The UOC worldwide point of reference in open access policy for academic information
The UOC has been ranked tenth among the world’s universities for its policy to promote Open Access (OA) to scientific and academic information. It is first in the ranking in Spain, a ranking that includes the eight universities and funding agencies that have so far defined and approved their open access policies.
Melibea is a directory and evaluator of open access policies analysing universities, research centres and funding agencies. It also carries out qualitative and quantitative analysis of the policies in place. This analysis is based on a series of indicators, including where the information is held (in institutional repositories or web pages available to anyone with an internet connection); the type of funding for the research (full or partial); the types of documents published (articles, doctoral theses, book chapters, etc.); the rights of the funding agency over the information, etc. The ranking of the universities and research centres, from Spain and around the world, is based on the sum of the points awarded using these indicators, which reflects the openness of the institutional policy. The UOC scored 70%.
O2: increased visibility on the internet
O2, the UOC’s institutional repository holding the open-access digital publications produced by the UOC, has risen 218 places in the world ranking of web presence for repositories since July 2010. It is now ranked number 300, from a total of 1,185 repositories from around the world. In the world ranking of institutional repositories, O2 placed 299th, from a total of 1,121 (177 positions higher than in July).
O2 began operating in March 2010 with the aim of storing, preserving and publicising the UOC’s academic and scientific output. It holds a wide variety of digital content, including journal articles, pre-prints, conference proceedings and papers, research reports, teaching materials, final degree projects, doctoral theses, etc. The contents are structured into three areas, corresponding to the teaching, research and management activities, and classified in terms of the different subject areas covered at the University.
The start up of O2 has allowed for the knowledge generated at the UOC to be made visible in open-access collective repositories both in Spain (such as RECOLECTA) and internationally (such as DRIVER or OAlster).