Librarians and academicians
need to embrace this trend and get involved
in self-archiving and sending the publications
to Open Access journals. There is also need
for advocating this trend by librarians,
Figure 18: Publisher Suggestion Interface
following the pace set by the coalition
agencies like SPARC. This is a stepping-stone
to greater heights in the library field. We talk
Statistics of Publishers
of information societies and knowledge
SHERPA-RoMEO provides the statistics of societies, so we have to delve into it too.
registered publishers per time. For example, Open Access and institutional repositories
as of November 2016, 80% of the publishers help in breaking the digital divide whereby a
registered in the SHERPA RoMEO publisher more people gain access to scholarly
policy index endorse self-archiving by authors publications. Scholarly communication is
of the preprint and/or post print versions paramount in this era and self-archiving is
needed to establish good scholarly
communication among authors around the
world. Librarians should rise up and advocate
for authors to visit all the institutional
repositories and dump their works there.
They are not there in vain but for utilization.
Submission of articles to Open Access
journals is also necessary to attain this goal.
This is no new call to librarians. It is also
recalled that a knowledge-sharing event,
which was co-organized by the Department
Figure 19: Growth of Sherpa /Romeo of Library and Information Science at
Database Ahmadu Bello University, [Link] and the

18 Informatics Studies 4(3), July-September, 2017

 Helen Nneka Okpala

Nigerian University Libraries Consortium must be obtained. The copyright holder,

(NULIB) in 2008, issued a Communiqué normally the publisher, must give
after the workshop, which endorsed the permission to self-archive. Many publishers
Open Access model and made a set of now include these permissions in their
recommendations for government and copyright transfer agreements (CTAs),
stakeholders. In addition to formulating licenses to publish (LTP) and on their
policies for implementing and sustaining website.
open institutional repositories, participants
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