3.8 Let Us Sum Up
In this unit we introduced you to some of the related terms in the area of Openness, and we have not gone into depth, considering that you will pursue these separately. However, these are important aspects that many a times influences our decisions and action while serving our stakeholders. From the perspective of this module, it is clear that Open Access can take various forms, of which Open Access repositories and Open Access journals are the most widely implemented – in line with institutional strategies. For successful implementation proper planning needs to be done to guarantee sustainable services which in the end will have the required impact. A needs analysis will assist with identifying the unique needs of the research community within an institution, followed by a business plan. When implementing an Open Access service at an institution, open source software is recommended since it is synonym with Open Access - because of the shared principle of ‘openness’. The software platform – whether for an institutional repository or an open journal system – should address the needs of the users, and capacity needs to be built for the long term.