User:Filippo Morsiani/Open access in Nepal

Open Access in Nepal; Nepal is trying to keep with the digital publishing and ICT applications despite of its sporadic internal political turmoil. Ministry of Education has been making strides to improve the educational infrastructure of the country. In 1993, National Centre for Educational Development was established. Since the tertiary and higher education sector is growing, notably in the areas such as medical sciences, the generation of resources and research output started increasing.

Lack of adequate Internet connectivity has hindered communication and scholarly networks.However, it is appreciable that Nepal has produced many Online OA journals. Projects like Nepal Journals Online hosts about 97 journals in different disciplines (funded by INASP). Open repositories development has been rather slow, since the diffusion of open source technologies, localization of software, content development platforms, and technical know-how is lacking. The Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR) lists one OA repository at Madan Puraskar Pustakalaya. Creating a union catalogue of libraries in Nepal is underway under the aegis of eFIL initiative. E-Pustakalaya Digital Library project has been set up with the support OLE Nepal to develop content in Nepali language, especially eLearning resources for children and young adults. There are currently seventeen OA journals published in Nepal which are indexed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and six OA journals published in Nepal which are indexed in the Directory of Open Access Scholarly Resources (ROAD).

Enabling Environment
University Grants Commission has been working to improve the educational facilities, especially the online presence of universities. But the conditions to set up openly accessible resources have yet to be strategically planned by authorities in Government and academia.

Potential Barriers
The scale of IT infrastructure requires to be urgently upgraded to keep up with advancement in other countries. Even if computers are available, electricity is not reliable or in many regions there are no phone lines to access the Internet. Capacity building, building awareness, and proactive programmes can help overcome some of the practical barriers.

Funding Mandate
At present, there is no national or institutional Open Access policy, as indicated by the Registry of Open Access Repositories Mandatory Archiving Policies (ROARMAP).

Past and Future OA related Activities

 * 2014 - Workshop on Improving Journal Quality for the Editors of Nepal Journals Online, 10-12 February.
 * Journal OnLine Familiarisation and planning workshop: Kathmandu, Nepal, December 2013. This single-day workshop allowed delegates to plan the implementation of a Journals OnLine (JOL) Programme for Nepal – for further information on JOLs, see PERI, Component 2.
 * Scholarly Journal Editors Workshop: Kathmandu, Nepal, December 2013. This workshop was held in partnership with the Tribhuvan University Library and the Himalayan Journal of Sciences, and included 20 journal editors from Nepal. Topics covered included writing and editing skills, as well as production and distribution.
 * 2011 - International Conference on Improving Research Infrastructure with Social Media, Nepal.
 * 2009 - Open Access: Maximising Research Quality and Impact workshop, July 22-23, Nepal.
 * 2008- International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management Kathmandu,Nepal.
 * 2007- Opening Educational Resources in Nepal: Localizing content, disseminating knowledge,May 25, Lalitpur, Kathmandu, Nepal.