Thursday, July 12, 2007

Scholarly Publishing Initiatives at the International Rice Research Institute: Linking Users to Public Goods via Open Access
















Presented at

PKP Scholarly Publishing Conference

11-13 July, 2007

Vancouver, BC

Canada

by:

Albert Borrero, Mila Ramos, Gene Hettel, Sylvia Katherine Lopez

The presenter (Katherine Lopez) discussed one of the important mandates of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), which is linking users to public good (knowledge on rice research) via open access. IRRI has five strategic goals for the next nine years (2007-2015). The fourth goal is to provide users with practical access to research results on rice.

IRRI produces a huge volume of research on rice which needs to be made available to the public. IRRI is working with partners (e.g., National Agricultural Research and Extension Systems-NARES) to make this research available to users. The Communication and Publications Services (CPS), the Library and Documentation Services (LDS), and the Training Center (TC) are all working together to reach that goal. For example, CPS has published about 1000 book titles (equivalent to about 100,000 publications pages) and 1000 images, the LDS generates metadata, and TC uses its strong partnership with NARES in capacity building using electronic delivery through the Rice Knowledge Bank.

Currently, some full-text publications are available via the IRRI website (www.irri.org), the library site (http://ricelib.irri.cgiar.org), the Rice Knowledge Bank (www.knowledgebank.irri.org),and publications catalog (www.irri.org/publications/catalog).

The presenter has addressed some of the challenges such as funding, inadequate connectivity, and copyright restrictions.

Some positive development has happened such as the change in copyright in October 2006 from "all rights reserved" to "some rights reserved". This step is a good move in the right direction in bringing information more widely to users. Also, other steps are considered (e.g., additional research in OA, launching an educational campaign on OA, consultation with the staff, launching other OA initiatives such as establishing an institutional repository and publishing an online journal).

For additional information:

Abstract and full text: http://ocs.sfu.ca/pkp2007/viewabstract.php?id=39

Currently, some instruments for open access are already in place at IRRI, such as links to full-text publications posted on:

the institute’s Web site (www.irri.org),

especially via the Library branch site (http://ricelib.irri.cgiar.org),

the Rice Knowledge Bank (www.knowledgebank.irri.org),

and publications catalog (www.irri.org/publications/catalog).

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