Sharing Open Data in Agriculture

The main focus of the study was to explore the practices of open data sharing in the agricultural sector, including establishing the research outputs concerning open data in agriculture. The study adopted a desktop research methodology based on literature review and bibliographic data from WoS database. Bibliometric indicators discussed include yearly productivity, most prolific authors, and enhanced countries. Study findings revealed that research activity in the field of agriculture and open access is very low. There were 36 OA articles and only 6 publications had an open data badge. Most researchers do not yet embrace the need to openly publish their data set despite the availability of numerous open data repositories. Unfortunately, most African countries are still lagging behind in management of agricultural open data. The study therefore recommends that researchers should publish their research data sets as OA. African countries need to put more efforts in establishing open data repositories and implementing the necessary policies to facilitate OA.

Opportunities Associated With Open Access Initiatives

The chapter examines the opportunities associated with open access (OA) initiatives from the perspective of research students in selected Nigerian universities. A survey design was adopted to conduct the study, whereby the questionnaire was the instrument of data collection. The findings revealed that OA is perceived by the research students as a good idea, easy, beneficial in terms of access and use and usually makes research more interesting. OA most importantly provides opportunities such as enabling readers with the access to publish articles, the future of scholarly research, and publishes faster than the traditional outlets, along with wider dissemination of research and opportunity of free access to all. Incentives of OA include users' accessibility, copyright retention by authors, high quality publications, among others; while the disincentives of OA include lack of reach, cost of publishing, and inadequate quality of some OA platforms. A considerable number of respondents have the continuous intention to use OA instead of traditional platforms, for study and research, as an autonomous tool for improving research and to recommend to colleagues. Significant challenges associated with OA include procrastination, inadequate ICT infrastructure, high cost of internet, and slow speed of internet, restrictions placed on using storage devices like discs or flash drive for downloading contents from OA platforms, among others. The chapter made recommendations based on the findings.

The Role of Information Institutions in Promoting Information Literacy and Access to Information for Sustainable Development in the Post-Truth Era

The right to access government information has been a key element of sustainable development since the 1992 Rio Declaration. It is further recognized in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Therefore, governments are through open government initiatives making information available to the citizens. This is based on a supposition that everyone is information literate and yet this is not the case. Information literacy is defined as the ability to be able to act on the information that is provided to us citizens. Being able to locate, evaluate, and ethically use information is an ability that is crucial to the citizens' participation in society. It requires individuals to be in possession of a set of skills that can enable them to recognize when information is needed to be able to locate, evaluate, and use it effectively. Information institutions have been the gateways to knowledge, and hence, their resources and services have been crucial to the development of information literate, creative, and innovative societies. This study sought to establish how the information institutions in Sweden were promoting information literacy in accordance with Sustainable Development Goal 16 amidst the post-truth era. The author has applied a qualitative research methodology where interviews have been used as a data collecting technique.

Breaking the Walls of Jericho

Access to information and knowledge is a fundamental element in an informed and democratic society. Open access (OA) allows users to freely access information and knowledge if they have access to internet. This chapter presents barriers to enhancing OA to information and knowledge with a reference to Africa. The said barriers are akin to the Biblical Walls of Jericho which prevented Israelites from capturing their Promised Land of Canaan. It starts by defining what OA entails, highlights the characteristics of OA and its types. Furthermore, the chapter highlights opportunities brought about by OA to information and knowledge which supports the attainment of sustainable development goals (SDGs). Lastly, the chapter suggest strategies that can be adopted to enhance OA in Africa and thus make it a precursor for the achievement of SDGs. This study is qualitative and used content analysis from available literature to address the research problem.

Open Access Initiatives and its Implications on Research Transformations

The Open Access initiative enhances innovative forms of scholarly inquiry and aids the impactful communication by transforming the way research output is disseminated and published. Prime objective of OA initiative is to improve wide accessibility and promotes visibility of research outputs without geographical barriers. This chapter investigates open access initiatives and the principles behind OA. It identifies the characteristics of OA and types of OA publishing business models. Moreover, the chapter discusses the growth of OA in Africa and examines the current trend in OA journals. Also, the chapter identifies various roles played by stakeholders towards adoption and use of OA for research transformation. This chapter examines different benefits and challenges faced by organizations, libraries, publishers, and researchers towards OA adoption and use for the research advancement. Recommendations on how to improve research outputs' visibility using OA were highlighted. Conclusion and suggestion for further research are provided.

