Exploring Trends in Open Access Repositories: The Case of Higher Education Institutions in Nigeria, Ghana, Cabo Verde, and Senegal

Abstract

The use of electronic resources in academic research remains low in many developing countries for various reasons, including inadequate funding [1]. Access to these resources are often limited by high prices, resulting in a wide range of scholarly research not reaching its full potential to impact on people's lives. The Open Access (OA) movement developed in response to such conditions, advocating worldwide unrestricted access to scholarly publications [2]. OA resources are thus a major enabler of open science because they empower researchers to share their ideas globally and provide an economical solution to developing countries [3]. One way for academic libraries to provide more OA resources to their communities is to develop institutional repositories (IR). These repositories are a platform for collecting, storing, and providing access to an institution's own research output [4]. This gives them intellectual control over locally published works, instead of relinquishing rights to a third-party publisher. IRs can create higher visibility for the institution and lower-barrier access to scholarly literature [4]. Considering these merits, why haven't more academic institutions in West Africa shown more involvement in institutional repositories? As of February 2019, according to statistics on OpenDOAR [5] there are only 30 OA institutional repositories in four West African countries, namely: Nigeria (21), Ghana (5), Cabo Verde (2), and Senegal (2). However, the four countries combined have hundreds of higher education institutions, with many in Ghana and Nigeria recognised by their national accreditation bodies. There are 152 accredited tertiary institutions in Nigeria [6] and 200 in Ghana [7]. It was difficult to find an accurate source for a clear number of accredited institutions in Cabo Verde and Senegal, although some sources listed 8 universities existing in the former [8] and up to 75 in the latter [9]. These numbers bring up questions about the level of awareness of Open Access resources in West Africa.