THE STATE OF OPEN ACCESS ADOPTION IN LEGAL SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATION: AN ANALYSIS OF SELECTED OPEN ACCESS RESOURCES

Mousaion ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-100
Author(s):  
Solomon Bopape
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Open Access ◽  
Open Access Publishing ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Free Access ◽  
Access To Information ◽  
Legal Information ◽  
Scholarly Literature ◽  
Open Access Resources ◽  
The Right

The study of law focuses, among other aspects, on important issues relating to equality, fairness and justice in as far as free access to information and knowledgeis concerned. The launching of the Open Access to Law Movement in 1992, the promulgation of the Durham Statement on Open Access to Legal Scholarshipin 2009, and the formation of national and regional Legal Information Institutes (LIIs) should serve as an indication of how well the legal world is committed to freely publishing and distributing legal information and knowledge through the Internet to legal practitioners, legal scholars and the public at large aroundthe world. In order to establish the amount of legal scholarly content which is accessible through open access publishing innovations and initiatives, this studyanalysed the contents of websites for selected open access resources on the Internet internationally and in South Africa. The results of the study showed that there has been a steady developing trend towards the adoption of open access for legal scholarly literature internationally, while in South Africa legal scholarly literature is under the control of commercial publishers. This should be an issue for the legal scholarship which, among its focus, is to impart knowledge about the right of access to information and knowledge.

scholarly journals Applying the Access Principle in Law: The Responsibilities of the Legal Scholar*

2007 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 355-395 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard A. Danner
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Legal Scholar ◽  
Legal Information ◽  
Legal Scholarship ◽  
Scholarly Literature ◽  
Roles And Responsibilities ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Improve Access

This article discusses the responsibilities of legal scholars to make their published works openly accessible through the Internet, within the context of efforts to increase free and open access to legal information, and to improve access to scholarly literature in other disciplines. The article also considers the roles and responsibilities of the institutions that support the creation and communication of legal scholarship for improving access to legal information.

Legal grounds for restricting access to information: a philosophical aspect

2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 64-73
Author(s):  
Oleh M. Omelchuk ◽  
Mariia P. Muzyka ◽  
Mykola O. Stefanchuk ◽  
Iryna P. Storozhuk ◽  
Inna A. Valevska
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Personal Information ◽  
Communication Technologies ◽  
Security And Privacy ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Free Access ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
Access To Information ◽  
Right To Information ◽  
The Right

The rapid spread of the Internet and communication technologies raises the issue of access to information, especially access to information via the Internet. The amount of information on the network is constantly increasing, and at the same time more and more efforts are being made to limit users' access to it to some extent. The more restrictions state bodies create in this area, the more efforts are made to circumvent or violate these prohibitions. Free access to information in a democratic society should be the rule, and restriction of this right – the exception. These restrictions should be clearly defined by law and applied only in cases where legitimate and vital interests, such as national security and privacy, need to be respected. The main purpose of this study is to consider the legal and socio-philosophical aspects of access to information. Restricting access to documents as media has been practiced since ancient times. The study highlights the existing inconsistencies and lags in the implementation of the principles of exercise of the right to information in Ukraine at the level of laws and subordinate legislation. The study classifies information according to the nature of restrictions (exercise) of constitutional rights and freedoms in the information sphere. It was discovered that the legislation of Ukraine does not systematise the list of confidential information in a single regulation in contrast to the Russian Federation and provides the main types of confidential personal information. It was found that restrictions on any freedoms and human rights, including in the information space, can be established with the help of various regulators, the dominant among which are the following levels of implementation: legal (legislative); moral self-consciousness of society; autonomy of the person. Features and spheres of action of regulators of restriction of freedoms and human rights are described. To restrict access to information, various methods are used to protect it from unauthorised receipt, which can be divided into two groups: formal and informal

Open Access Publishing, academic research and scholarly communication

2015 ◽  
Vol 39 (5) ◽  
pp. 637-648 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Osborne
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Open Access Publishing ◽  
Free Access ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Research Councils ◽  
Practical Implications ◽  
Wrong Place

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the difference between Open Access and accessibility, to argue that accessibility is the most crucial feature, and to suggest some ways in which Open Access militates against accessibility. Design/methodology/approach – Analysis of best practice by journals and monograph publishers is used to highlight the degree to which accessibility is enhanced by input from readers and editors. The expense of this, both real and hidden, is shown to be compatible only with difficulty with publishing methods where keeping costs low is essential, and Open Access alternatives that make available manuscripts “as submitted” are shown to make available less accessible scholarship. Findings – Scholarship is markedly improved by referees and editors; the emphasis needs to be put on making available the most accessible scholarship, not on making more scholarship available. Practical implications – Journals and publishers should concentrate on, and research councils and similar bodies insist upon, ensuring high quality critical review and editing, not cost-free access. Originality/value – The debate on Open Access has put its emphasis in the wrong place. Rather than easier access to more scholarship, increased resource devoted to pre-publication review, revision and editing is the most important development to ensure the greatest advances in research and scholarship.