Predatory Open Access Journals and Attainment of Educational Sustainable Development Goals in Africa

Putting into consideration the objective of the SDG 4, it would be important to note that the provision, access, and use of information resources such as open access (OA) journals is a sine qua non for quality education in Africa. Despite its importance to the education system, open access journals have been proliferated by predatory journals. Stakeholders in the OA movement and academia claim that predatory publishing is a big problem for scientific communication and could undermine development efforts. Hence, the increasing use of predatory open access journals could affect the attainment of SDGs in Africa; hence, there is the need to raise awareness to enhance the possibility of attaining the SDGs in Africa. This chapter will among others enumerate the possible havocs predatory open access journals can create and the setbacks on the attainment of SDGs in Africa. It will also spell out the necessary prospects of curtailing these havocs and setbacks towards providing quality-based information resources such as open access journals to the education societies in Africa.

Open Access as a Platform for Sustainable Development

Open access publishing is a cross-cutting issue that has the potential to contribute to most Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are reliant on improved access to information and knowledge. Open access publishing makes scientific results available for everyone, and thus facilitates new discoveries and empowers researchers through rapid and efficient access to knowledge. Open access is a platform of knowledge management. There is a clear link between open access and access to information, and therefore between open access and sustainable development. International organizations such as WIPO and UNESCO have already recognized this connection and have changed their own internal policies and officially recognize open access as a driver for achievement of the SDGs and sustainable social, political, and economic development. In the above context, this chapter discusses how sustainable development can be realized through open access platforms. The chapter is based on in-depth literature review. The chapter commences with a brief review of the literature on the major concepts, which is followed by a description of the role of open access in attaining sustainable development. Thereafter, the status, prospects, and challenges of open access publishing in Africa are discussed. Finally, the chapter provides recommendations for attaining sustainable developments goals through open access publishing in Africa.

Open Access and the Future of Scholarly Communication in Sub-Saharan Africa

The concept of open access has opened up access to scholarly communication. Academia today can publish and have access to a cocktail of information resources without restrictions and without paying anything. This chapter seeks to explain open access to scholarly communication and its future in Sub-Saharan Africa. The chapter begins by explaining the concept of open access, various forms of open access publishing, benefits of open access, and a brief history of open access to scholarly communication in Sub-Saharan Africa. The chapter also highlights some notable open access initiatives that have been implemented in Sub-Saharan Africa in the quest to improve access to scientific research findings in order to accelerate economic development. Furthermore, the chapter catalogues some challenges being encountered in the promotion of open access in Sub-Saharan Africa. Lastly, the chapter predicts the future of open access to scholarly communication in Sub-Saharan Africa, based on the current happenings in this sector.

The State of Access in Open and Distance Learning in Sub-Saharan Africa

This chapter examines the state of access in open and distance learning (ODL) and discusses eight nations across sub-Saharan Africa countries. The influence of open universities and private universities in promoting the use and growth of open educational resources (OERs) is seen. Governments are actively involved in enhancing policies to promote access while most visions and agendas of the countries in the sub-continent are linked to and aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The growth of information technological platforms is seen, and their influence on the development of OERs and innovations in educational programmes are evident. For the enhancement of access, the promotion of sustainable development, and the growth of tertiary education, sub-Saharan Africa must aim for more innovative use of modern technologies.

Challenges for Establishment of Institutional Repositories

Concern has been raised over low research output from universities in Southern Africa and its poor visibility on the global sphere. However, public universities in Zimbabwe adopted open access (OA) institutional repositories (IR) to increase publication output, access, visibility, and reach to a wide audience. This chapter reports on a study that explored the challenges faced by academics and librarians in Zimbabwe's public universities in contributing to and managing the IRs. A mixed methods approach was adopted with eight participating universities where directors of research, library directors, faculty/IR librarians, and academics were purposely selected. The study identified several impediments to the success of the IRs and these include academics' fears and misconceptions regarding OA and IRs, libraries experienced difficulties convincing university managers about OA exacerbated by an absence of enabling conditions to promote IR development. The chapter recommends that OA education needs to be intensified OA/IR and the universities' policies should recognise publication in OA platforms and enforce deposit mandates.