Open Science

The University of Belgrade has signed Berlin Declaration on Open Access, and the University Library, as the main provider of information and knowledge for students, researchers and professors, has invested important resources in achieving goals in the field of Open access. It continues to actively follow trends, to participate in and initiate events and advocate values promoted by this approach.

Achievements

Projects

One of the major achievements are the representative European projects Europeana Newspapers and Europeana Libraries , within which the University Library digitized its rich collections and made them available to researchers and all interested people from around the world, thereby supporting the principles of “Open science” as the foundation of the knowledge society. Another extremely valuable digital collection, the first of a kind in Serbia, is the first digital collection of grey literature which also comprises of a sub-collection of digitized doctoral dissertations in Open access.

Events

In the context of active promotion of “openness”, every October, the Library participates in the international event Open Access Week and every March it participates in Open Education Week. As part of these events, the Library organizes workshops for the users, meetups for librarians, students and researchers, lectures and discussions on achievements and future plans. The Library awards an honorary title “Open Access Archon” to the renowned individuals who contributed to the promotion and education of Open access. So far, the title has been awarded to scientific workers and librarians (2012, 2013, 2014).

Wiki-Marathon 2015

The newest venture in promoting of and direct contribution to the Open science is Wiki-Marathon on Open science, organized in the Library in May, 2015. As part of the event, the topics related to Open science have been introduced for the first time in the Serbian Wikipedia.

International Support and Cooperation

The activity of the University Library is supported by the international associations which deal with this and similar topics. The Library is a member of LIBER (Ligue des Bibliotheques Europeennes de Recherche), Association of European Research Libraries, and it actively participates in all of their activities regarding Open science. Also, the Library is a member of  SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition), and participates in activities which contribute to the more open academic communication.

Contrary to the majority of the media and digital content, “Open science” has a strong and wide educational influence and it represents a potential growth of scientific literacy of a large number of people.

Events 2012-2015

Open Education Week, March 2015

Open Access Week, October 2014

Open Education Week, March 2014

Open Access Week, October 2013

Open Education Week, March 2013

Open Access Week, October 2012

News

UNESCO published a guide “Making Sense of MOOCs: A Guide for Policy-Makers in Developing Countries