Turkey
There has been an active OA movement in Turkey since 2002. Turkey is about to be one of the biggest higher education landscape with the 169 universities in Europe. The 105 of these universities are financed publicly, and the 64 left are the private universities who are also performing the higher education activities in the national and international level. The Council of Higher Education [http://www.yok.gov.tr/en] has been administrating the activities of the universities in Turkey. The Major Research Funder in Turkey is “Türkiye Bilimsel ve Teknolojik Araştırma Kurumu (The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey-TÜBİTAK) [http://www.tubitak.gov.tr/en/ot/10]. The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey is the leading agency for management, funding and conduct of research in Turkey. TÜBİTAK is responsible for promoting, developing, organizing, conducting and coordinating research and development in line with national targets and priorities. Anadolu Üniversite Kütüphaneleri Konsorsiyumu Derneği (Anatolian University Libraries Consortium Association-ANKOS) [http://ankos.gen.tr] is also supporting the Open Access Initiatives and Studies via the ANKOS Open Access and Institutional Repositories Study Group.
As of June 2015, there are 298 OA journals published in Turkey which are indexed in DOAJ.
11 OA repositories are listed in ROAR, 4 of which have been OA compliant since 2005: Hacettepe University, Ankara University, METU and Gazi University.
Currently, there are 30 OA policies registered in ROARMAP.
Enabling Environment:
ANKOS OAIRWG (ANKOS Open Access and Institutional Repositories Working Group) became active in 2005 and an Open Access Advisory
Suggested by the ANKOS OAIR Working Group, The Higher Education Council of Turkey established The Higher Education Council Institutional Repositories and Open Access Working Group. The working group is made up of subject specialists with the aim of gathering the academic outputs that Turkish Universities are producing and archiving them into the open repositories which are compliant with international standards, presenting them to the service of the scientific community, and measuring academic performance.
This Working Group held its first meeting in January 2014 with the attendance of the Higher Education Council Chairman and created an action plan which would form the framework of the Higher Education Open Archive Project. The first step of this Project, which was built of two components, is gathering the academic outputs of Turkey into the institutional repositories and the second step is making these records accessible at the national and international level via the Higher Education "National Academic Open Repository" Project System whic will be built at Turkish Higher Education Council.
The Higher Education Council Institutional Repositories and Open Access Group has achieved the following so far:
• A website: http://acikerisim.yok.gov.tr for sharing the necessary documents of the Higher Education Open Archive Project and the results of the studies.
• A recommendation to use DSpace software which was also recommended by the ANKOS OA&IR Group and a translation of the DSpace Software into Turkish. Also, the Turkish Guides about installing the program on the Linux operating systems were prepared by the Working Group members.
• Organisation of several well-attended trainings, workshops and seminars on the creation of institutional repositories, DSpace, data input, IPR, ...
• In September 2014, The Driver Guide 2.0 has been announced both via the Higher Education Open Archive Project and ANKOS OA&IR pages which is arranging the infrastructure and data input standards for the institutional repositories.
• In October 2014, simultaneously to the International Open Access Week, the 3rd National Open Access Workshop will be organized at the international level and The Higher Education Open Archive Project Evaluation Meeting will be performed at the Workshop. The Turkish Prime Minister Prof. Dr. Mr. Ahmet Davutoglu and all the presidents of Turkish Universities will attend this workshop.The Director of Advocacy for SPARC Europe, Mrs. Alma Swan and the Head of University of Minho Library, Mr. Eloy Rodrigues will be the keynote speakers in this workshop. Open Access, Open Data, and Open Science which are also the main targets of Turkish Open Access community with the development of OpenAIRE will be the main topics that the related academics and information managers will perform their presentations during the workshop.
Board formed with representatives from ANKOS, TLA, ULAKBIM, and UNAK. Both bodies serve as advocates for Open Access, raising awareness around OA and promoting cooperative initiatives.
2013: As a new member of the OpenAIREplus Project, the Turkish NOAD (National Open Access Desk) [https://www.openaire.eu/tr] understands its important role with respect to the European Commission Open Access Policies. This includes the coordination of Turkish FP7 Projects, integration of the public founded research outputs with the OpenAIRE compliant repositories,as well as the DRIVER Infrastructure. The Turkish OpenAIRE team organizes seminars on open access and disseminates materials at a number of regional events and produces promotional materials in Turkish.
In February 2006 Turkish universities issued a statement advocating open access and the establishment of further institutional repositories.
Potential Barriers:
No national OA policy or mandate; OA not mandated by major funding bodies e.g. TUBITAK and YOK; possible language barriers in selfarchiving.
Major Projects/Initiatives:
The Congress of Informatics Technologies IV, Academic Informatics 2006 took place on February 9th - 11th at Pamukkale University in Denizli, Turkey. It was a very successful conference with variety of subject matters in separate sessions from e-learning to open access. In the e-library sessions, the ones on open access and institutional repositories were organized around creating an awareness among information professionals about open access and its benefits. At the end of the e-library sessions, the Berlin Declaration was accepted and it was decided that a leading committee on open access and institutional repositories would provide research institutions with necessary information. This committee will be formed with participants from the Turkish Librarians' Associations, Turkish Academic Network and Information Center. After the conference, a press release was distributed covering these decisions and the benefit of open access.
ANKOS OAIRWG plans to promote OA issues through conferences & workshops; create a OA website to provide guidance; create a blog, Acik Erisim Dunyasindan; prepare a brochure on OA: “Acik Erisimle Degisimi Yaratin!”; prepare a guide on establishing institutional repositories.
