Open Access awareness and advocacy for Researchers

Abstract

The prevalent notion of physical space coexistence rather than virtual knowledge exchange in African is becoming outdated thus there is a call for action to support unrestricted access to information and knowledge dissemination. Open access has transformed modern research, enabling widespread knowledge dissemination and fostering innovation. Yet some are unaware of its practices and benefits. This paper presents report on open access awareness project conducted at Summit University, Offa, Kwara State, Nigeria. The project aimed to democratize open access culture among researchers, develop and validate an institutional open access policy and a public online repository to curate institutional research. Using a mixed method approach combining workshop and survey, over 70 researchers participated in the event held on 3rd of February, 2024. Key findings revealed that 20. 8 % of the participants were unaware of open access before attending the event. Gaining insight on open access practices was rated high as the goal of attending the workshop by 48% of the participants. Among the themes under Open access practices, the Open access publishing was rated highest as the aspect to gain insight on with 63.6%. Thus, showing that participants will like to know more about the open access publishing. Finding further revealed institutional support and cost of publishing was rated high as a barrier to adopting open access, post-event. The research team acknowledges the generous support of the funder, Open Research Funders Group (ORFG). Their support was instrumental in the successful implementation of the awareness and advocacy program on open access