A Study of the Degree of Openness of University Digital Repositories in Sudan
Omer Hassan Abdelrahman *
Department of Library and Information Science, Faculty of Arts, University of Khartoum, Sudan.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
The goal of university institutional repositories worldwide is to provide open access to their collections of different types of information resources and scholarly writings for all, freely and instantly. However, different resources are subject to a number of restrictions that make it difficult for these repositories to make their resources accessible for all users. Intellectual property and copyright laws play an important role in this regard. This study explores the four largest university repositories in Sudan, with a view to investigating their access policies and practices, and the degree of openness in each of the four repositories. The study adopted a descriptive analytical approach employing the case study method. Data was collected by semi-structured interviews with repository managers, in addition to data from the Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR), and from the websites of the studied repositories. The study revealed that all investigated repositories do not deal directly with publishers to clear copyright issues, and recommended that repositories encourage faculty members and researchers to share their research work with open access licenses such as the Creative Commons licenses.
Keywords: Access policies, copyright laws, institutional repositories, open access, publisher permissions, Sudanese university repositories.
How to Cite
Downloads
References
Swan A. Policy guidelines for the development and promotion of open access; 2012.
Available:https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000215863
Ezema IJ. Building open access institutional repositories for global visibility of Nigerian scholarly publication. Library Review; 2011;60(6):473–485
DOI: 10.1108/00242531111147198
Di Valentino L. Laying the foundation for copyright policy and practice in Canadian Universities. Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 2016;4312.
Available: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/4312
The UK Copyright service. International Copyright Protection; 2019.
Available:https://copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/international_copyright
Morrison C, Secker J. Copyright briefing paper on the Hargreaves exceptions; 2019.
Ministry of Culture and Information, Sudan. Protection of copyright, neighboring rights and literary and artistic works Act; 2013.
Denicola RC. Copyright and open access: Reconsidering University Ownership of Faculty Research. Neb. L. Rev; 2011.
Available: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/nlr/vol85/iss2/2
Zhang L, Watson EM. Measuring the impact of gold and green open access. The Journal of Academic Librarianship. 2017;43(4):337–345.
DOI:10.1016/j.acalib.2017.06.004
Macklin L. Copyright and institutional repositories. In The Institutional Repository: Benefits and Challenges. American Library Association, Association for Library Collections & Technical Services; Chicago; 2013.
Available:http://www.alastore.ala.org/detail.aspx?ID=10787
Palmer CL, Teffeau LC, Newton MP. Identifying factors of success in CIC Institutional Repository Development Final Report; 2008.
Hanlon A, Ramirez M. Asking for permission: A survey of copyright workflows for institutional repositories. Libraries and the Academy. 2011;11(2): 683–702.
Available:https://muse.jhu.edu/article/428879/pdf
Hansen D. Understanding and making use of academic authors’ open access rights. Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication. 2012;1(2).
DOI:10.7710/2162-3309.1050
Koulouris A, Kapidakis S. (Access and reproduction policies of university digital collections. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science. 2005;37(1):25–33.
DOI: 10.1177/0961000605052157
Dryden J. Cavalier or careful? How users approach the rights management practices of archival repositories. Journal of Archival Organization. 2012;10(3-4):191–206.
DOI:10.1080/15332748.2012.787847
Priest E. Copyright and the Harvard open access mandate. Nw. J. Tech. & Intell. Prop. 2012;377.
Available: http://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/njtip/vol10/iss7/1
Dawson PH, Yang SQ. Institutional repositories, open access and copyright: What Are the Practices and Implications? Science & Technology Libraries. 2016;35(4):279–294.
DOI:10.1080/0194262x.2016.1224994.
Available:http://eprints.rclis.org/32654/1/IRpaper_postprint_pdf.pdf