They came together from near and far to celebrate Open Access Week. Some met face-to-face at various locations around the globe, while others interacted virtually. However, all participants were eager to be part of the growing global annual event that promotes Open Access as the new norm in scholarship and research.
As part of this worldwide celebration, CGIAR was given an opportunity to share its Open Access experiences at an online event organized by the Agricultural Information Management Standards (AIMS), which supports Open Access with the goal of enhancing the accessibility and visibility of research data in agriculture and related sciences.
From 23 – 26 October 2012, AIMS was responsible for coordinating a series of webinars on the theme Making Agricultural Research Information Publicly Available and Accessible. Enrica Porcari, Acting Director of Communications, CGIAR Consortium Office, kicked off the series with a presentation entitled Opening Access to Agriculture Research Products: The Experience of CGIAR.
In her webinar, Enrica highlighted the barriers to Open Access that the CGIAR System is currently facing, such as the distributed governance of its member Centers; the lack of a formal overarching System-wide data and knowledge management strategy; lack of widespread awareness of the value of Open Access; and few incentives, work plans and resources to curate and share data and knowledge. However, she also pointed out that some CGIAR Centers and Programs are developing some visionary Open Access plans of their own – “island’s of success” as she refers to them. The goal is to mainstream some of these successes.
Legal Framework
Since 2009, major reforms have been transforming the way in which CGIAR generates and disseminates knowledge, technologies, and policies for agricultural development. In March 2012, a key milestone was achieved with the creation of a common operational framework. The CGIAR Principles on the Management of Intellectual Assets envisions open and free access to all its research results and development activities.
“The legal framework is important within the System because it sets a foundation upon which we can build, both from an institutional and a technical point of view,” said Enrica, during the webinar.
Making Knowledge Travel
The webinar also covered the importance of making knowledge travel. For knowledge to travel (and be used) people must be able to find it (availability); put their hands on it (accessibility); and make use of it and re-use it (applicability). With the goal of making knowledge travel, CGIAR developed the Triple-A Framework to help CGIAR Centers and Programs and their scientists decide on the level of Availability, Accessibility and Applicability (AAA) they want for their research outputs, and also the pathways with which to turn these outputs into International Public Goods.
In addition, the Coherence in Information for Agricultural Research for Development (CIARD) initiative, which is closely aligned with the Triple-A Framework, works with organizations that hold agricultural information or that create new knowledge to help them disseminate it more efficiently and make it easier to access. AIMS is also part of the CIARD movement.
Collective Actions
The presentation then highlighted the work that is already ongoing in CGIAR Centers and Programs.
“Examples of concrete actions towards opening access are everywhere in the CGIAR System” said Enrica, who then went on to outline five concrete collective actions (proposed by representatives from CGIAR Research Programs and members of the CGIAR Consortium last September) that will help realize the vision presented in the new framework. These five actions will represent the first building blocks of a comprehensive data and knowledge management strategy that seeks to ensure that CGIAR research data and knowledge will be more available, accessible and applicable in the future.
The recording of this webinar is available here, while the presentation slides are available here.
The event was co-sponsored by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR), the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) and the International Association of Agricultural Information Specialists (IAALD).
Photo credit: Open Access Week