By signing the declaration, which seeks to make scientific research more open and accessible for human development, CPUT pledges to:
- Encourage its researchers to publish their work in line with the principles of open access;
- Encourage the holders of cultural heritage to support open access by providing their resources on the internet and;
- Encourage its senior academics to develop ways to evaluate open access contributions and online-journals in order to maintain the standards of quality assurance and good scientific practice as well as be in a position to provide input on the quality of publications posted by its researchers.
At the signing ceremony, Nevhutalu emphasized the importance of Open Science in light of the ever- increasing costs of acquiring information sources by university libraries.
He also emphasized the challenges that university libraries are facing with the newly introduced 14% VAT on electronic resources as well as the ever-falling rand exchange rate.
Notwithstanding these challenges, he acknowledged the strides made by CPUT Libraries to ensure that the research community has access to open access resources.
Deputy Vice Chancellor: Knowledge and IT Services, Professor Louis Fourie, outlined the progress made by the university in making CPUT research outputs more visible through the CPUT Libraries’ digitization and research data management projects.
In the last three years, CPUT has taken a lead in the country to build platforms and services for the management of research data, in line with the National Research Foundation’s mandate to ensure that funded researchers deposit their outputs in a credible institutional repository.