National and Institutional Level Policies/Mandates:
Turkish Council of Higher Education Thesis Archive
In I987 the Council began to collect all theses at postgraduate level and above which formed the basis of a Thesis Centre and in 2006, the theses were made available online.
The National Thesis Centre plays a key role for science and research circles, through activities such as carrying out bibliographic control of theses (postgraduate and above) in and providing rapid access to information by offering full texts online. The thesis archive includes around 250, 000 items from 131 universities and forms a major research resource in the country.
The National Interuniversity Open Archive system (MITOS)
Twenty (20) large universities are currently interested in this subject and 16 universities are at the stage of acquiring this automation system (a common search interface is available).
Details of Key Organizations:
The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK)
Overview: TÜBİTAK is the leading agency for management, funding and conduct of research in Turkey. It was established in 1963 with a mission to advance science and technology, conduct research and support Turkish researchers. The Council is an autonomous institution and is governed by a Scientific Board whose members are selected from prominent scholars from universities, industry and research institutions.
Communication address: TÜBİTAK Tunus Caddesi No:80 06100 Kavaklıdere / Ankara / Turkey; e-mail: www-adm(at)tubitak.gov.tr
The Anatolian University Libraries Consortium (ANKOS)
Overview: ANKOS is a consortium of 125 members representing all types of libraries in Turkey. An Open Access and the Institutional Repositories Working Group (OAIRWG) was established to raise awareness on Open Access (OA) in institutions and among information professionals in Turkey.
Communication address: ANKOS, Izmir Institute of Technology, ANKOS
Gulbahce Koyu, 35430 Izmir, Turkey; e-mail: baskan(at)ankos.gen.tr
Open Access and Institutional Repositories Working Group (OAIRWG)
Overview: The Board comprises ULAKBIM (Turkish Academic Network and Information Center); TKD (Turkish Library Association); ÜNAK (University and Research Library Association); ANKOS (The Anatolian University Libraries Consortium) and aims to raise OA awareness in the scientific community, develop poilcy and OA strategy in Turkey.
Communication address: OARWG c/o Gideon GÜRDAL, Izmir Institute of Technology, Urla TR-35430 Izmir, Turkey; e-mail: gultekingurdal(at)iyte.edu.tr
- Turkish National Scientific Research Council National Database Research: http://uvt.ulakbim.gov.tr/uvt
- Council of Higher Education National Thesis Center: http://tez2.yok.gov.tr
Past and Future OA Related Activities:
November 21, 2014: International Workshop on Research Data Management in Ankara, Turkey : An International Workshop on Research Data Management was organized by Hacettepe University and the The Goethe-Institut in Turkey to commemorate the 2014 Turkish-German Science Year in Ankara, Turkey. About 250 people mainly from research performing organizations attended.
The 3rd National Open Access Workshop was be held in Ankara, Turkey during the Open Access Week (October 21-22, 2014). The workshop was organized by Yaşar Tonta (Hacettepe University, Department of Information Management) and Gültekin Gürdal (Izmir Institute of Technology, Library) and was hosted by the Higher Education Council and about 400 people mainly from research performing organizations attended. Open access related projects, best practices and open access policies of research institutions were among the topics discussed during the workshop. Alma Swan and Eloy Rodrigues gave opening speeches and there was a presentation about PASTEUR4OA by Umut Al.
Turkey also hosted the 4th Annual Meeting of Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR), hosted by Ozyegin University, Istanbul between the dates of 6-8 May 2013.
The Congress of Informatics Technologies IV, Academic Informatic 2006 took place on February 9th - 11th at Pamukkale University in Denizli, Turkey. It was a very successful conference with variety of subject matters in seperate sessions from e-learning to open access. In the e-library sessions, the ones on open access and institutional respositories were organized around creating an awareness among information professionals about open access and its benefits. At the end of the e-library sessions, the Berlin Declaration was accepted and it was decided that a leading committee on open access and institutional respositories would provide research institutions with necessary information. This committee will be formed with participants from the Turkish Librarians' Associations, Turkish Academic Network and Information Center. After the conference, a press release was distributed covering these decisions and the benefit of open access.
ANKOS OAIRWG plans to promote OA issues through conferences & workshops; create a OA website to provide guidance; create a blog, Açık Eri_im Dünyasından; prepare a brochure on OA: “Açık Eri_imle De_i_imi Yaratın!”; prepare a guide on establishing institutional repositories.
List of Publications
Anglada, L and Abadal, E eds.(2010) Open Access in Southern European countries. FECYT, Madrid.
ANKOS Open Access and Institutional Repositories Study Group (2010) Open Access Report 2010: Turkey
Aydin, C (2007) Open Access activities in Turkey EBIB Open Access Conference 7-8 December 2007, Torun.
Karasözen B, Gürbüz-Holt, I and Coşkun, C (2006) ANKOS
Working Group “Open Acess and Institutional Repositories” Presented at
The Role of the Academic Libraries in the Preservation of Cultural
Heritage: Institutional Repositories, Thessaloniki, May 8-9, 2006
Tonta, Y (2008) Open Access and Institutional Repositories: The Turkish Landscape, 2008. In Turkish Libraries in Transition: New Opportunities and Challenges. Turkish Librarians' Association: 27-47.
Turkfidani, A, Moral, A and Gurdal, G (2010). “Open access in Turkey”. In: Open access in Southern European countries. Lluís Anglada, Ernest Abadal (eds). Madrid: FECYT, p. 117-128.
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