Building capacity in research output management in Palestinian higher education institutions through open access institutional repositories

Abstract

Open Access to scientific literature through repositories has grown significantly in recent years, increasingly favoring the creation of federated networks at national or regional level. Having recognized the importance of providing access to volumes of national research to overcome the inadequate visibility of research outcomes, scholarly communication, networking, and limited collaborative efforts in Palestine, four higher education institutions (HEIs) in Palestine in association with four HEIs in Europe have started in January 2017 an initiative to develop four open access institutional repositories. The “Research Output Management through Open Access Institutional Repositories in Palestinian HEIs (ROMOR)1” project, aims to improve the management, visibility, and accessibility of scientific research outputs in Palestinian HEIs by establishing new or enhancing existing Open Access Institutional Repositories (OAIRs), improving institutional capacity for the management and sharing of research outputs held within the repositories, and developing and/or refining curricula to ensure that emerging researchers are better able to manage their work across the entire research lifecycle. In this short presentation, we will share an overview of our work and the challenges we have faced. We will present our work in light of the partners’ business models and in light of the implementation roadmaps for research output management currently being implemented under a common interoperable infrastructure by the four Palestinian partner universities. Having recognized the need for a national digital asset management infrastructure, the Palestinian Ministry of Higher Education in association with the four HEIs in Palestine have started to work on a national roadmap for research output management in Palestine. We will present the next steps to be taken in order to make ROMOR goes national. We think this work has huge potential, and by outlining the current progress in the ROMOR Project and the initial thoughts to adopt the national repository at the Repository Fringe Conference we will get feedback and open up discussions on the national outlook.