UNESCO's Global Open Access Portal (GOAP) and dLOC

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In: access, dloc, open access

UNESCO’s Global Open Access Portal (GOAP) lists many important Open Access initiatives and programs. One of those listed is the Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC), for which the University of Florida is the technical partner. There’s more on GOAP below and more on dLOC on the dLOC site (www.dloc.com), which is a cooperative digital library for resources from and about the Caribbean and circum-Caribbean. dLOC provides open access to digitized versions of Caribbean cultural, historical and research materials currently held in archives, libraries, and private collections.

Global Open Access Portal

The Global Open Access Portal (GOAP), funded by the Governments of Colombia, Denmark, Norway, and the United States Department of State, presents a current snapshot of the status of Open Access (OA) to scientific information around the world. For countries that have been more successful implementing Open Access, the portal highlights critical success factors and aspects of the enabling environment. For countries and regions that are still in the early stages of Open Access development, the portal identifies key players, potential barriers and opportunities.
The Global Open Access Portal is designed to provide the necessary information for policy-makers to learn about the global OA environment and to view their country’s status, and understand where and why Open Access has been most successful.
At a glance, the portal provides an overview of the framework surrounding Open Access in UNESCO Member States by focusing on:

  • the critical success factors for effectively implementing Open Access;
  • each country’s strengths and opportunities for further developments;
  • where mandates for institutional deposits and funding organization have been put into place;
  • potential partners at the national and regional level; and
  • funding, advocacy, and support organizations throughout the world.

Features of GOAP

The portal provides a high-level view of the Open Access environment and is not designed to provide an inventory of repositories, OA journals, and other associated initiatives. The primary target audience includes policy-makers, advocates, and delegates from national, regional, and non-governmental organizations as well as members of the OA community. The Portal aims at being the first destination of information seekers on OA. It is also supplemented by a Community of Practice through the exiting online platform “WSIS Knowledge Communities”. The GOAP is a knowledge portal that has the following features:

  • Country-wise distilled knowledge on the status of Open Access
  • Key organizations engaged in OA in Member States
  • Thematic focus areas of OA
  • Important publications on OA coming from different regions of the world
  • Critical assessment of major barriers to OA in each country
  • Potential of OA in UNESCO Member States
  • Funding and deposit mandates
  • Links to OA initiatives in the world