Five Facts: Open Access At University of the Western Cape (UWC)

"What makes science – and the humanities, and philosophy, and academia in general – special is the way researchers build on the knowledge of others. By sharing and testing ideas – Newton building on Galileo building on Copernicus building on Aristotle, and so on – humanity has done great things. Many wonders can be attributed to the power of collaboration, and many challenges (climate change, food security, looming water shortages) are just too big for any single researcher to tackle. But that collaboration is only possible if researchers have access to the research findings of others – access that isn't blocked by restricted access to academic journals that may be too expensive, too obscure or too sensitive for a particular researcher, institution or nation. That's why UWC celebrates open access achieved through deposit of peer-reviewed research papers in repositories or through publication in open access journals – ensuring that research is free for all to view and use, and that researchers in turn have their work read and discussed by many more people, and that the public can see where their funding goes – a win-win situation for lovers of knowledge everywhere. So how does Open Access work at UWC? Well, here are a few things you may want to know...

1.     UWC Library hosts two open access digital repositories: the ETD Repository for student master's and doctoral theses (launched way back in 2005); and the Research Repository, where researchers can post their papers and rest assured that they're available to anybody in the world. Last year, the repository reached its 2000th paper, representing a whole lot of knowledge in a wide variety of fields made open to all..and it’s only growing every day...."