Towards Open Scholarship at the University of Pretoria

Abstract

World-wide the research paradigm is in the process of expanding into e-research and open scholarship. This implies new ways of collaboration, dissemination and reuse of research results, specifically via the Web. In the South African context the implication of e-research has been investigated at high level, and this resulted in the SARIS report (South African Research Information Services Report), according to which it is envisaged that South Africa, as a country, should position itself in the forefront of this new paradigm. This implies that individual research institutions should take the necessary steps to implement such strategies, collaborate amongst one another and lobby Government to support such initiatives. At the University of Pretoria this new paradigm of e-research and open scholarship has led to the development of a high-level e-strategy for the University, supported by the Executive. This is embodied in different strategies, such as an e-information strategy developed by the Department of Library Services (the Library, formerly known as the Academic Information Service), the Research Information System of the Research Office, and supported by a new IT strategy. This has resulted in a number of open scholarship projects, such as UPSpace (a digital research repository with a number of sub-projects, such as a repository of all UP research articles and Africana collections) and the UPeTD (a full-text database of theses and dissertations). In this paper we give an overview of the rationale for the initiatives, briefly discuss the SARIS project and the e-strategies at the University of Pretoria and demonstrate the implementation of the various projects. We also discuss the technologies used, and reflect on the perceived advantages of the projects. The paper is illustrated by screen captures from different projects.