Providing public access to scientific research that benefits mankind
View(s):The National Science Foundation (NSF) along with the Colombo University and with the support of the International Network for Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP), recently launched the “Sri Lanka Journals Online (SLJOL)” at the NSF auditorium with a cluster of researchers and scientists.
A 2-day workshop followed the inauguration.
At the workshop matters like ‘Introduction to Digital Object Identifiers’ and ‘Inserting Digital Object Identifiers into the reference of an article’; ‘Copyright, Permissions and Licenses and Plagiarism’ and an introduction to ‘Cross Checking for Plagiarism’ were also discussed. Prof. (Ms) Sirimali Fernando, Chairperson – NSF, welcoming the guests said that universities, research institutions and research funders around the globe adopted mandates requiring their researchers to provide open access to their peer-reviewed articles by self-archiving them in an open access repository.
She asserted that it was in this backdrop that SLJOL was initiated by them with the Colombo University with the support of INASP in 2008. She said that widespread public access to the World Wide Web in the late 1990s and early 2000s fueled the open access movement and promoted both the green open access way and the creation of open access journals. Prof. Fernando pointed out that the term ‘open access’ was first formulated in three public statements in the 2000s, in the Budapest, Bethesda and Berlin Statements, and indicated that the initial concept of open access refers to an unrestricted online access to scholarly research primarily intended for scholarly journal articles.
“Today, the SLJOL is fully managed by the NSF,” she said adding that it hosts a database of over 60 peer reviewed journals with free access to over 6,500 full text articles from wide ranging academic disciplines from architecture to child health. She said that it promotes access to Sri Lankan research publications in all disciplines by providing free access to tables of content, abstracts and full text on Internet. Ms. Sioux Cumming, Programme Manager, Journals Online, INASP speaking on how SLJON contributes to the advancement of scientific research in Sri Lanka said that SLJOL is an online platform for journals published in Sri Lanka.
It first began in 2008 with the National Science and Technology Policy.
The objectives of the SLJOL, she said, are international visibility of Sri Lankan research; research on SLJOL to be freely available to all citizens of this country and the global community; local research in many subject areas is easily available in one place; state-funded research outputs can be published locally and are available to the people who need them and improved quality of local journals enhances the reputation of local research. She said that in 2015 visitors to Journal Online totalled 146,226 from 204 countries with the top 10 visitors being Sri Lanka 89,695; India 26,625; US 15,209; United Kingdom 8,157; Australia 4,489; China 4086; Indonesia 3,484; Philippines 3,194; Malaysia 3,104 and Pakistan 2,619.
On the sidelines of the workshop in answer to a query from the Business Times as to how all this research work would help, Ms. Cummings said there are a number of research journals shared through this network of Journals Online. They are on innovations and new findings on medicine, technology, agriculture, business management and many others that are beneficial and relevant to Sri Lanka too. But, she pointed out that the machinery to expose them to the common man in Sri Lanka, unfortunately is not in proper place. It is also important, she stressed, that these science based findings be converted to ordinary people’s language, collate them and disseminate. -(QP)