(6 Oct 2021) The new Global Open Access Portal (GOAP.info) presents access to a wide array of Open Access resources worldwide, through an advanced user interface design.
GOAP.info allows users to browse dynamic Open Access contents via both a text-based search and a map-enabled country search option. Building on an earlier version, the new Portal includes Open Access profiles of 166 countries and highlights existing key Open Access initiatives, mandates, events and publications.
Additionally, GOAP.info incorporates dynamic content sourced from publicly available information and provides workflows to facilitate the publishing of non-commercial journals. GOAP.info gathers important resources such as open journals, repositories, articles and FAQs for trending subject domains such as Covid-19, Big Data and Artificial Intelligence. Another feature included is the incorporation of Open Educational Resources on Open Access, which provides learning resources for researchers and librarians responsible for facilitating and benefiting from the use of Open Access resources.
UNESCO supports Member States in their quest to build inclusive knowledge societies by leveraging new technological innovations and supporting the principle of ‘Openness’ and ‘Inclusiveness’. The new version of GOAP.info will facilitate the advocacy for openness, sharing of contents, technologies and processes that generate information and knowledge. Although Open Access is mainstreaming in developmental discourses, there is a real need for a global repository that tracks Open Access development, presents best practices, enhances capacities as well as to maintain financial accountability and transparency.
GOAP.info is a collaborative effort of UNESCO, Redalyc, Indian Statistical Institute and AmeliCA. It was redeveloped under the guidance of a multi-stakeholder advisory committee. While Redalyc and AmeliCA curated the user interface and integrated a non-commercial open access publishing workflow in the portal, the Indian Statistical Institute developed the backend architecture and updated country-level information.
Released as a beta version, the portal will soon feature an observatory for open access policies and policy development resources. It will also provide linkages with the ROAD directory of ISSN and other similar resources on Open Access.
The press release in full can be found here.