FROM THE EDITOR

2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Henning Melber
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Open Access ◽  
Open Access Journal ◽  
Advisory Board ◽  
Editorial Responsibility ◽  
Strategic Review ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Right ◽  
New Generation

With issue No 1/2013, this journal changed in several respects. Under a new editor-in-chief, the Strategic Review for Southern Africa, then published for 35 years, turned into an open access journal with a redesigned look. But the makeoveraimed at more than merely cosmetic changes. As outlined in the introduction of that issue, the changing context both in South Africa as well as globally, motivated a conceptual re-positioning, that also modified the subject-related thematic framework1).  Since then, thanks to many contributors offering a wide range of topicalanalyses, we hopefully managed to live up to at least some of the expectations created. After five years, it is now time to hand editorial responsibility to a new generation of scholars groomed in the spirit of democratic South Africa. This, therefore, is the last issue for me as the editor-in-chief. While I welcomed the privilege to lead the journal towards implementing a modified agenda, I now welcome the opportunity to move out of the way and pursue other tasks. I thank all those in the editorial group and the advisory board who accompanied and supported me during the last years. I am especially grateful to Maxi Schoeman, who felt I would be the right choice for this task. Special thanks go also to Wilma Martin, without her assistance none of the last eleven issues would have become a reality.

Intellectual Property Challenges in Digital Library Environments

2018 ◽  
pp. 225-240
Author(s):  
James Macharia Tutu
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual Property ◽  
Open Access ◽  
Digital Library ◽  
Digital Libraries ◽  
Digital Content ◽  
Access To Information ◽  
Creative Commons ◽  
Property Owners ◽  
Copyright Ownership ◽  
The Right

Intellectual property poses a major challenge to digital libraries. This is because access to information in digital libraries is limited by laws, licenses and technology adopted by intellectual property owners. Similarly, intellectual property renders it difficult for digital libraries to make orphan works discoverable and accessible. Furthermore, intellectual property fragments copyright ownership, making it difficult for digital libraries to obtain the right clearance on content. To cope with these challenges, digital libraries have embraced the open access movement which allows reading, copying, downloading and sharing of digital content as long as the creators of the works are cited and acknowledged. Besides, digital libraries offer access to digital works produced under creative commons licenses. These licenses give the copyright owners the liberty to modify the copyright of their works to give room for sharing, use, and building upon the work.

Library Management Systems in Legal Libraries

2003 ◽  
Vol 3 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 196-198
Author(s):  
Emma Duffield
Keyword(s):  
Management Systems ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Access To Information ◽  
Legal Information ◽  
Library Management ◽  
Library Automation ◽  
Web Resources ◽  
Library Management System ◽  
Library Catalogue ◽  
Selective Dissemination Of Information

Legal libraries, by their very nature, have highly specialised requirements when it comes to library automation. A traditional library management system, which will simply catalogue books and provide the means to issue them to borrowers for a defined period, will not provide the flexibility required by a modern legal information centre. Serials management, direct links to web resources and the selective dissemination of information are of far more importance to a legal library than whether a loan is overdue. Access to information is crucial – the library catalogue needs to be available to researchers wherever they are, whether sitting at their desks or accessing the data via the internet.

Open access publishing: A developing country view

First Monday ◽  
2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer I. Papin-Ramcharan ◽  
Richard A. Dawe
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Developing Country ◽  
Information And Communication Technologies ◽  
Technical Assistance ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Research Impact ◽  
Open Access Publishing ◽  
Free Access ◽  
Internet Connectivity ◽  
Open Access Journals

This paper presents the experience with open access (OA) publishing by researchers in an academic research institution (The University of the West Indies (UWI) St. Augustine Campus) in a developing country — Trinidad and Tobago. It describes the two parallel but complimentary paths for authors to enable open access, i.e. of publishing in open access journals and/or self–archiving. The benefits to researchers of free access to information, increased research impact and possible solution to the “serials crisis” are highlighted. It suggests that advocates of OA should consider all possible difficulties that researchers may have with OA, so that these could be ameliorated. To this end, it considers the UWI researchers’ knowledge of OA, their access to the scholarly literature, open access archives/repositories at the UWI and related issues of research and library funding, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), and infrastructure/Internet connectivity. It concludes that there are indeed obvious and well–documented benefits for developing country researchers. There are though some disincentives that make it difficult for researchers in developing countries to fully participate in the OA movement. Apart from author–side or “page” charges, the limited number of open access journals in many fields of study and inadequate and unreliable ICT infrastructure and Internet connectivity often limit access and publication in OA journals. Thus, because of technical, financial, human and infrastructural limitations, OA via self–archiving is sometimes difficult for developing country researchers. It concludes that much more should be done to ensure full participation in the open access knowledge community by developing country researchers, including direct technical assistance in implementing institutional repositories (IRs) and more financial assistance and support from international agencies to build the necessary human resource capabilities.

scholarly journals Is gold open access the only option for nurse researchers?: Questioning the efficacy of this unrestricted publication access approach.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzanne Fredericks
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
Open Access Publishing ◽  
Scholarly Literature ◽  
Publication Process ◽  
Unrestricted Access ◽  
Gold Open Access

Open access is unrestricted access to academic, theoretical, and research literature that is scholarly and peer-reviewed. Two models of open access exist and have been identified as: 1) gold and 2) green. Gold open access is based on the principal of providing open access throughout all stages of the publication process. Green open access, also called self-archiving, is the second, and most frequently used form of open access publishing. This type of open access involves placing an already published article into a repository that is created by either an institution or an author in order to provide unrestricted access. Self-archiving is a more economic and efficient means of granting open access to scholarly literature. In spite of these advantages, gold open access continues to thrive. This paper questions the need for gold open access publishing, in light of the significant advantages associated with self-archiving.

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