News

The World Bank joins COAR for membership

The Confederation of Open Access Repositories is pleased to welcome the World Bank as new member. The World Bank launched its Open Knowledge Repository (OKR) in April 2012 and it has grown impressively since then. Complemented by its Open Access Policy (effective July 2012), the World Bank has made valuable research outputs accessible under Creative Commons Attribution license. In doing so, the OKR allows anyone to distribute, reuse, and build upon the Bank’s published work empowering others to develop solutions to overcome poverty. Together, World Bank and COAR like to continue to extend a global knowledge infrastructure through ensuring mechanisms for interoperability.

Carlos Rossel, World Bank Publisher, notes: “It will be very interesting for us to know more about, or be actively involved with, the work of COAR. As a next step in our OA journey we are looking to make the Bank’s Open Knowledge Repository (OKR) interoperable with other institutional reposito-ries, particularly in developing countries.” Norbert Lossau, Chairperson of COAR Executive Board, adds: “We are very glad to welcome World Bank to the COAR community. The development World Bank has taken during the last two years, based on courageous and foresightful decisions, are really impressive. I am convinced that close working relations in our network will be of large profit for the research community as well as the general public and help to make research outputs accessi-ble to everyone.”

About World Bank
The World Bank is the largest single source of development knowledge. The World Bank Open Knowledge Repository (OKR) is The World Bank’s official open access repository for its research outputs and knowledge products. Through the OKR, The World Bank collects, disseminates, and permanently preserves its intellectual output in digital form.
More information about World Bank is available at the https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/.

New „COAR Talk“ with Webometrics-Mastermind Isidro F. Aguillo

The new interview partner for the “COAR Talks” section of the COAR Repository Observatory is Isidro F. Aguillo, the main Editor of the Webometrics “Ranking Web of Repositories”.

The half hour interview touched several issues, incl. the methodology of the ranking, the developments since its  inception in 2008 and impact in the repository scene.

Special thanks to Olaf Siegert, COAR Repository Observatory member of ZBW, Germany for conducting the interview.

You can view the video here.

COAR website in Chinese

Ms. Xiaowei Yang of the Chinese Academy of Sciences who was working with COAR for the last three months translated several pages of the COAR website into Chinese.

Pages that are available in Chinese are the “About COAR” (关于COAR) including the translation of the COAR leaflet, “Aims and Objectives” (宗旨和目标) and the “Frequently Asked Questions” (COAR常见问题).

Our dedicated thanks go to Xiaowei and we hope in the future we can translate more pages and sections of the COAR website into other languages with the support of our members.

Japan’s National OA Mandate for ETDs

On 1 April 2013, Japan’s new rules for degrees came into effect.

Doctoral degree awardees are obliged to make their theses accessible on the Internet with aid from degree awarding institutions. In practice, theses will be made available to the public through the institutional repository of each university.

We hope this revised rules will lead to open access to virtually all of over ten thousand PhD theses submitted each year, though the content of approximantely 48,000 of those available on the repositories as of 31 March 2013.

Joint response to EC Research Data Framework from COAR LIBER and OpenAIRE

COAR, LIBER and OpenAIRE have jointly responded to a proposal from DG Connect for a Framework for Action addressing research data infrastructures. LIBER, COAR and OpenAIRE strongly support the development of an open, interoperable e-infrastructure for scientific data through the engagement of the relevant actors, including libraries and repositories supporting researchers in their scientific endeavor. This framework for action is highly relevant, both for the success of data driven science and also the uptake and impact of open access policies and initiatives. It recognises the changing nature of research and the importance of engaging the whole stakeholder ecosystem in the development and integration of research data e-infrastructures.

Besides its strengths the three initiatives identified some gaps , i.e they would welcome a more horizontal approach within each of the fiches. Involvement of all relevant stakeholders (for example, researchers, research institutions, universities, libraries, repositories, data centers, publishers etc.) is essential for the supporting of discoverability, navigation and (re)use of research data and literature. Additionally more attention to research institutions and the long-tail of research is needed. The fiches should give more importance to universities to establish skills and services. In addition the development of a clear workflow between research institutions and data centres should be supported.

In conclusion, the group aggrees that:

  • the framework is highly relevant and recognizes the changing nature of research support,
  • that the fiches will provide opportunities for libraries and repositories to support open science in a structured way and
  • it is essential that continuing professional development is supported through engagement with the broader stakeholder community in order to share and develop best practice.

 

To download the full response, please click here: Response LIBER OpenAIRE COAR.