Open Access Initiative Macedonia

Open access (OA) is the free online availability of digital content. It is best-known and most feasible for peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly journal articles, which scholars publish without expectation of payment.

Even though most Macedonian academic institutions publish journals, most of them do so in print form – failing to use the advantages of the new technologies, with very limited distribution, and sometimes with the full text in Macedonian language only.

The main problem with access to the knowledge stored in the scholarly journals outside Macedonia is the price of the subscription. While the main problem within Macedonia is lack of institutional interest and incentive, leading to their general absence from view both of the scientific community and the general public, resulting in low level availability, especially in combination with the language barrier.

Promotion of open access within Macedonian scientific community will take place in two stages: awareness raising and implementation of tangible projects.

Awareness rising will encompass public events, such as lectures and workshops taking place within the academic institutions, aimed at the lecturers and the students. They will also be used for increased promotion of the concept to the general public, through publishing news about them, accompanied by opinion pieces, columns and explanatory articles.

These efforts will emphasize developmental, economic and educational benefits resulting from the practice of open access, as well as its usefulness as promotion tool for Macedonia as a brand, and the individual scholars, especially through publication of other forms of peer-reviewed scientific research, such as Master's and PhD theses, in addition to articles appearing in professional journals.

The second phase will be based on direct cooperation with academic institutions (faculties), who also act as publishers of local scientific journals in their respective fields. Metamorphosis will offer expertise, software, web hosting and other forms of aid to institutions willing to make websites for their journals, published in Macedonian and English. Those without capacity to digitalize and publish their content on the internet will be included in the creation of institutional repository which will enable collecting and preserving their intellectual output.