High Tech, High Touch: Open Access implementation at UP

Abstract

The Department of Library Services at the University of Pretoria (UP), South Africa, strives to distinguish itself as a global leader through redefining academic librarianship. To achieve this vision, the department has adopted the "High Tech, High Touch" client-driven focus in order to achieve high impact.

The University of Pretoria was the first academic institution to adopt a mandatory policy for the submission of research articles to the institutional repository UPSpace in 2009. The Open Scholarship office has been tasked with the implementation of the mandate. Although high technology in the form of the institutional repository exists, participation from UP researchers in the form of self-archiving is very low.

In order to provide Open access to UP scholarly articles, the Open Scholarship Office adopted the high tech-high touch scenario, with positive results. A mediated submission approach is followed, whereby the annual UP research output is tracked and results captured. Each corresponding author is reminded personally via an e-mail to forward the relevant post-print to the Open scholarship office and to comply with the mandatory policy – a high touch approach. This personal communication forum is also utilized as a marketing tool for the policy.

The openUP (research articles) collection in UPSPace, currently houses more than 8000 items. In 2011 80% of the annual research output was linked to the Research report and since 2007 there has been a steady increase in annual research article submissions. A client-driven focus renders results in the implementation of the Open access policy.