Tunisia
Directory of OA Journals lists nine Open Access journals: International Journal of Modern Anthropology and Dirāsāt Hispānicas. Revista Tunecina de Estudios Hispánicos. African Journals OnLine (AJOL) has the world's largest peer-reviewed African-published scholarly journals to enable the African researchers to access the work of other African academics and to make the African-origin research output available to Africans and to the rest of the world- is a host to Open Access journals: International Journal of Modern Anthropology.
Tunisian researchers publish articles in international OA periodicals. For instance, in 2013, there was 131 research articles published with BioMed Central – an STM (Science, Technology and Medicine), pioneer in the OA publishing model, and among them most viewed articles published by researchers from Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Habib Bourguiba, Fattouma Bourguiba University Hospital, National Institute of Nutrition and Food Technology (INNTA), Faculty of Pharmacy of Monastir, University of Monastir, Higher Institute of Biotechnology of Monastir, University, CHU Farhat Hached of Sousse, Centre de Biotechnologie de Sfax, Higher Institute of Management, University of Tunis, Institut Pasteur de Tunis, Faculty of Sciences of Tunis, University El Manar I, WHO Collaborating Center for Research and Training in Leishmaniasis, and Ibn Zohr Institute. The more recent statistics on articles published are not available at this moment.
Currently Tunisia has only one repository UVT e-doc at Université Virtuelle de Tunis (UVT), powered by EPrints 3. It provides access to multidisciplinary research output of 144 items (2011-08-20) comprised of (Articles; Conferences; Theses; Multimedia) of the institution- Users may set up RSS and Atom feeds to be alerted to new content. The interface is available in French.
Enabling Environment
With a population of 10,629,186 million, Internet users grew from 100,000 in 2000 to 3,600,000 in 2011 with 33.9% penetration rate population. As of 2015, that percentage has increased to 48.52.
In his study B. HAMMOUTI, he showed that the total scientific production of Tunisia is higher than that of both Morocco and Algeria, even though the population in Tunisia is only one third of that of Morocco and Algeria due to it advancing educational system.
Potential Barriers
Lack of Open Access awareness- Tunisian researchers are still attached to the traditional model, they start however to become aware of the stakes of the free access for the Arab research development and knowledge share. In addition, there is no national policy for Open Access.
Major Projects/Initiatives
The Tunisian National Library is making digitized books in French and Arabic available to download to mobile devices as part of the eBooks Project in Tunisia.
The Maghreb Virtual Science Library portal in Tunisia will serve as the central resource for accessing the wide range of resources available through the Centre National Universitaire de Documentation Scientifique et Technique (CNUDST). The portal will integrate access to Open Access Journals and the content of Open Access repositories from research institutions and universities across the globe.
Open Access Week has been celebrated yearly in Tunisia since 2013 and allows for open discussion about continuing efforts on Open Access in Tunisia.
Details of Key Organizations
Centre National Universitaire de Documentation Scientifique et Technique (CNUDST). It provides information and documentation for technical and scientific researchers, and disseminates the production and the results of scientific research and technological development undertaken in Tunisia. It also hosts the virtual library of research.
Communication address: 1, avenue de France 1, avenue de France, Tunisia Postal address: B.P. 85 - 1002 Tunis Belvedere, TUNISIE, Tel.: (+216) 71336708/ (+216) 71335751/ (+216) 71338057, Fax: (+216) 71354216.
Communication address: 14 rue Yahia Ibn Omar 1082 Mutuelleville, Tunisia, Tel.: (+216)71289981/ (+216) 71891731, Fax: (+216) 71892625
Past and Future OA Related Activities
10, April, 2015: "Study Day on Open Access JELA 2015" held at Ibn-Khaldun amphitheater at the Tunis Science City. JELA 2015 is the 3rd edition of the study on open access days. This edition was oriented to a specific audience whose common denominator is the production of scientific publishing in particular article. The 2015 edition was dedicated to the Golden Path of free access to explain and clarify more, to the Tunisian scientific community, this new publishing model.
This event was co-organized by the University National Center of Scientific and Technical Documentation (CNUDST) and the research group on "free access to STI" of the Higher Institute of Documentation.
27-28 November, 2014: "ICOA2014 International Conference "Open Access and Scientific Research: Towards New Values" held in Tunis, Tunisia.
14-15 May, 2012: GrandIR took part in the 'Atélier sur les archives ouvertes' organized in Monastir, Tunisia, by EIFL for promotion and dissemination of Open Access and Open Archives in the Maghreb countries. This workshop was held in the framework of the European Tempus ISTeMag Project for improving access to Scientific and Technical Information in the Maghreb universities. Led by the Université Libre de Bruxelles, this project features twelve universities and research centres in Tunisie, Algeria and Morocco among its partners. As a consequence, the Open Archives workshop in Monastir was well attended by over 30 Maghrebi librarians, developers, research officers, project coordinators and policymakers from all three countries.
The Tunis Agenda for the Information Society was a consensus statement of the World Summit on the Information Society, adopted on November 18, 2005 in Tunisia. It called for the creation of the Internet Governance Forum and a novel, lightweight, multi-stakeholder governance structure for the Internet. Also, MIT OpenCourseWare co-hosted a half-day event at the Summit with the United Nations University entitled "Widening Access to Knowledge through Open Sharing: The Growing OpenCourseWare Movement."
List of Publications
Hammouti, B., Mater, J. (2010). "Comparative bibliometric study of the scientific production in Maghreb countries (Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia) in 1996-2009 using Scopus." Environ. Sci. No.2 70-77.
Chokri Ben Romdhane, Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research. (2015). "CNUDST Experience with Open Access."
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