The 2020 Open Access Colloquium of the Department of Library Services at the University of Pretoria is an annual event entering its second year. It is an opportunity for the university community to discuss the challenges and potential benefits of Open Access, to reflect and to understand how to transition to Open Access as a new norm in scholarship and research. 

Date: 26 October 2020

Time: 14:00 – 16:00

Venue: Webinar via Blackboard Collaborate

Panelists:

• Dr Peter Suber is a philosopher specialising in the philosophy of law and open access to knowledge. He is a Senior Researcher at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Director of the Harvard Office for Scholarly Communication, and Director of the Harvard Open Access Project (HOAP). Dr Suber has authored various publications, including a book titled Open Access. Read more. 
• Prof Cheikh Mbow is the Director of Future Africa at the University of Pretoria.  Read more. 
• Prof Brenda Wingfield is a Research Leader of the DST - NRF Centre of Excellence in Tree Health Biotechnology and holds the DST/NRF SARChI research chair in Fungal Genomics. Read more. 
• Prof Kuku Voyi is the Chair of the School of Health Systems and Public Health at the University of Pretoria.  Read more. ​ 
• Professor Michael S. Pepper is the Director of the Institute for Cellular and Molecular Medicine, Director of the SAMRC Extramural Unit for Stem Cell Research and Therapy, and a professor in the Department of Immunology in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Pretoria (UP). Read more. 

Moderator: Prof Stephanie Burton (former Vice-Principal for Research and Postgraduate Education)

Enquiries:  Dr Johann van Wyk

Target audience: All University of Pretoria researchers, staff members and students 

Registration: Please click here 

Challenges to be discussed will include: ​

• The development of open access models and policies.
• The concentration of a significant part of scholarly output in the hands of a small but influential group of commercial publishers.
• The possibility of creating a continuum of integrated scholarly information from raw data to peer-reviewed publications.
• The disproportionate levels of library budgets spent on journal subscriptions.
• The cost of open access publication to the individual researcher.
• The need for organisational repositories such as UPSpace.
• The need to understand how OA complies with copyright.
• The need for researchers to maximise the dissemination and impact of their research.
• The need for the public to have access to free, relevant digital research literature.
• Open with purpose: taking action to build structural equity and inclusion.