The UP celebrations at 12:30 in the Conference Centre will focus op open access journals.
Open Access Journals Demystified – a talk by Prof Pierre de Villiers, editor of South African Family Practice and CEO of Open Journals Publishing

• Launching of Accredited OA journals(SA)
• Two editors of open access journals will share their experiences
• Signing of the publication agreement for Verbum et Ecclesia between UP and AOSIS.

OPEN ACCESS — the principle that research should be accessible online, for free, immediately after publication — is improving the way scholarly information is shared. This has enormous advantages for EVERYONE:

1. Open Access improves the visibility and impact of research.
2. Open Access enables immediate and free access to all the literature needed for research.
3. Open Access enables researchers to have more control over how their publications are used.

The university has shown its commitment to open access by adopting policy to make submission of theses, dissertations and research articles compulsory (http://www.library.up.ac.za/openup/mandates.htm) and by research leaders openly voicing their support:

Prof Robin M Crewe, Vice-Principal: Research and Postgraduate Studies

"The opportunity to pursue scholarly activities in a free and unfettered manner is crucial to the development of knowledge based societies. One means of achieving this is through open access to scholarly material, particularly for scholars from poorly resourced developing countries. In addition, OA can make the work of scholars from these countries more widely accessible in both the developed and developing worlds. "

Prof Venitha Pillay, Associate Professor : Department of Education Management and Policy Studies

“Open access opens up vistas of knowledge at the click of a button, it saves trees, it saves time, it saves money, it takes knowledge out of the ivory tower and puts it in the hands of anyone who chooses to use it!”

Prof Theo JD Bothma, Head: Department of Information Science

Open access publishing through interoperable institutional repositories provides researchers with an excellent platform to showcase their research publications to the world. Exchange of research information is greatly enhanced and this may have a huge impact on especially the developing world. Open access publishing therefore requires that publishers, researchers and readers carefully rethink current scholarly publishing models

Prof Phil J Botha, Department of Ancient Languages

“Significant advances in knowledge can only be attained if researchers have immediate access to almost everything that has been published on a particular subject, especially the most recent contributions. Open Access is a quantum leap towards attaining this goal.”

Mr Dhesigen Naidoo Director: Department of Research and Development Support

“Open access is key to a more universal dissemination of research products to a range of audiences and stakeholders. It has huge potential for a wider and quicker uptake of new knowledge to better inform policy, develop and activate solutions for community development to eradicate poverty, to entrepreneurs to develop smarter products and services to create new and enhance existing industrial platforms to create sustainable livelihoods and improve our competitiveness. Open access is a key empowerment tool.”

Prof Alan Brent, Graduate School of Technology Management

“Researchers in developing countries face many challenges; one being the availability of (financial) resources to gain access to information. The consequence is the potential limitation on the research work that can be undertaken in these countries. Open Access addresses this challenge directly and levels the platform for researchers from all countries to collaborate meaningfully.”